I’m still a big fan of the 2003 BMW 530i I purchased off a member for a whopping $3,000. I’ve named it (Clive), so I guess I’m keeping it. Our pals at FCP Euro have even offered to let me come by, look it over with one of their E39 experts, and work on it in their extremely nice shop. What have I done, instead? Driven it, topped it off with oil, let it sit.
We’re busy around here. Probably too busy. A startup + a kid + life in general means it mostly gets driven around town on errands when the other car isn’t available or when I just feel like driving it. The A/C stopped working shortly after it came into my care, but I think it’s just the Blower Motor Resistor so that’s an easy fix (it should arrive any day now).
I only have two parking spots near my apartment and neither of them provide access to an outlet, which means I have no way to use my battery tender. Knowing this, I recently replaced the battery in Clive with a brand new one, assuming I can let it set for a week or two and not have to worry about it starting. Oops. Between Pebble Beach and ::gestures at the world:: I let it sit for more than two weeks. Here’s what happened.
First, I got into Clive and he didn’t start. This wasn’t a surprise. I then attached my battery jumper and, again, he died. No big deal. I just had to drag my battery to an AutoZone for a quick charge. Upon returning to the E39 I realized one of the well-worn tires was flat. Not a big deal. I have a compressor in my Subaru and I filled up the tire and it seemed to hold air.
The next day I picked up my daughter for school and, whilst driving home, noticed a certain fall like aroma. When I got to my parking spot I immediately opened the hood to see what I initially thought was just a bunch of leaves up there and quickly realized, given all the sticks, was a freaking squirrel’s nest. It was, like, not even parked for three weeks! How long does it take a squirrel to build a nest?
I don’t have a picture of this because I was too busy trying to get the leaves and shit out before the nest caught on fire. So, anyway, lesson learned.
In your life, how do you care for your project cars? How long do you let them sit? How bad should I feel?
I got a Buell XB9R basket-case a little over a year ago, and still haven’t even ordered the parts I need to get the motor back into the frame. The seller was sitting on a bunch of parts but I gave up trying to buy more from him.
Gotta get the work done in between busy day job, honey-do projects and “it’s too nice out to sit and wrench” weather.
Squirrel nest? 1 day. Better off remove the battery from non daily cars, keep in an apartment on trickle until needed. Or better if the same battery fits swap them out. No better theft deterent than no battery.
How’s your Fiat coming (I could be mistaken but I seem to recall you picked one up a little while back)?
Yeah but haven’t done much. Redoing the house but come winter I can only do garage work.
TBH I am doing this differently. I got so much crap I have decided to clean and sell stuff I already own to finance the project. So far flue pipe I bought for $80 to heat my garage. After learning I will lose insurance sold for $380. My business I had 2 manliness bought for $425 each used them abused them fixing an selling 2 for $400. So $700 for costs. But I have Vehicross parts good for money. It is just fun to finance a project with stuff. I might write about it but probably not good enough for autopian because I seem to have passed on members from a prior club.
Cool and totally agree – getting rid of clutter is a good way to focus on what you really want to accomplish. And restoring a 124 is a good thing to accomplish.
I try not to go longer that a couple of months with touching a project. I do have multiple project though.
I’m not longer much of a wrencher on cars, not big projects at least. But I do work on my bicycles and after a year plus of only having two cars to fit in a 3 car garage, things kinda spread out. But we’ve added a car to the fleet which means it’s time to re-organize. Mostly means making sure there’s a place for everything to be properly put away.
I work on mine every day, even if only for an hour or so…..
Does it count as a ‘barn/garage find’ if it’s in your own garage? After sitting in the garage for a six-year slumber I finally dug out and revived my old Saab 9000, finally getting around to a gearbox swap that I’d not been able to get to in all those years parked (okay, it got uncovered once — I threw a battery in and started it, let it warm up and idle for a half-hour, then covered it back up and piled more crap on it for a few more years).
