New parts can stick out like a sore thumb in an. . . aging. . . engine compartment. Those shiny new parts might restore the function but sometimes ruin the look. Want the best of both worlds? Here are a couple tips to make new parts blend in without losing the function.

Of course, these tips are highly dependent on the goals of your project. Not everything deserves or needs restoration. In fact, the desire to keep things looking well-worn or authentic to the rest of the car can keep the whole operation from looking half-finished and more like a survivor. No one needs to know that survivor has had a heart transplant.

Don’t use new parts at all

Known good used parts can sometimes be found cheaper through a junkyard, eBay, or other resellers than new parts. If the right look matters it could be worth going through the effort of gutting a new alternator and putting all the important bits in the “seasoned” housing, yielding restored function without the look of restored parts. Win/win.

Flat clear or paint match

For items like suspension and steering, there isn’t the option to only use the good bits to make the part right again. Since almost everything new comes slathered in gloss black paint it is easy to make them blend in a bit by simply knocking the gloss off by spraying a flat clear coat over the new shiny parts. This will instantly put a bit of age on without removing any of the corrosion protection of the factory paint.

If you want to get even fancier, lay down a coat of matching paint. Most automotive paint stores can mix a custom color into an aerosol can. Take in the old part, have them mix up some paint, and before you know it that new piece will disappear—but in a good way.

Careful cleaning

One of the things that gives away where I have been and haven’t been is the clearly defined line of where I stopped cleaning. A spotless section of the car right next to 50 years of built-up road grime sticks out like a sore thumb. By cleaning only the absolutely necessary bits and areas to ensure safe and proper function it will create a less obvious fingerprint as to where repairs happened.

“Curated wear”

Call it fake patina if you want. A few carefully placed scratches, dents, or smears of oil can go a long way in transforming something brand new off the shelf and camouflaging it into the larger picture. Some Scotchbrite, steel wool, or sandpaper can take the paint off an area to match an old piece that has lost its paint after years of wear. Alternatively, a little bit of polish to brighten one spot on a dull part can accomplish a similar result. Is it slightly disingenuous? Sure. This technique can also look quite tacky if done poorly, but when done well, this is a real option for keeping the right feel to your vintage ride while also keeping it in top running condition.

Reuse hardware

Even if the part is new, the bolts and nuts don’t have to be. Shiny new hardware is a dead giveaway of where a mechanic has been to those who know where to look. Shiny new grade-5 bolt heads from the local hardware store will stick out immediately. If your old hardware can be cleaned up and reused it will hide most repairs far better. Focus on the thread with a wire wheel or thread chaser to ensure the hardware works like it should but leave the head alone for maximum sneaky factor.

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Buying tools is an addiction to some. The seemingly endless utility of these objects designed to enhance our lives and abilities can be intoxicating. Hence why even when we don’t need them, new (and new to us) tools find their way into passenger seats, truck beds, and backpacks as the artfully organized cache in my workspace grows and grows. I could probably just name my toolbox Audrey II, though my garage is only occasionally full of horrors, and the ‘box feeds on tool steel and carbide rather than human flesh.

My toolbox is not overflowing, but that only speaks to my self-restraint and judicious control over how often the solution to a problem is using the credit card versus my brain. We all want to own one of every tool. They are just fascinating. But even with one of everything, we would likely still want more. Some jobs simply require duplicates. Or at least I have convinced myself that occasionally having two of the exact same tool is the solution to my problems. Whether the logic makes sense or not, here are seven tools that I must have two of inside my shop:

Vice grips/clamps

Despite years of trying and a few consultations with my doctor, I have yet to grow a third hand. Something about evolution taking millions of generations just really puts a damper on me getting the extra holding power I could use most days.

Luckily, not only does a solution exist, but it’s affordable and easy to store. Years ago I resigned that anything that is locking or clamping should be purchased in pairs. This realization followed a discussion with a fabricator friend who hammered into me that it is impossible to have too many clamps. He was right.

Screwdrivers

To be clear, I’m dialing in the discussion of duplicates to exact duplicates. Two of the same tool. My drawer full of screwdrivers is surprisingly full when you consider there are relatively few popular styles and a minimal number of usable lengths.

Maybe it’s my use, but I always fear damaging a screwdriver tip just as much as damaging the hardware. A damaged screwdriver stalls a project as once the head is stripped the options for removal get destructive quickly. A spare screwdriver is a security blanket I shouldn’t need, but won’t wrench without.

10mm

You thought I wouldn’t include a 10mm joke? Impossible. A lot of my projects these days were built in countries that believe in base 10 measurement systems. If you have a more American bent to your tooling needs this might be the 1/2″. Regardless, not having a 10mm socket or wrench could easily stop a few of my projects in their tracks, thus duplicates make sense.

Extensions

The easiest to justify on this list might be the extensions for a socket set. Stack them on each other to reach the depths of the engine bay that was previously reserved for engine-out services. It’s also convenient to have multiple to so I’m not constantly disassembling my tooling mid-job.

Wire brushes and cleaning supplies

Cleaning parts is one of the tasks that I do not seek out and only after some time have I figure out that any tiny roadblock in the process will flip the switch in my brain that says “not worth it. Just reinstall the part as is. It’ll be fine.”

But I want to do higher quality work than that, so having a surplus of cleaning supplies and materials has helped eliminate the feeling that cleaning things has a barrier that must be met. I keep these brushes and supplies around to not only remove the perceived barrier but ensure that it does not return unexpectedly.

Flashlights

Having worked on cars in situations ranging from ideal to downright dangerous, I’ll say one thing I have never heard is, “Wow, it’s too bright. I can see everything I need and it’s frustrating.” No, more light is often a cure for frustrations while working on cars. Small LED flashlights have gotten downright cheap, so a few in various sizes, shapes, brightness, and magnetism are just downright handy. It’s a struggle to work on something you can’t see, so light up your project.

Drill bits

They break and dull, and when you need one there is pretty much nothing else that will do the job. Drill bits are wildly affordable for the function they serve and having a duplicate set, or even just a few of the most commonly used sizes in your shop, allows a certain peace of mind that your projects will move forward even if an unfortunate happenstance breaks a bit. Good setups and usage will make drill bits last a very long time, but it’s not if things go sideways, it’s when. Preparation for that takes a lot of frustration out of your projects.

This is just the list for my shop and, of course, every shop is unique. I typically only have one major project apart or being worked on at a time and the tools go back into the box after each working session. In a larger shop or for someone with many projects running it might make sense to duplicate common tools just so things don’t get lost in the shuffle. What tools do you have to have duplicates of in your toolbox?

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There are seemingly endless secrets in land-speed racing, which makes sense considering we have been running cars as fast as possible in a straight line for over a century. Beyond the obvious wisdom about adjusting for the environment (temperature, air pressure, race surface) and minimizing aerodynamic drag, there seems to be a very deep well of knowledge filled with solutions to other problems unique to land-speed racing. Case in point is the video below, which dropped into my feed a few days ago.

Sometimes the YouTube algorithm is terrifying. It knows me better than I know myself, and I see the proof when it serves up a video with just a few thousand views from a channel that has only posted that single video. I won’t pretend I haven’t wasted a lot of time-consuming piles of content on the internet, but low-view videos aren’t typically what draw me. But the thumbnail image of a massive chunk of billet aluminum with the text “555mph” sang a siren song. I clicked, expecting the video to be clickbait.

It wasn’t.

The video was posted by Traction Products, a business started in 1963 by Peter and Albert Weismann to engineer and produce solutions for high-performance drivetrains. One such problem is the transaxle for a car that is about to attempt a land-speed record. That component is exactly what is discussed here, from the mechanical sequential shifter to the extremely narrow axles to the fascinating reason Traction Products chose not to use a ring-and-pinion setup to turn the power 90 degrees.

The common solutions for multiplying torque and transferring power work really well up to a point, and that point is well under the sort of output and top speeds that this team is working with: 500 mph and thousands, not hundreds, of horsepower. No, that wasn’t a typo: It takes big power to get a vehicle most of the way to Mach 1 on the ground. Multiplying that power through a dozen gears that can be power-shifted is an interesting solution in itself, but even more interesting is that the gearbox serves as the mount for the steering rack, which does not transfer power ring-and-pinion style to the axles.

A ring and pinion setup creates a lot of force and, as I learned from this video, that force is transferred to the chassis of the land-speed race car. That means the car would be fighting itself just as much as the conditions of the race course. So the Weismann transaxle uses a bevel drive to turn the thousands of horsepower, a decision that keeps the twisting force inside the billet case of the transaxle. Voilà: the chassis works like it should rather than fighting itself.

There are all kinds of problems in racing, yet few people get to chase solutions with the mad scientist minds that Traction Products does. It’s fascinating to see a company share its ideas and experiences so freely and we can only hope for more videos and stories from this shop in the future.

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I often think about the bare minimum number of tools required to do a job. Not the ideal tools. Maybe it comes from watching Saturday morning TV shows, where everything took 10 minutes and fit together flawlessly. Watching those projects take shape encouraged me to pick up tools and try my own. But what do you need to just get started? 

