When I was 16 I bought a non-running 1967 Beetle. It had dropped a valve, and with some guidance from the husband of one of my mom's friends and a Chilton's manual, I got it running. It was so noisy until things got broken in that when I went to a drive-up window to order fast food, I had to shut it off so that they could hear me order! But it ran, and I had my own car - I was king of the world!
When I was about 18, I bought a 66 Bonneville. Still have it. I wanted to put better heads on the 389 - both for a bit of flow, and to lower the "muscle car" compression down to cheap gas. I bought a pair of 6x heads from a guy in Ontario, brought them back to PA, had them surfaced, and I installed them one afternoon. The next day I drove it to FL for spring break. I stopped a few times to get the valve adjustment just right, but it made the trip beautifully.
Oh wow, I just remembered my ACTUAL first big project. Trying to remember if I've shared this before.
I bought a 4cyl Monza with a rod knock from a friend for cheap the summer after HS. I was working at an oil change place and the owner was happy to let us wrench after hours. His opinion was that I should drop the pan, change rod bearings, and see what happens. MY opinion was that I should swap in a 305 and I somehow hooked up with someone who had crashed an original V8 Monza and kept all the parts needed for a swap.
Someone had a 305 in a Firebird he was replacing, so he drove it to the shop ("Lube It All") and we pulled his engine in the parking lot. He took his nice M/T valve covers but a mechanic next door sold me a pair for $10 that he must have pulled out of a landfill - when I tried to clean them up with a wire wheel, I started putting holes in them.
I spent the whole summer cobbling it together after hours. I actually took a few (illegal) drives with it. Upset the neighbors (long chat with a local cop about that one). Sold it at a loss at the end of the summer.
My first big project was in the mid 70's was converting a '66 Mustang with 200 cid in line 6 with a three speed and really bad 4 lug brakes to a built up V-8, 4 speed toploader, 5 lug brakes w/ rear end from a V-8.
Also added GT350 springs and shocks. Quite a learning experience. I assembled the engine, rebuilt the transmission, Holley 4 barrel, headers, Edelbrock hi-rise, 11:1 pistons, better cam.
1985. I pulled the 350 Olds diesel out of my 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix and replaced it with a 327 Chevy, TH400 trans and swapped the 10 bolt rear end for a 12 bolt with 3.xx gears and a Posi-Traction center section.
In reply to Motojunky :
Like minds! Built from the Spec II/Telefix catalog with all of their "go-fast" goodies. My first track bike.
This was my first big race car project.
While my fabricator made all the parts I was the one who assembled everything and set up the car.
It was incredibly fast (set a new lap record for the class) but it was a really expensive car to run.
This car needed a lot of TLC...in the days before Internet searches. Lots of Sunday newspaper classified detective work, junk yards and swap meets.
Purchased for $2200 missing most of the Shelby parts. Eventually sold it to fund down payment on our first house.
This is all cleaned up for sale (still wrong wheels but otherwise complete).
When I was around 11-12, I used $200 of my hard-earned paper route money to buy my first project vehicle: a janky, non-running go-kart. It looked sorta like a Manco kart like this one:
I really wish I had pics of the actual unit, but I don't. On the floor board, it had a giant decal of a cheetah's head with a Rambo knife in its mouth. It was the coolest decal I have ever seen to date, and I would totally like to put one on the hood of a small, red car. The engine was a 5hp Tecumseh painted red, white, and blue. My dad and I got it running and we would take it to a family friend's place where they had a huge, open parking lot behind his house. That poor Tecumseh saw hours of flat-out throttle until one day it decided to snap the rod in half. That made some interesting noises!
We immediately dragged it back to the friend's house, pulled the engine, and tore it down. That was the first time I had done that, and I was fascinated by the carnage. I was hooked.
Soon after, another friend of my dad's scored us a running, low hours 6hp Tecumseh Snow King off of a dead snowblower. We swapped it on and holy hell, did that kart FLY! That was my first-ever engine swap, but not my last!
I lost interest in the kart after getting a car a few years later, so I sold it. But man, it was fun, and I learned a lot from playing around with that thing.
I'd done a clutch in my '75 Nova and other mechanical work, but I felt like I was biting off plenty when I bought two BMW 2002s; one rusty but with a freshly rebuilt engine (by friend of a friend and his mechanical engineer dad) and one shell needing a drivetrain. Then when the engine was on the hoist we found it had an order of magnitude too much crank end play. 3/16"? Something like that? Off the chart. Anyhow, that snowballed into re-rebuilding the engine and then putting it in its new home. It made it quite some time before the terrible GSXR ITB on Megasquirt conversion I did later finally put so much carbon down there it stuck a ring rather badly, or so I assume. Maybe a valve guide seal went, but I think it's much more likely something I did than the valve guides and seals which were done by the local 2002 guru.
That engine is long gone, but the 2002 is now in the new shop, but about third in line or so for a thorough... everything. Fresh new nose waits in its box. M44 core sits in the shed, not sure whether that's the direction it's going.