The project took on some actual urgency because I wanted a working Saab to drive to the national owners’ meet this year. So, like most last-minute projects, it turned out to be a week-long thrash, finishing the car, pulling the car out of the garage for the first time in six years an hour before I hit the interstate to Chicago, on a Friday afternoon. In that week, the gearbox was swapped, fluids changed, fresher tires mounted and installed, current registration tabs stuck on the plate, etc., and off we went.
The car ran and drove well, making it to within ten minutes of the venue before the ignition module died, leaving me stranded just off I-88 in the western Chicago ‘burbs. Called some buddies who were at the convention venue and asked them to ask around and borrow an ignition module off someone’s parked Saab 900, so I could at least get there and try to find somebody’s spare in person.
After an hour, they were successful in the hunt and ran the borrowed module out to me. I swapped in the module in seconds, and I was back in business. The 9000 made it to the meet, and I was eventually able to get someone’s spare module. The trip back home that weekend was uneventful, and I now have two spare ignition modules in the glovebox along with a spare/fresh alternator voltage regulator/brushes, among other spare bits…
Amazing. This is a good reminder to pull a spare ignition cassette next time at the junkyard.
I’m curious, what’s the vibe of these owner meetups? I finally succumbed to Saab fever this year.
Welcome to the cult…. 😉
Unless a used DI cassette for a 9-5 is either fairly fresh (like less than 10 y/o) or close-to-free cheap, you’re better off buying a new OE cassette. Prices have come down, and you’ll be happier this way versus cycling through a pile of semi-bad cassettes (rarely do the genuine black ones completely fail/leave you stranded, but non-Saab cassettes WILL strand you). Buy the new OE cassette, put the old one in the trunk as a spare. BTDT.
I’m now in the middle of refurbing/recommissioning my ’01 9-5 Aero. I bought it new, drove it a decade/300+k miles, sold it, bought it back two years ago.
National Saab club meets are good! Great people, excellent variety of cars from two-strokes to 9-4X, very chill and friendly crowd. Next one’s in the Portland, OR area next July.
I can hook you up with a company that will sell you 10 cassettes for a penny if you promise to buy 4 more within a year at regular price. Hey 70s car reminds me of 70s ads.
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What a great story! And congratulations on getting it into the working fleet!
My mother had a friend whose husband has been working on a Chevelle since at least 1984. That’s why I don’t feel so bad about my Fiero, which has only been sitting 15 years.
The longest it’s taken me to complete a project (thus far) is the ten years between buying a new distributor for my Delta 88 and finally installing it, followed by six years for headlights on that same 88.
I don’t let them sit. This isn’t because I’m a 10mm-wrench-wielding saint or because I’m incredibly dilligent, but because having a non-operative car leaves me stressed 24/7. I literally have a hard time thinking straight if a car isn’t running, because then all I can think about is getting it running.
My NA Miata project barfed out its water pump gasket 4 months after I bought it, so I immediately dragged it up to my garage-having friend’s place and did the water pump and timing belt. That momentum essentially carried me through two years of wrenching on that car, and now it’s not a project anymore; it’s just a reasonably well-sorted Miata. Which y’all should come flog through the Rocky Mountains during a Denver-area members meetup
Similar situation with my Saab 9-5 purchase this April. I really thought it was a reasonably well-running, if slightly ragged, car that I could rehabilitate at my leisure. Turns out it had gross vacuum leaks causing pretty severe knock under load, in addition to several other “no, this really does need immediate attention” issues that a friendly local Saab specialist tracked down over the course of a two-hour inspection. Bear in mind, I’m a full-time grad student with a 20-hour-per-week side job and this was late spring, with finals and project deadlines for grad school compounded with travel commitments. Didn’t matter. A chronically-available friend came over for three consecutive full weekends and we wrenched all the critical problems way. It trashed my sleep schedule, but it was worthwhile for the clarity of mind that getting that car running right provided.