If we waited until we had a full toolbox to dive in, none of us would ever get anything done. We’d just be sitting around staring at tools. Instead, let’s take a look at the tools that compose the minimum kit required to safely and successfully tackle a project on a daily driver—or at least allow you to do most of a job and then rent or borrow any specialty tools needed for to complete specific tasks. These don’t need to be fancy tools; in fact, this might be a list of items that are best purchased at garage sales, flea markets, or secondhand stores.

Jack and Stands

Sure, there are a lot of projects that do not require lifting a vehicle, but sooner or later you’ll need to do it. I’ve done oil changes by putting the front wheels on a curb to get enough clearance to roll under and access the drain plug and oil filter, but that practice doesn’t work in all situations. A jack and stands do. These are the right tools for every job that requires lifting a vehicle. That’s why they are something to get early in your wrenching journey.

Screwdrivers

Applied properly, screwdrivers have thousands of uses. We would never tell you to use them improperly, of course, but in a pinch a screwdriver can be used for all sorts of stuff that might very well render them one-time-only tools that, for better or for worse, will get the job done. Screwdrivers also can last a very long time if well taken care of, so adding these to your toolkit early will make for a solid base that rarely needs replacing, which leaves you with funds to buy more specialty tools to grow your kit—or you might just get through a handful of jobs without buying anymore tools at all. That’s a great feeling.

Socket Set

There is a reason every “mechanics toolset” sold in parts stores or home centers has sockets and ratchets as its main component. Ratchets and sockets are a highly efficient method of removing hardware without damaging it. A basic kit is enough to get started, and you can easily add bigger or longer pieces as needed.

Hammer

You thought I wouldn’t include the hammer? It’s an inarguable necessity. Judicious use will make for a better wrenching experience, but when force is required, a mass at the end of a stick is just the right tool for the job.

Multimeter

“If you can’t fix it with a hammer it’s an electrical problem” is a good joke, because occasionally it’s based in fact. Electrical issues are more common than ever as cars feature more and more sensors and connections. To be a mechanic and not a parts replacer requires diagnostic tools, and diagnosing electrical issues is difficult to do consistently with only your eyes and hands. A good multimeter—and understanding how to read it—is vital.

Drain Pan

Want to do an oil change? You’ll need to catch the used oil somehow. Even a makeshift catch pan is good idea, but many of the drain pans designed for automotive projects are affordable and have features that seem trivial, until you are without them: A pour spout makes emptying the pan easier, and the ability to seal the fluids inside for transport is helpful, too. An open container of used oil is just waiting to be knocked over. Or it’s a magnet for tools or parts or worse, a spark. A good drain pan makes jobs cleaner and safer.

Penetrating Oil

Cars are built from a couple dozen different materials and the vast majority of them are susceptible to corrosion. Penetrating oil helps limit the need for big tools like impact drivers. Is an aerosol can technically a tool? Maybe not, but a good can of penetrating oil should be something you reach for before grabbing tools, so we are going to say it’s a critical part of the toolkit. Besides, if you’re limited on tools, you want to be able to stack the deck in your favor, and that means trying to break fasteners loose using science rather than force.

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Adding tools to a home shop is a never ending affair. There are staples though and a drill press is one of them. It’s handy for a whole host of reasons other than just being more convenient to use for drilling compared to a hand drill, and if you follow these five tips you will find that you might use your drill press even more.

Not just for making holes

Jacobs chucks and the spindle bearings in a drill press are not designed for the kinds of side loads encountered when attempting to mill with a drill press. Even with the limitations, chucking a wire brush into your drill press can be very helpful in cleaning up small parts and hardware. This has gotten me by without owning a bench grinder with a wire wheel for years, though a wire wheel in a drill press is slower and less efficient.

Check your table for square

Drill presses are great in the way they eliminate the human error that creates wonky holes when drilling with cordless or corded drills. Well, it should. If you haven’t taken the time to adjust the table and ensure all the parts of your drill press are correct it’s likely not much of a step up from hand drilling.

It’s easy to check that the chuck is square to the work table is with a short section of round stock. Bend the stock into a pointer and hold it in the chunk then rotate it by hand to check where it does and does not contact the table. Adjust until even. It might be tempting to use a bubble level or similar, but the key here is that the chuck and table are positioned properly to each other, which a bubble level cannot tell you.

Get used to changing speeds

We know most people put the belts on the spindle to set the speed in the middle of it’s range and use that speed for everything from 1/8″ holes in aluminum to using large Forstner bits in wood. Does it work? Kind of, but proper speeds and feeds make for better and safer results. Maybe you shelled out big bucks for a variable speed machine, but most of us are getting by with a well-maintained vintage piece that has a belt and pulley system for changing the spindle speed.

It can be slightly cumbersome to swap out the belts and shuffle everything just to drill one or two holes and switch the belts again. That’s why it’s best to practice a few times on how to do the switch and make sure you keep the space avaliable to make the swap easier.

Get a decent vise and use it

As tempting as it is to leverage the “constantly set up” nature of a drill press by just putting a bit in the chuck and making a hole in your project, that comes with a surprising amount of risk. Bits can and will grab workpieces which can whip them out of hand and cause damage to the drill press, the stuff around it, and you. A simple vise will make drilling precision holes easier and safer. Even cheap import vises like this one are better than nothing if you are still searching for the right vintage one.

Consider upgrading chucks

The Jacobs chuck is all but ubiquitous for drilling, especially on vintage equipement. The design makes grabbing tooling quite easy but the need for a special key can be annoying while also opening up safety risk when users leave the key inserted in the chuck. Accidentally power up the machine with that key hanging on the chuck and it’s going to be a bad day.

Think about upgrading to a keyless chuck. Most drill presses use a Morse taper to hold the chuck in place, meaning swapping the chuck out for a keyless one that is easily tightened and loosened by hand take no more effort than knocking the keyed one out and matching the machine’s taper to a new chuck. No key to lose or forget, plus ease of use.

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The three critical systems of a car, in order of importance, are: Steering, brakes, and the drivetrain. If you question this ordering think no further than how many times you have heard someone tell stories of driving a vehicle with no brakes. I’ve never heard a story of someone intentionally driving a vehicle that had no steering.

Now that we agree that steering is critical, we therefore also all agree that maintaining your steering components is important. For those of the DIY proclivity it is a relatively simple system to understand and work on. To get you started, here are five tips for tackling the system of tie-rods, drag links, and idler arms, steering boxes, and pitman arms.

Check your threads

There aren’t many areas on a car where left- and right-hand threads are mixed together in an assembly. Steering is one of them. With modern impact tools capable of twisting the threads right off a nut or bolt, going the proper direction is important because you might not get a second chance. Trace the threads with your finger or a pick to confirm if “righty tighty, lefty loosey” still applies.

Careful with your castles

While it sounds like advice pulled from a Dungeons and Dragons rulebook, it’s also true for cars. Castle nuts get their name from the crenellations cut into the top which allow the use of cotter keys to keep the nuts from turning. They work well too, but unfortunately, they are often relatively delicate. Failing to get a socket fully seated can easily strip a castle nut, and a misplaced hammer blow can deform it enough that it will be difficult to remove. If you need to use a hammer for persuasion on one of these, remove it completely, flip it over, and thread it back on. This gives you a flat surface to hit with a hammer that will also not damage the threads.

Get the special puller

There are a couple of tight-fitting joints on the steering components. This means getting things apart can be frustrating—but it doesn’t have to be. Buying a proper ball joint press or pitman arm puller can be a steep investment considering this work is not done weekly or even monthly for most at-home DIY’ers.

Luckily most chain auto parts stores are happy to rent the special tools to people like you and me. This often requires putting down the full price and getting a refund upon returning the tools, but compared to the frustration of using the wrong tools the hold on some of my cash is very much worth it. Be sure to find proper instructions on use online as the rental tools rarely include them.

Match the new tie rods to the old ones

Nearly everything in your steering system has some form of adjustment, and the most critical and obvious are the tie rods. While it is possible to just assemble them and ignore the horrible toe in or out just long enough to get to the alignment shop, your alignment guy is going to like you a lot more if you take the minute to thread the new tie rods together to roughly the same length as the one being removed. This puts the adjustment in the ballpark and also makes the drive to the alignment shop much more pleasant.

Assemble with anti-seize

The hardworking components of your steering system are sitting on the underside of your car under constant assault from every size and type of road debris. Water, road salt, dirt, rocks, and radical temperature changes can supercharge the hold of corrosion on threaded parts. A dab of anti-seize goes a long way in keeping this at bay. It will also help the parts last longer as there is the option of doing a second alignment later. Ask anyone who has argued with stubborn, crusty tie rods and you’ll learn that anti-seize can be the small difference between a routine job and testing your patience while mangling tie rod sleeves.

Don’t forget the cotter pins

Torquing hardware to spec determines both clamping pressure and helps keep things from loosening up. Because many of the parts in a steering system see a rotational movement that could potentially loosen the threaded fasteners, many steering components have the additional positive retention of a cotter key going through the bolt and castle nuts to keep them from turning. Aligning the castle nut to the hole through the bolt can be annoying, but it’s an important step to keep your steering from unintentionally coming apart. No one wants that.

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The most basic understanding of an engine centers around how air flows through it. Air gets drawn in, compressed with fuel, then pushed out. The idea is simple enough, but the physics behind it are incredibly complex. Decades of debates have turned half-truths into facts, and Banks Power has swooped in to correct the record and clarify a few of the myths, specifically about exhaust, that have been parroted for a long time.