Fourteen years old in early 60s on the farm in Iowa my friend's father bought him a 1928 Dodge coupe. The inline 6 had seen better days. We had access to his brother's collection of car magazines and his 49 Ford with a flathead V8. Decision was made to remove the 6 and install the flathead in the Dodge. Working under a large tree and using basic hand tools we removed the V8 and 6. Following similar swaps outlined in the magazines he found a 39 Ford transmission which bolted to the V8 and installed the assembly into the Dodge. Everything was going great until my friend, with a hacksaw in hand, decided he wanted to chop the top. Last time I saw the car it was sitting in a chicken coupe without a top. He decided on a career as a head hunter for upper management types.
When I was 17 another friend decided his 58 Chevrolet Belaire 2 dr hardtop needed a 409 cam in his 348. Working in his fathers small one car garage, we managed to install the cam only to find out on the road test we realized the engine also needed 409 valve springs. That job was done by a local garage. He decided on a career in insurance sales.
At 78 I still work on my cars and an occasional friend or neighbor project.
lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Motojunky :
Like minds! Built from the Spec II/Telefix catalog with all of their "go-fast" goodies. My first track bike.
I drooled over that catalog when I got my first RZ. I had them port a set of cylinders once and their work was comically bad.
Great looking RZ by the way. I sure wish I'd held on to one.
1983 - head gasket went bad on my Datsun A14 engine so I tore it apart not having the cash to pay a mechanic.
I taught my dad how to do this as he was apprehensive about taking the engine apart.
It was a success -
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
A-series engines are wonderful to work on. Everything is very intuitive.
I 've always thought one would be awesome with a modern engine management system.
In reply to Tom1200 :
They put those A engines in a bunch of fork lifts way past when Nissan was using them in cars - I'm surprised your suggestion never became a reality.
BTW my dad's Datsun 210 ate a head gasket 9 months prior and it cost him $350 to have his mechanic replace it. I was in college and didn't have a spare $350-$400 cash to fix it so I just jumped into the project.
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
The great thing about them is you can pull the head with the intake and exhaust still attached; just flop the head to the side. The whole assemble weighs around 35lbs.
This also saves a ton of money as the head gasket probably cost all of $12 back in the day.
Maybe removing all four coilovers from the AE92 and swapping out to a completely different spring setup. I haven't done any engine internal work, I don't have the gear, the tools, the space, or really the knowledge..."big jobs" tend to be the ones I take to the shop.
I bought a 1984 Fiero to make into an ITB race car. The only thing I didn't do was build the cage. I eventually got so good at dropping the engine cradle, I could have the engine out in 30 minutes. By removing the taillights, bumper cover, and crash bar and sticking tapered 2X6's in the frame rails, I could lift the car off the engine with a hoist and tow strap pretty easy. It handled beautifully, but that Iron Duke was a dog in stock form.
I sold the car to someone in Louisiana, who put a 350 in and tracked it. Last I heard, it was in Ohio, still being tracked, but that's been about ten years ago, at least.
I didn't own my first car until age 23. A year later, in 1995, I wanted out from under the payment because I wanted to return to college.
A much older church friend knew I liked cars. One day he approached me and asked if I'd like to buy a 1984 Fiero. He told me it had a hole in the radiator and a blown head gasket. I asked "How much?" and he replied "$250." I asked if I could fix it in his garage and he replied "Take all the time you need." About a month ago I found the handwritten bill of sale he made when I bought the car.
I had to buy everything: repair manuals (Haynes *and* Chiltons), tools, shop supplies, even a drop light and extension cord. I got the head off and had the sense to have it rebuilt at a machine shop, who found that it wasn't cracked, something for which Iron Dukes were famous if they overheated.
2.5 weeks after I bought it, I turned the key and it started. I only got nervous when I saw smoke coming from the exhaust, but it was just the new manifold-to-pipe gasket smoking off. I drove it home the next day.
The odometer on that car had stopped at 196,XXX miles before the prior owner bought it. My brother and I drove that car for several years thereafter. I even autocrossed it once or twice. I did so much work to that car, which was necessary because a broken Fiero is a Fiero in its natural state. I figure that between the two of us, we drove it at least 70,000 more miles.
I found Fiero.org shortly thereafter, a listserv-driven email list. I was active in the Fiero community for a long time and owned several copies of the car. I had to work on all of them. My favorite part of Fieroland was the annual swap meet at Ed Parks' Fiero Factory in Toney, AL. I attended the first one about five weeks after my wedding and I attended every single one until they were discontinued.
Today I don't own a running Fiero and I doubt I ever will again. My current rides are a Focus ST, an NC Miata, and a 2006 Z06. All are vastly superior to my Fieros. But there are days when I wish I could shut the door on a Fiero and hear the engine fire up behind my head. I loved them, and they taught me how to work on cars.
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