If you keep your project cars at least running and driving, you get to utilize my second life hack: pawning them off on friends and pretending you’re doing them a favor. Oh, you suddenly got a job 30 miles away and don’t own a car? Here, a quarter-million-mile Saab will get you there in style (“slightly decrepit” is still a style). Oh, you want to learn stick because you booked a cheap rental car in Guatemala in two months? How’d you like to learn on a fun little roadster (with an oil-soaked clutch disk).
You, sir, are a saint, both to your cars and your friends.
Dawwww you’re a peach.
The Saab is currently on long-term loan to this same friend who got a job 30 miles away. For context, he’s from western India (hence no car while he’s getting his degree here in the states). I handed him the keys to the car on a particularly sweaty day at the start of August and very apologetically told him that I hadn’t yet sorted out the HVAC, so no heat or air conditioning.
I ask him a week later if he’s had any issues with the car. “Well it’s a five speed manual and very hot inside, so I just love that it reminds me of driving back home.” He’s since made a weekly ritual of refusing my offer to give him a car with working HVAC.
Hey you may have ADHD. If so and near PA I have a car I have not worked on in weeks. If that keeps you up contact me i will let you work on it for free. 1978 Fiat 124.
Almost certainly undiagnosed moderate OCD. But hey, if I fixate on the right problem, it improves productivity!
Lol if the Fiat comes with a title and I get to drive it 1500 miles back to home when I’m done wrenching, you have a deal 🙂
Well if you pay what it costs sure. I got antsy for a project
Time is my enemy at this point, my Tiburon has been sitting since last year basically untouched except for moving it into the garage.
In my case it’s the boat that’s been sitting. 3rd summer in a row it’ll not have seen water. I rebuilt the carb and got it running this spring, then lost interest when the lake level fell so far the water no longer reaches my dock. Gotta love the Texas drought. I rebuilt the water pump, and may try to get it back on and tested later this month. If the rebuild didn’t fix it I’ll have to replace it. Though I have to say you simply cannot beat the access afforded by a mid-mounted 351 ford engine.
Oh, gosh. “My car is sitting” is usually due to financial reasons. 🙁
The 411 sat and sat and sat because it was kind of a hopeless case. It was in a sad corner of Harris Hill and I just didn’t have the extra cash or time to work on it and get the 944 race-worthy at the same time. There’s a reason I put my foot down and asked to move off of motorsports coverage—MY race cars were sitting, dammit. I was stumped on the engine woes for the longest time, and didn’t have everything together to rebuild a couple carbs and try converting the mystery bus 1.7L engine to a better fueling situation. It ran like crap in its last race, and that was after replacing the melted pistons.
Enough was enough in 2020, though—I got offered a 1.8L engine from a 914 (free, just figure out the shipping!), took the car to a friend’s house who lives in town so I couldn’t ignore it any longer, and got to work. It mostly works now. Mostly. It still has a single garbage carb that fouls plugs, and needs some extra bits we’re thrashing together for the Llano Gambler 500 in a couple weeks. I get to **make bushings,** yaaaay. We’ll just keep some extra plugs on hand and hope for the best since this Gambler isn’t at a much higher elevation, haha.
The 944 blew its head gasket and ruined its clutch with a rear main seal leak at its last race in November 2019 and sat for a couple of years because I was unemployed. Then I was digging myself out of the financial hole from being unemployed, and trying to get the 411 driveable for a Lemons Rally/Gambler 500 combo on a -$2 budget first. Fortunately, I bought most of the engine and clutch bits before I got laid off last year, so it was mostly just a matter of putting everything back together. I think it might have to sit for longer, though—the starter smokes, crackles and doesn’t actually start the car now, and that’s a more expensive piece than I can justify right now if it’s bad.
We’ll have to look at it after I get the 411 fixed. I really, really try to keep both project cars mobile, at the very least. I have a silly Parshtreon (Patreon, but for the parsh) for anyone who wants to chip in on my race car fund, but that’s kind of it for now and I desperately need to update it with the time I installed the clutch fork backwards and had to reinstall the whole back half of the drivetrain. (Oops.)