I know these myths exist and can catch anyone, because I have been guilty of saying things like “an engine needs some exhaust backpressure” with a straight face myself. I’ve since learned better but the books that taught me aren’t as illustrative and clear as this Banks video breaking down the ins-and-out of exhaust backpressure.

Backpressure is created by any restrictions or impediments to the flow of exhaust gases on their journey from the combustion chamber to the tip of the tailpipe. Some are necessary, like bends in the exhaust to route around suspension or running gear, while others are not required but sure are nice, like mufflers or turbochargers. Backpressure is nearly unavoidable but can also be leveraged for our benefit. The force to push exhaust gas out from the combustion chamber comes from the power stored in the crankshaft, and short of somehow creating a vacuum that pulls the exhaust out (we’ll get to scavenging in a minute), there will always be a little power loss from expelling exhaust gases.

Which means the attempt might be to eliminate backpressure but the reality is trying to minimize it. Maybe that is where the myth of needing a little resistance comes from. Banks theorizes that the myth started with exhaust salesmen in the 1950s who were tasked with selling mufflers that were more restrictive than stock and said anything to make the sale. Could this have worked and worked well enough that people are still repeating it 70 years later? Maybe. We may never know.

What we do know for certain is that backpressure is not needed and cleaning up the path of exhaust flow is a relatively easy way to free up some horsepower. A well designed exhaust will actually use the pulses of hot gases to help evacuate other cylinders which allows even more efficient running. This is called scavenging and is actually negative backpressure. It can be great, but takes a lot of engineering to achieve. Log style manifolds will never have this, and most affordable header designs don’t do it either. Banks has a great bench-top demonstration of how a header can scavenge.

So, is backpressure needed? Short answer, no. It’s not always the lowest hanging fruit to freeing up power, but if you get into tuning your engine on a long enough timeline you will probably end up thinking long and hard about your exhaust. I know I did and am currently enjoying an increase in performance along with the great sound.

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Valve guides are a very hardworking part of internal combustion engines. These small bearings keep the poppet valves moving freely and center them in their seats. Valve guides play a large part in the impressive longevity of valves and cylinder heads in modern, high-rpm engines. Perhaps due to their relatively low rate of failure, valve guides are not brought up much in discussions between mechanics. This might have been why I decided to replace the valve guides on my Honda XR250R motorcycle engines at home. It did not go smoothly.

How Hard Can It Be?

In the simplest terms, a valve guide is not much more than the precisely sized sleeve that holds the intake or exhaust valve in the cylinder head. To make manufacturing easier, guides are often made from a material different than that of the cylinder head and pressed into place within it. That press-fit often means that the final inside diameter of the guide needs to be machined to a proper slip fit of the valve after the guide is pressed into the head. Valves, guides, and cylinder heads are each manufactured to a range of tolerances, and those tiny variations can add up to be problematic; machining the guides with those pieces assembled essentially allows you to correct for those flaws when they would potentially be at their worst.

In the aluminum cylinder heads on my Honda XR250Rs, the valve guides are machined from bronze. For the last two engines built on my bench, I had the cylinder heads done by in outside shop but selected C63000 bronze valve guides for their durability. The C63000 formula includes bronze, nickel, and aluminum, a combination that makes the material very stable at higher temperatures, such as those that the cylinder head of an air-cooled dirt bike sees during slow-speed, low-airflow trail slogs.

All that is fine and dandy, but this alloy is also really difficult to machine. The same traits that make this metal hold up well in an engine make it difficult to make the small cuts that bring the inside diameter of the valve guide to that perfect fit with the valve stem. We are getting ahead of ourselves, though; before we make things the right size, we have to get things assembled.

Installing the Guides

This is actually the easiest step in the process on these heads; it only requires a little patience. The first step with anything related to building an engine is cleanliness, so I kicked things off with a deep scrub after putting the valve guides into the freezer on Friday night. After breakfast on Saturday I popped the bare cylinder head in the toaster oven for a little pre-heating. The temperature differential made the guides shrink ever so slightly in outside diameter while the bores in the cylinder head expanded ever so slightly to make the job of driving the guides into place just a little easier. For all the precision work that happens as part of this process, this step requires nothing but brute force, a big hammer, and a special driver to prevent damaging the guides.

First Attempt at Reaming

One of the things that is virtually always free and saves so much stress in doing projects like this is simply finding, reading, understanding, and following the instructions that come with the products you are using. There is something addictive about the feeling of successfully reverse-engineering the thing without needing the instructions, but as fun as that is, reading the instructions also keeps you from making ignorant moves. I’ll let you guess which route I took when it came to my high-speed reamer.

A high-speed steel reamer is the cheapest way to size valve guides, because reamers are single-size, but a fluted reamer is not the correct tool to size the C63000 guides I purchased: The manufacturer tells you as much if you take the time to find the information on their website. I didn’t, and on my first attempt, the guide dulled the reamer, got hot, and grabbed the reamer in a hug like your grandma used to give you—tight, and potentially inseparable.

Separating the two was not even worth the effort. The reamer was a total loss and so was the guide. They will live on as an artistic reminder to do the damn research. After consulting the valve guide manufacturer with an inquiry regarding the method or process they recommend, I learned that my plan to save any money on this project was gone. Learning costs money sometimes, but the $2200 in tooling that the manufacturer suggested was a tough pill to swallow. Two grand would have been about the total cost to have a pro handle these heads completely—not just the guides, but everything—and the project would have been done four weeks ago.

With my tail between my legs, I set these two cylinder heads on the oily front desk of the local machine shop. Joey, the man behind the counter, took one look at them and said, “Nope.” He denied the work not because he didn’t want to do it, or because I wouldn’t pay his price, but because his shop didn’t have the tooling for the teeny, tiny valve guides used in the XR250R. Most of the engines this machine shop sees are traditional V-8s which have valve stems significantly larger than the 5.5-mm toothpicks in these Hondas.

I was in a bind. Luckily, Joey’s advice was free, and the machine shop did have a solution, or at least part of one., It wasn’t going to come easily or cheaply, though. Joey and I put a replacement valve guide on order, along with a new tool. When the mail truck drops it all off, it’ll be time to try again… this time, significantly more prepared. You know, like I should have been the first time. Even the tasks that appear the simplest—remember, all of this was to make eight 0.216-inch holes for valves to slide into—are rarely what they seem, and occasionally we need to be reminded of that.

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A properly running car is a finely tuned system of parts working in harmony. Any component, then, can make the difference between a running and driving machine and a coughing, spitting garage ornament. If one critical component is a bit persnickety, it often earns a bad reputation it may not deserve. If you know (or are) someone who’s into old cars, you probably know the love/hate affair with carburetors.

We all know the holy trinity of engine worship: Fuel, air, and spark. These three elements must exist in the right proportions for an engine to run. Because “holy quaternary” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, compression gets shoved off into the corner, to be discussed only by those who have ascended to a higher tier of diagnostics beliefs, like that guy with the long beard who is still remarkably adept at spark plug reading. He diagnosed a distributor gasket leak from across the parking lot once. I was there.

Maybe I’m misremembering, but it’s precisely that kind of guru mechanic people picture when want someone to work on their carburetor. It doesn’t take a wizard to have a great-running carbureted car, however. Just about anyone can have it. To get there and stay there takes a little bit of care, but the basics boil down to five things.

Use Clean, Non-Ethanol Fuel

Although ethanol-blended fuel does have big power potential, it is also the root of more than a few headaches for those of us with a vintage bent. Gasoline will evaporate at the temperatures most of us like to cruise in, and that means the gasoline disappears and leaves the residue of the ethanol behind. It clogs the multitude of precision passages that make a carburetor function. Most carb tuning and advice is rooted in pre-ethanol times, so even using jetting and setup advice can be tough, as ethanol fuel behaves differently compared to “pure” gasoline.

A Well-Tuned Choke

Listen to the arguments against carbs, and cold starts are oft cited as being a runaway victory for fuel injection. It’s a fair point; fuel injection has won the smooth-running game handily, but a well-tuned choke on a carb works really well considering how simple it is. After all, it carried us through when our hobby cars were simply daily drivers.

Thermostatic chokes often use a bimetallic coil, which is just two different metals bonded together that expand differently when heated or cooled. Pump the throttle once before starting the engine to set the choke, and the engine should start and set at a high idle. Consult your shop manual to get exact settings. Tuning a choke can be finicky, but when it’s all sorted, there is nothing quite like a smooth start-up on a crisp fall morning.

Happy Distributor

A professor of mine from college once told me “90 percent of your fuel problems are ignition.” People will be chasing “carb problems” for hours before realizing the damp spark plug that seems to be running too rich is actually just a plug getting weak spark or not firing at all. Keeping the ignition in top shape helps to keep many other components running smoothly—and it also assists with diagnostics for rough running.

Smooth Linkages

Binding linkages can make chokes stick and accelerator pumps function inconsistently. It’s wild to think that the carb’s exterior cleanliness is just as critical as its cleanliness inside. Road grime is attracted to oily or damp surfaces, and it only takes a small amount of oil mist from an open breather or leaky gasket to attract a surprising amount of junk, which will damage small seals or gum up finicky linkages.

