What did you do to your projects today?

More scrubbing on the zombie Civic.

Fairlane's been burning oil. Quite frustrating as I only have less than 500 miles on the rebuild.

PO had the engine rebuilt to stock spec's which included not having hardened valve guides installed. The plan was to pull the heads to machine out for hardened guides. Got that far and found the culprit. Wrong size valve umbrellas. Most of them were stuck to the top of the valve stem. Ordered new set from Alex's Parts.

I've heard that instead of an air compressor, there's another way to keep your valves up called "the rope trick". Anyone heard of it?

In reply to phaze1todd: Yes, you remove the spark plug and fill the cylinder with string to keep the valve from falling in. My dad did it that way when replacing valve seals.

It never held it totally up. He would hold the tip of the valve with pliers when reassembling it. But it did a good job of keeping the valve from falling.

Dont use Silly String!

Ford Racing GT-500 front LCAs don't have heat shield mounting tabs like factory GT units. Factory cats are located about an inch from the trailing bushing. Not going cat delete at this time so gonna need heat shields. Factory GT shields are built well, will re-use.

3/8" OD x 1/4" ID steel tubing and M6-1.00 bolts.

1/4" round CRS, MIG weld, add diagonal for good measure.

Cut off tabs w/ wafer disc. Locate on GT-500 LCAs, weld prep, tack, remove brace and finish weld.

Paint to match w/ Duplicolor gloss black ceramic engine enamel. Same fit as factory GT units. Driver side done.

Had a couple bucks in various M6 bolts from Lowes, scrounged the rest from the shop. Rained out today. Passenger side coming off tomorrow.

That looks pretty damn good.

Green is good.

Took the smashed windshield out of the race car and cleaned up the hole for the new one. As you can see by the race tech stickers... this one didn't last long. Three race weekends total to be exact. Class rules say no Lexan. Grrrrrrr.

test drilled some spot welds for the csl roof conversion http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/2002-bmw-e46-m3-trackcar-or-how-to-screw-up-a-decent-daily-driver/88751/page1/

Got the nieces truck up and running with a refreshed ignition system and rebuilt carb. Damn thing runs great. Next is clean out and reinstall gas tank. Gotta get some muriatic acid and an old 20 inch tire this week.

Installed a Wehr Machine fuel cell vent. Took all of about 10 seconds.

Washed the Bonneville so I could see out the windshield and drove it to the Grocery store. So far so good! Noticed i left the plastic shroud that goes behind the Crankshaft pulley and covers the crankshaft sensor in the garage next to my toolbox, car runs better without it and i shave an ounce or two of weight (literally) off the front end

Tried to take the MX6 to get smogged, drove it a bit on the highway and it was all fine, get to the smog station and as it's about to go on the rollers it's puking coolant from idling. Fans never came on. Pushed it aside, found some speaker wire and wired the fans to the battery and cooled it off. Drove it home and unplugged the coolant sensor so at least one fan runs all the time. Had the (new) starter checked too since I can't get it to start reliably. Starter checked out, main wire for dizzy was installed backwards and not staying plugged in, corrected that. Couple new hoses for the two that looked like they were leaking oil. Will try to smog again some other time.

New front swaybar endlinks on my IS300. Swapped out Area51 intake for stock intake. Rear bulb. Zip tied some underbody panels that are flapping and dragging, need to replace those soon.

Some JB weld and grinding to remove crumpled metal on the latest project (that I bought as a quick flip, so much for that)

The wife and I are refinishing a white oak veneered desk. It had shellac on it and gummed up the sand paper after about 10 seconds. Then we dumped a bunch of alcohol on it and wiped off 95% of the shellac. Sanding still sucks because of the last 5% still gums up... but at least we are making progress.

Then the wife took a nap and I used some Watco Rejuvenating Oil on an old 'tombstone' style radio from the '30s. I'm in the process of putting a stereo 2A3 tube amp inside it, while ditching the radio and speaker parts. Basically I'm using the cool wooden box and the steel chassis to have something that looks good compared to the last couple of amps that I've made that look like a square plate with tubes on it sitting on a wooden base.

After the oil:

I'm going to have to learn how to do some veneer...

In reply to RossD:

Very, very cool.

Oil change in the H2, Continued diagnosis for the no fuel and no spark on the 924s (been dead since July 4th) Picked up yet another new to me car. A 1998 Toyota Corolla 4 door auto with 80k in really nice shape just needs a good scrubbing inside and out. Don't know what I am going to do with it at the moment but the price was great (free)and I can not resist a free car. It is a sickness I think. It will probably become my DD commuter for a while if I can get the "funk" smell out of it.

Removed both wheels and then waited for UPS to deliver the new tires that have been "Out for delivery" since 6:54 this morning.

Still waiting...

Been sorting out FrankenFiat over the last little while:

-Got the Oil pressure gauge and speedometer working -Checked major assemblies for tightness (found that I need new kingpins, and the steering rack's got way too much slop) -Clean-and-wax -Replaced the fuel pump (New Walbro rocks!) -Put in a taller windshield so that flying objects will only split the top of my skull, and not by face Fastened in with Stainless fasteners.

Before:

After:

Love this car!

Stripped the dash in the elky. Scheduled delivery of the 54 ford.looked at the 50's vintage craftsman table saw that was unexpectedly delivered last night.

Finally finished fixing the A/C in the diesel Suburban. Just in time for summer to end, I'm sure.

Fought with the carb swap some more. Decided to say berkeley it and go back to the shiity edelbrock carb. Im going efi with a quickness once i find an obd1 gm tuner in the Charlotte area.

I managed to get the Sportster's new front tire mounted on the rim and balanced, but it was pretty clear that there wasn't going to be a good way to mount the rear wheel onto the Harbor Freight tire stand. So I threw the wheel and new tire in the back of the truck and drove it up to the only independent motorcycle shop in the area. Which is closed on Tuesdays...

I removed a tree from the evaporator box in the Suburban. I think I know why it wasn't draining properly.

Removed the third brake light from the V. The transformer for the neon light was rusted. Ordering some red neon strips.

Dash in the elky, as well as the rezt of the interior painted. Tach mocked up in cluster. Discovered new table saw frips breakers. Moved go kart project to shed. Started cleaning up the shop.

I got the front wheel and new tire back on the bike today, but I'm still waiting for the shop to mount the rear tire. Apparently, "ready by 5pm" means "call us tomorrow around noon"...