It’s time to gamble the 411, though, possibly with a detour to join up with a PCA drive in the area. ABG, viva la Nasenbär.
I let the 1972 Fiat 500 sit for 3 years. I just started rebuilding the head by making jigs to remove the valves.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/uxCmpmTu1V2SCqTK9
Years ago I bought a Honda Spree scooter off the side of the road for almost nothing. It started and ran poorly right away. In the first year or so I lined the leaking gas tank so no more leak. Replaced the tires, cleaned the carb and exhaust etc. The original vacuum petcock didn’t work properly so I replaced it with a manual on off one. However I think something is messed up with it so while it’ll idle just fine it seems to be starved of fuel and cuts out when I open the throttle. I really should take it apart and see if something is blocking it up. But the tank is full and I can see how much of a mess I’ll make doing anything about it so nothing happens. Its basically been sitting since I moved in early 2019. I keep thinking I’ll get to it but I don’t. Plan this winter is to get it running decently and sell it in the spring.
Someone here told a story the other day about a guy who fixed Honda 2T scooters that ran like this by pulling off the muffler and cleaning large chunks of carbon out of the exhaust port.
The common way is to throw it on the BBQ and burn it all off. I scraped what I could see off and it wasn’t bad but maybe I’ll try the cook and hope method and see if that helps.
16 months. I bought back my ’74 Buick Apollo from the interim owner in May of ’22. It was a complete running driving car when I sold it in 2015, but the guy I sold it to decided to fix the couple of little spots of rust it had. Project scope creep and paint jail got the best of him, and it sat for years disassembled in primer. Just this past weekend I finally dug in on it and got the engine started. After priming the carb with 2-stroke premix, she fired right up and idled nicely. The engine is exactly the sweetheart I remembered. I have a wrenching party scheduled for the last weekend of this month to start hanging the body panels back onto the car.
I cannot afford a paint job, so my plan is to use Eastwood’s roll-on sealer and then get it wrapped. It will also need new springs and bushings, as they were shot the first time I bought it in 2007. It also still has the same BFG Radial TA’s on it from the entire time I owned it. I haven’t checked their date code, but I bet they’re 20 years old, so they’ve gotta go.
You did get it started! Excellent!
Oh yeah! It didn’t fight me much either. It just needed a new battery and battery cable ends.
I don’t have a project car but rather one that need attention at 25 years old. Generally I am a fix it at the time found so it don’t blow up into 20 problems’.
This. I want to enjoy the car, not curse it as it sits there.
15+ years ago I committed to never having a, “project car” as in the vehicle that never works, never works right, unsafe, etc. I went the other way — it is to be mechanically perfect at all times. If it can’t be, I then need to seriously question my ability to commit to something — because clearly I can’t.
Result? Car always works little different from new. Turns out.
I’m selling my Jeep before it turns into this. I thought I’d have time and energy with a new bigger garage, but there are too many garage projects that need to get done before the Jeep work could even begin. It’ll be useless by the time I get around to it, so off it goes, hopefully this weekend I’ll get it listed.
I ran into… Strike that. I *caused* what must be a fairly common phenomenon:
This was (is) related to a motorcycle, rather than a car, but I think it applies.
As she slumbered for a couple decades, the internals of the unobtanium-alloy rear master cylinder quietly corroded themselves into a single piece. After years of searching I did find some replacement parts, so they’re not 100% pure unobtanium – just very close.
Now the challenge is to get the shop rearranged in such a way that this particular bike can be the focus over the winter. Fingers crossed, etc.
This speaks to me so much, as I was in the same boat with my old Buell. I bought a new bike, planned on turning the existing one into a sorta cafe racer, and then, well, spent too much time riding the new one instead of working on the old one. Sigh, but I’m heartened by your story/optimism.
Thank you, Jack – I appreciate that. 🙂
All I ask is…keep us updated – I need the motivation!