Clean Air

It seems there are actually three sides to a carburetor: the fuel side, the air side, and the outside. Does that make sense? Maybe. Regardless, the air coming into an engine is the easiest pathway for all the stuff that should stay outside of an engine to get inside of it. Dirty throttle blades and intake manifolds can cause interesting problems in both carbureted and fuel-injected engines. All the delicate and small air passages that help keep carbs balanced and flowing can get clogged quickly. Keep an air filter on the intake, and your carb will be happy for a long time.

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While it may seem like the car has been unchanged for decades at this point, with only bold new shades of gray and larger screens creating selling points and “value” for would-be buyers, the fact of the matter is there has been so much innovation over the years. However, much of it is taken for granted because just about every driver on the road today has little understanding of just how far the automobile has come. To provide a little perspective, here are six parts of a car that were revolutionary when they first debuted, but are now so common that they go entirely unnoticed.

Hydraulic lifters

The way a lifter works by interacting with a camshaft to transform rotary movement into reciprocating movement is an under-appreciated aspect of an engine in my opinion. The forces, tolerances, and speeds involved are often difficult to grasp. Tolerances between the pushrod, rocker arm, and valve stem are tight enough that there needs to be a part that can take up the expansion and contraction that comes with the difference between cold and running temperatures.

Hydraulic lifters take that space up to help keep wear down and also make for a smoother and quieter-running engine. They are powered by the oil pump and hold oil pressure in them. Some lifters can leak down while in storage and make quite the clatter on startup until oil pressure builds fully. It is a price worth paying for not having to get the feeler gauges out every few oil changes.

Insert bearings

The many rotating parts inside an engine all need some type of bearing surface to maintain proper friction or lack thereof. When cars were overbuilt, it was common to pour the bearings into the block and connecting rods, making large and relatively soft bearings once machined to final dimension. It’s a time-consuming process though, and requires a lot more material than a comparable insert bearing.

The insert bearing is a much thinner shell of similar material that snaps into the engine block to create the perfect surface for the crankshaft to spin in. They’re also much easier to assemble than poured bearings, which is always appreciated.

Tubeless tires

Modern tires are amazing; More durable with more traction than sometimes seems physically possible. The durability of a tire with no inner tube is a given these days, but certainly wasn’t always. Tubeless tires have been the standard since the mid-1950s, though the idea had been attempted earlier than that. The materials and design did not really work until the mid-1940s. The fact that tubeless tires only took a decade to become standard should say a lot.

Platinum spark plugs

Platinum and other rare earth materials changed the ignition world with their durability. Previously, the metal of choice was copper, which would erode from the arc and would often wear out in just a few years of regular driving. Platinum or iridium plugs, on the other hand, can last up to 100,000 miles.

Longer service intervals, and to a point separating the driver and mechanic into two people, were a side effect of better materials and processes being used during production. Modern cars can go tens of thousands of miles without even opening the hood, and that is mainly thanks to modern ignition systems and oils.

Cruise control

The concept of a self-driving car has likely been around since the second drive of the first car, although even a century later, that has proved to be a difficult problem to solve. However, engineers were able to at least remove one part of the equation and make long drives easier by having the vehicle hold speed on its own.

Early automobiles like the Model T Ford have cruise control baked in by how the machine operates; the throttle is a lever on the steering column that does not return to idle unless the driver moves it. Now systems incorporate a rife of sensors that not only hold the throttle input steady but also match that to vehicle speed and engine load which can make for a much more relaxing road trip.

With how interconnected the systems of modern cars are, cruise control is a matter of software today, not hardware. That usually makes it cheaper to incorporate on cars, which is why it’s now standard pretty much across the board. Once a luxury, now commonplace.

Disc brakes

Brakes are all about the relationship between friction and heat. More friction makes for quicker stopping but also creates more heat that needs to be dissipated. The wooden block pressed against a steel-rimmed wheel didn’t create a ton of friction, but it was better than nothing. Drum brakes were a massive step up, but disc brakes are the clear winner when it comes to balancing the two forces noted above. With modern materials, we have continued to evolve the design to the point that disc brakes are the standard on everything from economy cars to race cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

There are certainly more, so tell us what you think is an amazing piece of technology that often gets overshadowed in modern cars. Leave your favorite in the comments below.

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There are a lot of ways to get things done when working on project cars, but few methods are as handy as leveraging heat to do work for you. Whether disassembling crusty things or creating new pieces by joining metal with the heat of an electric arc, the judicious use of heat can unlock new avenues and techniques of solving common problems faced by DIY enthusiasts everywhere.

First off, let’s make something clear: We aren’t really talking about heat itself in most of these, we are talking about the powers of temperature differential. It’s that one part heated or cooled to a temperature different than the other parts creates advantages for the task at hand. For instance, it’s not the mere fact that the bolt is hot that helps you, it’s that the material of that bolt expands when heated. But we are getting ahead of ourselves: Here are five ways heat can help unlock your superpowers in the garage.

To Diagnose

There are a lot of moving parts in an automobile. Friction is the universal enemy of almost all of them. When friction starts winning the battle, it often shows in the form of heat buildup. This is also true for electrical connections and relays too. When something doesn’t feel right even though it all passes visual inspection, it is easy to start poking around and seeing what is warm. A prime example is diagnosing wheel bearings on trailers.

Small infrared heat guns are a really handy tool now that the prices are nearing novelty purchase territory. Even just feeling things by hand can be telling sometimes, but using non-touch methods allows much more capability, as you would burn the heck out of your hand if you wanted to confirm if a particular cylinder was running right by checking header temp. There’s a tool for every job.

To Break Corrosion

Cars are built from a mulitude of different materials. In modern manufacturing, the usage of appropriate fasteners and hardware is figured out during the design process to ensure that they will not react adversely with others in the assembly. We often aren’t working on vehicles straight off the line though, and the facts of life tell us that everything corrodes, it’s just that some things resist it better.

For rusted hardware, heat helps break the bonds between that surface corrosion and the base metal, allowing things to move freely again. To prove the point made earlier about temperature differential, those who have the ability to freeze hardware rapidly know that can be just as powerful as an oxy-acetylene torch. The key to making it work is that the subject metals expand or contract with big swings in temperature. It works for breaking the bonds of corrosion but we can also leverage that fact…

To Aid in Assembly

The other day I needed to press eight bronze valve guides into two aluminum cylinder heads. The setup instructions for the parts called for .0015″ to .0025″ press fit, and with everything prepared and reamed to size, the guides were put in the freezer overnight and the heads were put in the toaster over at 200 degrees for 20 minutes. I used a special punch to align the guide and took light taps with a hammer to set them home. When the metals normalized to the 60-degree garage temps, everything was pressed and secured solidly.

The exact physics of it are a bit murky to me yet, but luckily you or I don’t need to understand that to know exactly what to expect from heating things. Thermal expansion coefficients can be looked up in resource materials like Machinery’s Handbook, or the internet—whichever is more handy.

To Add or Remove Hardness

The materials we work with are fascinating when you get down to it. Even as at-home mechanics, we have the power to alter the properties and behaviors of steel or aluminum. This can be great for making tools, fabricating, or even reusing parts. Annealing a sheet of aluminum makes it much easier to form, and also works for copper gaskets or washers to help make them a little more malleable and thus seal small imperfections better. The process involves heating to high temperatures then cooling either rapidly or slowly and controlled in a heat sink material like sand.

To Weld

Add enough heat to a part or material and it will likely liquify. Doing so in a very controlled method with the addition of a filler material gives the ability to create a strong bond between what was formerly two different parts. Welding is a garage superpower that comes with great responsibility—mainly that we be realistic about how good we are at it. A great weld is extremely solid and strong, but a mediocre or bad weld is downright dangerous in the wrong spot or place. Know the limits of your skills, machine, and materials in order to utilize welding in the most effective way possible.

Heat is a superpower in the garage that we can use for all these things, and quite a few more. There are a multitude of methods to add or subtract heat which range from totally normal to unconventional, but they’re all effective. Regardless of what method you use, know that heat can be your best friend if you know how to use it.

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During a recent garage chat with a friend about tools, I finally talked myself into purchasing a Milwaukee M12 right-angle die grinder. It’s a great upgrade to my current shop: I really enjoy the handiness of a die grinder with Roloc discs for cleaning and the small amount of fabrication that pops up in my projects, but I am too cheap to make space or budget for the air compressor it would take to run hungry tools like a die grinder. While air tools absolutely have their place—I’ll still make trips over to a friend’s shop to do the next porting job—this little battery-powered tool has been a wonderful stopgap. Compromise when understood and expected rarely feels like such.

Adding this die grinder to my tool set forced me to rearrange a few drawers in my toolbox. In them I found the evolution of my capability to cut, sand, and grind: a set of mismatched files from an estate sale, bent and scraggly wire brushes, wire-wheel attachments for a drill, a corded angle grinder, a cordless angle grinder, and now a tidy little die grinder—all added in that order.

At some point, as you develop the skills to use the tools you have, a set of cascading switches trip in your brain. You want to do the job a little cleaner next time, or for the components to fit up better—in short, you want less evidence that a repair was done at all. When rebuilding my 1989 Honda XR250R during the year that I raced it, I took an odd amount of care to make it appear as though I hadn’t taken the thing apart seven times in as many months. Keeping hardware from rounding off doesn’t really require some crazy amount of care, but we have likely all been under a hood where the last person there certainly didn’t take the time.