Roger that – will see what I can do 🙂
I bought a bike that had sat for five years, spent a few months working on it, got a man who builds race engines to to a few jobs I didn’t have the time/tools/skills for.
Meanwhile my other bike sat unloved and unridden, and now doesn’t start. So it’s become a project that I have to fix so I can sell it for a tiny amount of money. Zero incentive to get it fixed as it’s really pretty just sat in the corner. It’s a horrible way to treat what was my dream bike, and that I’ve had for 19 years.
There are some bikes – mostly Italian ones from the 1960s – that I would be happy to own just to put them on a plinth in the home office.
I would not be able to ride a 100cc antique in any meaningful way, but I could admire the hell out of it – especially a survivor with patina.
May I ask what your corner-sitter is?
It’s a ‘97 Kawasaki ZX7R. Lime green and purple. I’ve got a thing for 90’s race reps. The “new” bike is a ‘94 Honda RVF400.
My brother-in-law has a ZXR400 sat in his garage that hasn’t started in ten years. The more it sits the more I want it.
I’ve got a friend who flips through classic Triumphs, Ducatis and stuff, he always has one in his house next to the TV for when there’s nothing worth watching.
The ZX7R is a looker, for sure. I can understand why you’ve kept it.
I like the 400-class bikes. We didn’t get many of them in the US: there is no tiered licensing process here, so people generally go directly to the 500s and 600s.
My current record is 34 years from the acquisition of a car as a disassembled project to the relinquishment of that same car still as a disassembled project. Don’t look to me as a role model, or at least not as a positive role model.
I’m so worried about squirrels. There are like 10 around my area. However, my car never really sits for more than a couple days.
I’m working through my backlog on other cars before I get to work pulling an engine to replace a flywheel ring gear. Transmission won’t come out without pulling the engine (this was fixed in 1933), and the flywheel won’t come out without dropping the oil pan. But before that I have a fuel level sender to fix and a fuel leak in a Camaro to fix. And carbs and forks to rebuild on the CB750. That’s assuming nothing else breaks on the fleet before those are done, which isn’t likely when the fleet’s minimum age is 20 years.
I’ve let issues sit up to two years before crunch time and having to fix them to move the cars in a month or so. Except a boat, it sat 10 years, but started up miraculously after that.
I bought my 62 continental in Jan 08 I started working on it immediately….then it languished around till Oct 2011…then built the whole thing to a running driving car in two months…been driving it since all while continuing to work on it.
This hits me on so many levels. In fact, it was something that had been on my mind recently, and I was considering pitching the story to you all. I let me project car sit for basically ten years from the time it parked until the time it was moving under its own power again. Many lessons were learned. So many lessons.
When I first got the MG, I bought a whole bunch of new parts for it, including a tailshaft seal for the transmission. That was seven years ago. The transmission still leaks, and the seal is still in its box. Done lots of other repairs, but not that one yet. Ditto the Delco alternator swap, the wiper motor on the truck, the cabin air filter on the Chrysler…
So it’s not that I let the cars sit; I just procrastinate on certain repairs.
Horrible, you should feel horrible. BMW’s need constant care and thought in order to stay running. These are NOT 1994 Toyota Pickups you can leave alone for months at a time. Remember, Cinderella changes back at midnight, but Shrek never will.
And you need to check the blinker fluid to confuse other BMW drivers.
I rented a 5 series and made sure to use the blinkers to cause mass confusion. Mission accomplished, achievement unlocked.
Ok, I will never forget.
To resume progress on my electric Triumph GT6, I need the workspace. There is a 1-car garage where I am staying to keep it from the elements, but many of my tools are stored there as well as the owner of the garage’s belongings, so everytime I get a chance to work on it, I need to have a good 6+ hours of uninterrupted free time in good weather, in order to accommodate the multiple hours needed to move in and out all the other stuff and roll the car outside onto the driveway to get work done.
Once I get my own property, I’ll have a space to work on it. It runs and drives, but I need to do a lot to it to make it into a daily. Lots of upgrades are planned.