The evolution of my toolbox’s contents happened incrementally rather than in big steps. Over 15 years passed between my first project car and when I bought a set of digital calipers. For a good number of years I worked with a single hammer, basic socket set, and some screw drivers; I did full motorcycle rebuilds with not much more. The most noticeable changes were not those in tool count but in quality: Tools that allowed me to perform more delicate work.

Each addition improved my ability to remove or address flaws or problems with increasing power and speed—and most importantly, with increasing precision. I could focus more and more on the process of creating a higher-quality finished product. I used my time more efficiently because the tool was helping me, not holding me back. Rather than putting a ceiling on my capability, the right tools enabled the more advanced ideas and plans in my brain to come to reality.

If you can measure something, you can usually perfect it. Years ago a tape measure was appropriate for the work I did; now, the projects on my bench require the ability to read a Vernier scale on a micrometer. While it is possible to work on vintage machines without being slowly strung out to a line of atoms entering the black hole that is true precision, there will always be a ceiling to what you can do with basic tools. It is possible to assembling an engine that lasts a long time using only rusty tools you found on the side of the highway; but that rebuild will involve a lot of luck.

Anything worth doing requires some level of effort and carries at least a little risk. The strange thing is that measuring is the most likely place for human error to enter and wreak havoc on your project. Transposing a few numbers in my head led to throwing out a couple chunks of aluminum and about an hour of work last time I was standing in front of a lathe.

Working on projects can be frustrating for any number of reasons, but occasionally that frustration reflects a standard of quality we happily imposed upon ourselves. Working on project cars is like running on a treadmill. It is possible to quantify how far you have come by the hours spent, the distance traveled, or the average pace per mile, and measuring and quantifying that progress made can be rewarding at the right times; but so often we forget to look back at how we have improved—and how much smarter we’ve become along the way. After all, now I can measure my project progress down to the thousandth of an inch.

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“I think I cross-threaded it.”

The voice on the other end of the phone was sullen. It belonged to a friend who had just emerged from under the hood of his 1999 Chevrolet pickup. As he was putting the #4 spark plug back into the aluminum cylinder head after performing some maintenance, the plug had bit and started threading at a slightly wrong angle.

Nobody wants to deal with damaged threads, but with a little prep and know-how you can save the thread, the part, and your sanity.

Threads are a critical part of the assembly of pieces we call automobiles. The spiral-incline plane that creates a bolt, nut, or threaded hole allows for easy disassembly and generates a strong, durable clamping force. The effectiveness of threads relies on a smooth and well-fitting assembly which means any bit of corrosion or damage can be a big problem.

When—not if—some damaged threads appear on your project, there is a lot going through your head: Everything from horror stories of drills and threaded inserts to tales in which the hero was a wire brush. In the middle of the chart of options is chasing the threads to clean them and remove damage. You might be tempted to reach for your tap and die kit … but that might not be the best idea.

When I dropped by my friend’s driveway for moral support, we pulled the inner fender and got a decent look at the reality of the problem. Luckily, my friend has a good feel for how spark plugs start, and the thread was only barely miffed. However, the idea of getting the plug started correctly and powering through to make it fit again was just not on the table. We needed to chase the threads.

Method #1: Use a Tap

I had an appropriate M14-1.25 tap that would theoretically match the aluminum heads on his engine—a 5.3 LM7—but there is always the chance that whatever tap you have is slightly different than the one that originally cut those threads. Any differences between the two would be settled by force, and in our case the hardened tap would easily bite a chunk out of the aluminum cylinder head to declare victory. We were not interested in that.

Method #2: Buy a Thread Chaser

If you’re looking at that thread chaser and thinking, “Kyle, that looks an awful lot like a tap,” you’re correct. It does, but a couple key features are hiding in plain view that make a chaser different than a tap—and better for this situation. The first is right on the nose: A pilot section, which helps align the tool into the thread bore. Taps lead with a cutting edge in most cases, which means if the tap starts slightly crooked, you’ll have a harder time feeling the misalignment. If you try multiple times, you will start to remove material. Remove enough, and the chance of stripping the thread increases significantly.

Notice that, behind the pilot, the threads do not have the same lead-in as a cutting tap. Again, since a chaser is only meant to restore damaged threads, the design is just less aggressive overall. Using a chaser means less chance of swarf falling into your project, too, and we certainly didn’t want any aluminum in the combustion chamber of my friend’s 5.3. Just to be cautious, we coated the chaser with grease to catch any debris it might loosen.

We got real lucky: The threads got reshaped perfectly and the plug threaded in and tightened up nicely, a reminder that using the right tool always makes a job easier. A good quality set of thread chasers is under $100 and covers a variety of pitches.

This is actually the first thread chaser I’ve purchased. It’s a tool that has always been on the shortlist, but it was never in the cart come checkout time. Any time I need a thread chaser, I usually just make one.

Method #3: Make Your Own

Making a thread chaser is not difficult, and the skill is a nice trick to have up your sleeve. Just take a grade 8 bolt and file down the first few threads to create that pilot and lead-in threads. If you are really motivated, use a hacksaw or small cutoff wheel to create a few reliefs that can collect any debris that will be forced out of the threads as it re-shapes and cleans them.

Next time you are in the middle of that project and miff a set of threads, you are prepared to handle the problem the right way … or at least understand the risks of doing it the other way. Like I said, there is a place and time for each, and having more skills and understanding of what you are doing is always a good thing.

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Roger writes:

Hi there, I am fighting this issue with my 1962 Ford Fairlane Sport Coupe: On a shift (say, first to second gear), if I keep my foot on the gas, it shifts hard but not obnoxiously, but if I let off the pedal it shifts with a … WACK!

It shifted so hard the first time I thought I’d been hit from behind! But this happens on any shift, if I let off on the gas pedal, although not so much on downshifts. My garage diagnosed it as a sloppy differential backlash, and they said it’s all good now ($450 later). But I drove her home, and it was exactly the same!

Here are the specs on my driveline:

• Ford 302 stroked to 347 cubic inches by a pro builder.
• Ford C-4 built to handle 450-500 hp.
• Attached to the C-4 is a Gear Vendors overdrive.

In the springtime, I took her to a garage that only works/builds/repairs classic cars, from Ferraris to Camaros. Other than changing fluids/filters, they told me my problem is the stock Ford convertor (which stalls around 1200-1500 rpm) and that an aftermarket convertor with at least 2400-2800 stall will “slip” enough to stop those too-hard “BANG” shifts. I know they are on the money about a higher stall convertor, because my engine builder also said I should install an aftermarket convertor.

Do you think this will stop my issue with these horrible shifts?

Sajeev answers:

Yes, I think that’s the ticket! The stock converter shoulda been dumped the moment a stroker small-block and a built transmission were planned. That’s an exaggeration, but you see my point. For the transmission, you normally need the following done with any performance engine rebuild:

• A fresh rebuild.
• A shift kit, shift improver, or an internal upgrade unique to your transmission (a la Ford J-MOD).
• A higher stall speed, “looser” than stock torque converter.
• A standalone transmission cooler, usually plumbed in series with the factory cooler in the radiator (for double cooling).

The fresh transmission rebuild is obvious, since new clutches, gaskets seals, etc. are needed just as badly as a new engine. Not doing so kills the current transmission sooner, and yanking it out while the motor is absent generally saves money in labor costs. Take it from someone who has seen this via building three high-performance transmissions, including a Ford C6 chronicled here at Hagerty. (This may not apply to axles/differentials, especially if you aren’t running racing slicks, and have no interest in doing gnarly burnouts.)

Next is the shift kit: a logical upgrade, as you want quicker shifts to go with your perkier motor, but there’s a catch: Sometimes a shift kit must be specced to work with a specific stall speed in your torque converter.

Installing a looser converter can help holeshot off the line, and fix shifting issues much like what Roger’s experiencing in his Fairlane. Unless the vehicle has a performance-tuned automatic from the factory like a CVPI Crown Victoria, AMG Mercedes, etc., the torque converter stall speed is generally too low for performance driving. Low-stall converters are designed for smoother, less CVT-like performance and more fuel efficiency.

Speaking of factory-perfected tuning, a high-performance powertrain should never be in a situation where one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. The critical components to discuss with your rebuilders are the camshaft choice, the torque converter stall speed, and possibly the steps to dial-in a shift kit. I reckon Roger’s assertion that the stock converter is 1200-1500 rpm is right, and a 2200-2500 rpm stall converter is needed to fix the shifting behavior.

But I have no clue what cam is in Roger’s new motor, perhaps an even more aggressive stall (i.e. 3000+ rpm) is needed. This is precisely why your engine builder needs to be included in transmission work. Get a torque converter with the blessings of both engine and transmission rebuilders and your throttle off upshifts will be delightful.

Advice from professionals like this is priceless, but it’s also part of their service. I have yet to meet an engine or transmission rebuilder that wasn’t thrilled to share more information with a not-rude customer. So ask them for confirmation, as you have nothing to lose. Rather, you have everything to “loose” in your converter.

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com—give us as much detail as possible so we can help! Keep in mind this is a weekly column, so if you need an expedited answer, please tell me in your email.

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Any car is an assembly of parts. Since bolted joints are both strong and easy to assemble, just about any service or maintenance on a car or truck requires you to remove some type of bolt. Anyone who has worked on a car for more than three minutes knows that even a larger project is not so bad if the hardware is not difficult to deal with. Those with many years of experience know how difficult corroded and stuck fasteners often give up, but convincing them to surrender requires force. How you generate that force is defined by the severity of the situation. Let’s look at the levels of bolt persuasion, from least to most aggressive, and some of the reasons why they fall in this order.

Level #5: Open-End Wrench

An open end wrench is nothing more than two parallel surfaces that meet two sides of a fastener. This often means only truly gripping near the corners due to tolerance in production of both the hardware and the tool. Sometimes, the fit is plenty tight and less than one foot of leverage is plenty. There is a reason wrenches are standard in every automotive toolkit since people started working on cars; wrenches pack light, are simple to produce, and are durable for many years if not abused. Sure, long-handle versions exist, but most of those are box-end, which means they are basically a worse version of a …

Level #4: Socket and Ratchet

The combination of a socket and a ratchet steps things up in a couple different ways: First, by providing additional contact points with the stuck fastener. Whether 12-point or 6-point, a socket provides more even contact with the fastener, and a ratchet allows us to shift the angle of the lever to maximize the force applied by our muscles. That handle can easily be exchanged for a …

Level #3: Longer Ratchet

The socket is giving us good positive engagement on the hardware, so if it hasn’t moved yet, we must add force. Long-handle ratchets are handy, because it can be difficult to reposition a long wrench multiple times just to rotate a fastener one turn. Sadly, the most helpful part of a ratchet—the rotating head—is also the weak point, and if you treasure your tool you will likely grab one with a longer handle before adding a cheater bar or hitting the handle of your ratchet with a hammer. Sure, you can buy rebuild kits for some ratchets … or you could avoid stripping out the catch pawls inside the head in the first place.

Level #2: Impact Wrench

Leaning your weight on a long lever is one way to impart force. The other is to apply it suddenly with a spinning hammer. That is the basic function of an impact wrench, which generates high amounts of force in short bursts to help break loose the corrosion that forms inside threaded joints. Better yet, impact wrenches are powered by compressed air or by batteries, not by elbow grease, making them the hot ticket when dealing with stuck stuff. The only problem is that the torque capabilities of an impact wrench are limited by design, as the motor, hammer, and anvil can go get so large before the tool becomes unwieldy. You might have to switch back to brute force and grab the …

Level #1: Breaker Bar

At the end of the day, physics always wins. While inconvenient compared to the luxury of an impact wrench, using a long bar to apply torque to a proper-fitting socket is by far the best way to put absurd amounts of torque onto a stuck fastener.

A long enough lever will snap the hardened head off every breaker bar you can find. And that is what you are often hoping for, at this point—the sweet release of tension by any means necessary. Just break already. The drill and tap set are already on the workbench.

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There are multiple ways to interpret the word “bearings.” In the midst of a recent garage work session, it became clear I was maintaining not one set of bearings, but two.

The task at hand was a mock-up of the rear wheel assembly on my Honda XR600R project. The bike I purchased is a 1988 model year, which was factory-equipped with a drum rear brake. There was nothing wrong with the drum setup. It functioned and was certainly restorable. The wheel and hub were fine as well. I just wanted to “upgrade” to a disc brake.

For the type of riding I do, a restored and well-adjusted drum brake is perfectly suitable. It’s relatively sealed, low-maintenance, and extremely durable. By comparison, a disc brake setup is quite a pain. The caliper needs a guard, the rotor requires protection on the underside, and the whole operation is exposed to the weather, allowing it to be coated in a constantly refreshed, abrasive slurry of dirt and water.

But the heat management is worth the trouble. That large rotor happily hands off heat to the atmosphere in a manner so true it’s a law that long predates brakes of any kind. A disc setup produces consistent stops, and the increase in effectiveness far outweighs any decrease in durability. So, of course, I decided it was high time I had a trail bike with this newfangled technology. I’d also been wanting to do a project that involved a little more fabrication, and the conversion from drum to disc brake seemed perfectly designed to teach me a few new things.

So after checking a few fitment details between the first-generation, drum-brake XR600R and the second-generation, disc-brake bikes, I began pillaging the halls of eBay, slashing at the buy-it-now button with a plastic sword 16 numbers long. The spoils arrived at my doorstep in a handful of boxes. The largest of the treasures was a swingarm from a 1994 XR600R, followed by a rear caliper and mount from a 1992 XR600R and a rear brake master cylinder from a Honda CRF450X.

The hardest part of the process would be hanging the master cylinder, so I started with the easy bit. The swingarm bolted right into place and even included the linkage that connects the shock to the swingarm. This was a nice bonus, because the linkage is comprised of the same parts as the ones coming off with the drum brake swingarm. Having a second linkage allows me to rebuild one while the other is still bolted to the bike, allowing me to test the fitment of other parts. Plus, spares. Everyone loves spares.

The needle roller bearings in a linkage pivot are some of the humblest parts of a motorcycle. They take a tremendous amount of force while being subjected to the brutal environment that is the bottom of an off-road motorcycle. The linkage gets bounced off rocks and roots while being pelted with everything flung off the front tire.

These bearings always put up a fight coming out. Always. The hardened steel shells, which reluctantly joined the links on their high-pressure first date, become nearly inseparable from the cast aluminum with time. The union is so strong that I had to use my bench vise as a press to break the two free, adding heat and tension until the aluminum expanded and allowed the bonds, formed over decades, to break. Only then could a new relationship begin, with new bearings.

Items like bearings are not meant to last forever. They are consumable things, meant to be changed when the time is right. Just like our personal, figurative bearings. Desires and directions shift and evolve. It is best to take a step back, reassess, and reorient ourselves with where we are going—and if that is indeed what we want.

The idea of doing a fair amount of extra work just to fit a disc brake to an aging motorcycle is slightly absurd, and as I mock up the assembly and measure for the spacers I’ll be making, I reminded myself that the whole disc-brake project is irrational. However, while none of it makes any real sense, we are granted the freedom to be absurd. That freedom includes making the decision to solve problems that don’t exist. I didn’t lose my way and wander off into the weeds. No, my bearings are well-maintained, even if one type is leading me down the more difficult path.

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Just having some time alone in the garage is a luxury for most of us, so building our dream shop with all the bells and whistles often stays a dream as we focus on simply enjoying what we have. Just because we can’t have 2000 square feet, a mill, a lathe, and a lift does not mean we should ignore little touches of luxury that make our projects more enjoyable—or, at least, more tolerable.

A luxury does not have to be a big-ticket item, merely something that makes you look forward to your time in the garage or that makes your projects run a little smoother. With that goal in mind, here are five affordable upgrades for just about any space.

Affordable Luxury #1: Good Lights

Lighting technology has come a long way in recent history. Compact and efficient LED work lights are easy to hang, run tens of thousands of hours with little maintenance, and sometimes can even be put on a dimmer. That last feature may seem a little absurd, but I don’t particularly enjoy how surgical my garage can feel when I want to just hang out with friends.

Hardwired, battery-operated, or plug-in, lights are great options that can fit anyone’s needs at almost every price range. Consider lighting an investment. It might feel like a decent chunk of change now, but most lights will last years, and they will make working on just about anything more enjoyable.

Affordable Luxury #2: A Decent Stereo

The jury has been split 50/50 here whenever I bring up having a television in the garage, but it’s pretty much universally agreed that a good stereo is a must-have. While the Panasonic boombox purchased with Pepsi points in 1996 might still be cranking out the tunes, if you care about sound quality at all, a good set of speakers and a decent amplifier are very affordable, and they allow you to advantage of any music format you might prefer.

Obviously, no one would want to keep records where they use an angle grinder, but not every garage is focused on fabrication. After I splurged for in-ceiling speakers and a tidy wall-mounted amplifier, it became so much easier to listen to music, and the sound doesn’t change much no matter where I am in the space—and my setup cost about $200. Do what works for you, and make it sound good.

Affordable Luxury #3: Sturdy Shelves

Even the most minimal workspace must include storage. The prices of sturdy, strong, and decent-looking shelving are budget-level when you consider that it takes a lot to wear out shelves. Similar to the lighting above, good shelving is a buy once, cry once decision. Adjustable shelving can be had for just a couple hundred dollars, perfectly suited for the projects and parts you store currently. It can even leave you room to grow or change the space in the future. For the same price, you can also buy materials and build custom shelves for your space.

Affordable Luxury #4: Reels

If your garage is bigger than a closet, the addition of extension cords or air hoses is less about convenience and more about necessity: Overhead or wall-mounted, retractable reels make it easy to keep tripping hazards to a minimum. These have gotten budget-friendly as of late—just be sure the wire gauge is appropriate for your use.

Some of the low-end, cheap electrical reels can be 14-gauge or smaller, while most heavy-duty plug-in power tools are best served by 12-gauge. Roll out the length of hose or cord semi-regularly to inspect for imperfections or damage. Cables and hoses that live on the floor pick up debris and, if those bits are rolled into a reel, they become grinding compounds that can damage cords over time.

Affordable Luxury #5: Rugs

Okay, maybe not a rug. We couldn’t imagine a garage with wall-to-wall carpet, but something that people can wipe their feet on, or a standing mat at your workbench are little things that go a long way to make a workspace feel less industrial and more like a place you enjoy being in. Use them to inject a little personality into your space, if you want: Novelty door mats can say just about anything, so we won’t give you any ideas.

***

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The post 5 Affordable Luxuries for a Hard-Working Garage appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Last week, I wrote about discovering that the exhaust in my just-purchased 182,000-mile 2008 Nissan Armada was leaking in three places—large leaks from a laughably bad weld between the tailpipe and the muffler and from the seam on the top of the muffler, and a small leak at the rear flange of one of the four catalytic converters. I shoveled muffler putty into and around the first two leaks, ignored the third, took it in for inspection, and failed. So now, instead of a useful vehicle, I had a big red “R” sticker on the windshield that could land me a moving violation and add points on my license, and an exhaust whose proper repair was the definition of a slippery slope. Great. Just great.

In addition to the specifics of the vehicle and its exhaust, there’s, well, me. I’ve long said that I have no idea how anyone can afford to own any older high-mileage car, much less a vintage car, if they need to pay someone to fix it. Multiply that by 13 for the number of vehicles I own (shut up), and you can see why none of the cars I own ever gets everything it needs. The day I stop doing all my own work is the day I decide that I need to shed vehicles. Although that day is not today or next week, this is getting more challenging as I get older. I still think of myself as 25 years old, but I turned 65 last summer, have back issues that get triggered by lifting and bending, and have a garage situation where the Armada appeared to be too big to fit without kicking out not one but two of my cars. I do have a mid-rise lift in the garage, but the Armada’s weight is close to the lift’s 6000-pound limit, it’s so wide that I don’t think the swing arms will even reach the jack points on the sills, and the geometry of the truck and the lift make it challenging to get the jack pads somewhere more inboard, like the under frame. For these reasons, any under-truck work likely needs to be done on the garage floor, and even then, figuring out how to get the truck in there so I could close the door and turn the heat on and not freeze my old bones was challenging.

My 38-year-owned ’73 BMW 3.0CSi, 1999 M Coupe, and 49,000-mile ’73 2002 are here in the garage over the winter, with four other vintage BMWs and the Lotus in warehouse storage. The CSi is the definition of a pampered car. With its Karmann-built body, it is never going to sit outside (to repeat the best automotive joke in the world: Karmann invented rust, then licensed the process to the Italians). In contrast, the M Coupe is a modern car that can sit in the driveway for weeks if necessary. The low-mileage 2002 is somewhere between the two. I don’t necessarily think it’s an act of violence to move it outside for a few days, but if the weather turns and it sits in rain or snow while I’ve taken the Armada “down” and rendered it immobile while waiting for parts, I will have made the wrong call.

My garage is 31-feet long, so it easily fits two small cars nose-to-tail. After I bought the mid-rise lift, I discovered that an unintended benefit is that I can put a car on it, lift it, and be able to tuck the nose of another car under it. I didn’t think that would work with the Armada, as its nose is tall enough that I’d need to raise the 2002 so high that I was concerned I’d dent the roof against the ceiling. Plus, a while back I found that one of the lift’s hydraulic cylinders leaks when raising it to the upper position.

I went for it anyway. The cylinder shot out a stream of red fluid, but it got to where I could lower it into the lock-stopped upper position. Hopefully come spring I’ll be able to get the 2002 back down.

So, I had the truck inside the heated garage. I could lift the back end if I needed to, but I had no room to lift the nose. This meant that I could get to the tailpipe, maybe the muffler, but I wouldn’t be able to access the slightly-leaky flange behind the right-hand secondary cat.

I looked on RockAuto and found that there were three aftermarket cat-back exhausts, each less than $200 delivered. One was an ANSA that had an OEM-style muffler with long inlet tubes, one of which bolted directly to the leaky flange.

The other two exhausts—AP (which apparently now owns ANSA) and Walker—both had a muffler with short inlets that are meant to be clamped or welded to intermediate pipes. The Walker was appealing because it’s stainless, but reviews on Amazon reported that it uses 2-inch pipes rather than the stock 2.25-inch, requiring adapters if you want to try to splice a new muffler into the existing pipes. The AP exhaust appeared to have 2.25-inch muffler inlets, however.

I began to formulate an approach—order an AP muffler and tailpipe, cut the old muffler off with a Sawzall, and splice the new one to the existing pipes with butt-joint-style band clamps. If it worked (meaning if it sealed well enough to pass inspection), done (at least for now), but if it didn’t, I could still order the other pieces of the AP exhaust kit and replace everything behind the cats, and a cost comparison showed that there wasn’t a big discount buying the whole exhaust kit as opposed to ordering the pieces a la carte anyway. If the paper-thin leaky cat flange self-destructed when I tried to take it apart, then I’d need to replace the cat, which was another $125. Hopefully the joint between the primary and secondary cats would cooperate.

Before I ordered parts, I wanted to see if this repair could be accomplished with the Armada shoehorned in the garage the way it was. I took my Sawzall, shimmied under the back of the truck, tried to get to the front of the muffler where I’d need to cut the pipes, and found that there wasn’t enough clearance to do it. I’d need to raise the front of the Armada, and there was no way to do that with it stuffed under the tail of the 2002 on the lift. I’d either have to take the 2002 down and give the Armada the entire right side of the garage, or do the repair with the Armada’s butt hanging out of the garage, leaving the place open to the elements.

I checked the weather. There was a Nor’easter predicted to drop about 10 inches of snow two days hence.

Dukes.

I thought about it carefully, and realized that I hadn’t tried to find the exact reason why the exhaust had failed inspection. I clamped a rubber glove back over the tailpipe, started the truck, and did my best to feel along the exhaust for leaks. To my surprise, my patch along the upper seam of the muffler appeared to be holding. The leak from the cat flange was minor. The motherlode was coming from my unsuccessful attempt to seal up the booged weld attaching the tailpipe to the muffler. I was unable to fix it with the soup-can-and-hose-clamps method because the weld (and my putty) created a gall like a walnut inside a garden hose, around which a clamped can had zero hope of sealing.

I thought “What if I cut the lump out with a Sawzall? Couldn’t I then just mate the two sections with a butt-joint band clamp like I was planning on doing to the muffler?”

Hmmmmn.

I crawled under the rear of the car again with the Sawzall. But this time I found that, unlike the front of the muffler, there was ample space to get the Sawzall positioned on the tailpipe, as it was located up in the recess where the spare tire is.

I used my vernier calipers to take some careful measurements of the pipes so I could order the correct band clamp and laughed out loud when I found that the outlet pipe of the muffler was 2.25 inches, but the tailpipe was 2.5. No wonder the thing didn’t seal.

So what I needed wasn’t a butt-joint clamp. I needed a 2.5-to-2.25-inch reducer adapter.

Mindful of the impending Nor’easter and really wanting to get the repair completed before a foot of snow stranded the Armada inside the garage, I drove to five local auto parts stores, but none of them had a 2.5-to-2.25-inch reducer. I looked on Amazon, found one that appeared to fit the bill (2.5-inch inner diameter to 2.25-inch outer diameter) with next-day delivery, clicked, and waited. In the interim, I cut the “walnut” out of the exhaust pipe. It was laughable how misaligned the two different-sized pieces were.

The reducer arrived at about 7 p.m. the night before the snowstorm was predicted to hit. I’d already wire-brushed and sanded the cut ends of the muffler and tailpipe, so I thought all I needed to do was goop up the reducer with muffler cement, slide it on, and clamp it down, but I found that while the 2.5-inch end fit the tailpipe perfectly, the 2.25-inch end was not an inner-diameter fit to the back of the muffler—it was exactly the same size as the back of the muffler. I hightailed it to the O’Reilly Auto Parts a few miles from me before closing time and grabbed a 2.25-to-2.25 adapter and another clamp.

I emptied a good portion of a tube of J-B Weld muffler cement into the three slip-in joints, clamped everything down, backed the truck out of the garage, and drove the M Coupe back in. I had beaten the impending snowstorm, but when I’d be able to get the truck inspected remained to be seen. I also was well aware that between the adapters, the clamps, and the muffler cement, I’d just dropped 50 bucks on a very, um, hacky solution when $200 would’ve bought me something permanent.

In the morning, I was surprised to find that the big Nor’Easter had fizzled. Overnight the meteorologists had massively rolled back the snow prediction. I looked out the window and saw only rain. I started the truck, put a gloved hand over the tailpipe, the exhaust felt tight to me, so I beat it on down to get it re-inspected. As this was a re-test for a failure due to an exhaust leak, I heard them rev it up and down several times as they checked, but it passed.

I have little doubt that I’ll probably need to do a more proper stem-to-stern exhaust replacement sooner rather than later, but damn it’s awfully satisfying to dig the ice axe and the crampons in and say, “Slippery slope? Not today.”

***

Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Exhaust Problem (Part 2) appeared first on Hagerty Media.

There are many staples of a DIY shop or garage, but the workbench stands above the rest. Having a work surface that is not the floor can make working on projects safer, more efficient, and more enjoyable. Sadly, just because benches are ubiquitous does not mean each one is good.

Like so many other things in life, a workbench must balance budget, function, appearance, and specialization. While we can’t help you with the last one on that list, we can get you to a great starting point by calling out some of the attributes that every good workbench will have. Whether you are building a new one or checking up on one that you’ve been using for years, here are five characteristics every great workbench needs.

A Flat (ish) Surface

You don’t need to rebuild a carburetor on a certified granite slab, but you do want a surface that can be clean and smooth while not allowing parts to roll away. You’ll often need to level your bench using shims or some other method, because garage floors are not typically very even—occasionally, on purpose.

Dozens of materials can be appropriate for bench tops, so be sure to take a deep look at what kinds of projects you think you’ll tackle and choose a material that can take the amount of weight you need it to and that won’t deform during use. Butcher’s block surfaces have been great to me, though there are a few sections of my bench that have some serious dents from hammer blows or heavy parts.

Height

It might be tempting to plan your workbench around the height of a kitchen countertop (36 inches is standard), but be careful: Most kitchen tasks are less precise than most DIY projects, and food prep and cooking don’t require leverage or a large range of movement, like garage work often does. A lower work surface height is more tolerable in a kitchen, the arrangement of which needs to be somewhat standardized. Your workspace has no such constraints. Set your bench at a comfortable height for you and the work you do. That might even mean two benches at two different heights: parts cleaning is best done at a lower bench, while carburetor rebuilding is best done at a higher one, so that it’s easier to see.

Heft

A flimsy bench makes work difficult in a number of ways. If you’ve got a component plopped on top of your workbench and every time you move it or shift something for access, the whole bench moves, you won’t feel confident in the work you’re doing.

Again, be careful: You can have too much of a good thing. Nice and sturdy does not require using 6×6-inch steel tubing for legs and 1/2-inch plate for the top. There’s a place for a bench like that in a welding shop, but in most home shops, it would be more annoying than helpful.

A Solid Vise

The third hand we always seem to need, a vise is a necessity for any shop for many reasons. It can be a anvil, a press, or an anchor that can help projects big and small in a multitude of ways. Don’t believe me? Try and work without one for a while.

Like the other characteristics listed here, consider your specific needs and choose accordingly. Do we all need Wilton Bullets? No, but most people would be better served with one than with an import vise whose jaws don’t line up evenly and have a ton of slop. If you’re on a budget, consider buying an old vise to restore. It’s a fun project, and we can honestly say that cast metals aren’t what they once used to be.

Sturdiness

When wrenching on something, it’s nice to have a workbench that doesn’t move an inch to the left when trying to loosen something and an inch to the right when tightening something. Especially if you are not planning to bolt the bench to a wall or other structure in your garage, consider using an under-bench shelf for storage: It will add a nice, low weight and improve stability.

Bonus: Wheels

I’ve said it before and will say it again: The ability to bring your tools and workspace to your project is a superpower. Buy a good set of double-locking casters, put them on your bench, and suddendly it is a tool that goes places with you. The other side of the shop? Easy. The driveway? No problem. Putting multiple benches together to create super bench? Also an option! Use this power wisely.

No matter what, having a workbench is better than not having one. If you are looking to maximize your workspace and haven’t assessed whether your workbench is working for or against you, now is the time.

***

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As I wrote last week, I bought a 2008 Nissan Armada to have as a keep-it-in-the-driveway-until-you-need-it tow vehicle/stuff-hauler/snowmageddon chariot. At $3250, it was cheap, but a few problems were baked into that price, one of which was a leaky exhaust that wasn’t loud enough for me to hear but was apparent when I held my gloved hand over the tailpipe.

A tight exhaust should pretty much push your gloved hand off, but one with substantial leaks one won’t offer any resistance at all. So I bought it knowing it needed exhaust work. The question was, how much? The tried-and-true triage method is to visually examine the entire length of the exhaust as well as block off the tailpipe with a cut-off inner tube and a hose clamp and carefully run your hands close to all exhaust surfaces to feel for leaks, but I was unable to do either of those things on the seller’s muddy dirt-and-gravel driveway.

Let’s put on our rose-colored glasses for a moment. Back in the golden pre-emission-control days, most exhaust systems consisted of a cast-iron exhaust manifold that likely lasted the life of the car, and four normal-wear-and-tear components—the headpipe that bolted to the manifold, the center resonator, the muffler, and possibly a separate tailpipe. These components were interconnected by flanges sealed by either gaskets or crush rings, and held together with simple nuts and bolts. Replacing isolated sections was usually easy. If the exhaust got loud, you crawled under the car, figured out which section was rotted out, bought another one, installed it—boom, done. Yeah, OK, some exhaust sections were fitted by sliding one tube inside another and U-clamping them together, and over time, rust would fuse the sections making replacement difficult, but if you were careful you could usually manage it.

As vintage cars age, though, it’s common for them reach the point where, if one component is rusted through, the smart thing is to “just do it all” and replace the entire exhaust, meaning everything except the manifold. The reason is twofold. First, if one exhaust component is rusty enough to be ventilated, odds are that the others aren’t far behind. Second, it’s often challenging to get new components to seal against old ones. Some of this is unevenness on the sealing surface of the old component, some is that the flange size on a non-original replacement component is subtly different from that which it needs to mate with in the car. If it’s a car you’re keeping for the long term, buying and installing a new exhaust—be it original (if it’s still available), aftermarket, performance, stainless steel, or whatever—is often a good box to check off for a rejuvenation.

The other option is to go to a custom exhaust shop where they measure, bend, and install a system specifically for your car. I’m generally not a fan of this approach, as custom exhausts often have welded joints that make it difficult or impossible to drop the exhaust to, for example, remove a transmission. I had it done a few years ago in my little Winnebago Rialta RV because there was no other option.

Things became more complicated when catalytic converters crept in in the mid-1970s, as the cat was an expensive additional component that could rust out and get loud, and it had an extra set of flanges that needed to seal to make the exhaust tight. V-configuration engines typically have a separate cat for each bank of cylinders. And many cars, including the Armada, are equipped with primary and secondary cats on each bank, for a total of four. This creates six flange joints where the cats can leak (manifold to primary, primary to secondary, secondary to the rest of the exhaust, on each side).

You can see why “just do it all” is not ever my go-to strategy on a modern car. It’s simply too expensive. If an exhaust and one or more cats needs to be replaced in a high-mileage 15-year-old car, the dealer estimate for the repair can easily exceed the car’s value, and the price from an aftermarket or custom shop can easily top a thousand dollars.

So, with that backdrop, let’s look at the Armada. The exhaust was porous enough that a rubber glove clamped over the tailpipe was enough to redirect all the flow through the holes, making them easier to find.

The Armada doesn’t have the ground clearance that my Silverado 3500HD did (which enabled its catalytic converter to get stolen, but also allowed me to replace it without lifting the truck), but the rear section of the exhaust is pretty accessible. I skooched under the back and quickly found a major leak where the tailpipe was attached to the muffler with the world’s worst weld. I bought a decent mig welder about five years ago but have never walked up the learning curve to use it properly, and I’m certain that if I attempted to re-weld the joint, it would look no better. I’ve certainly done my share of soup-can-and-hose-clamp exhaust repairs and tested one here with aluminum flashing, but the big bulge from the misaligned pipes and the weld didn’t give it a hope of sealing.

I’ve occasionally used a local exhaust shop to patch isolated leaks like this, so I took the Armada to them for a quote on fixing the tailpipe, thinking that maybe all it needed was a hundred-dollar splice-and-weld. Unfortunately—and not surprisingly—when they had it on the lift and inspected it, they found that the tailpipe was only one of three leaks. There was also a good-sized leak from the seam on the top of the muffler, and a small leak at the output flange of the right rear (secondary) catalytic converter. Unfortunately, the studs and nuts on that flange were decimated by rust, and the flange itself looked paper-thin. The shop’s recommendation was to cut off the flange and weld a new pipe from the back of the cat to a new muffler and tailpipe. The $1200 estimate wasn’t unreasonable, but it was more than I wanted to spend.

I thought about my options, all of which were limited by winter weather and my workspace. The Armada is big enough that, to fit it in my garage, I’d need to kick not one car outside, but two. That’s fine when the weather’s good, but I’m not going to let my 49,000-mile 1973 BMW 2002 sit outside in rain or snow, and due to the configuration of my narrow suburban driveway, which is hemmed in by my house and my neighbor’s high fence, when we get a lot of snow, there’s nowhere to blow it, so the garage can get snowed in for weeks.

So I tried the easiest path first—muffler paste. This stuff comes in a couple of forms. There’s muffler cement that’s intended to fill gaps and seal joints, and there’s muffler putty that’s intended to be more structural. I had a can of the latter in the garage, so I gave both the tailpipe and the top of the muffler a wire-brushing, then with a nitrile glove on my hand, shoveled the putty into and around the tailpipe weld and into the seam on the top of the muffler.

At this point, I need to explain a few things about Massachusetts’ draconian annual automotive inspection. I love my home state, but not this part of it. You’re required to have a vehicle inspected within seven days of purchase. It doesn’t matter if it already has a valid inspection sticker on the windshield. That’s not your sticker—it’s the previous owner’s. The sticker has the car’s plate number and VIN printed on it in small type, and a bar code that a police officer can scan and call up the registration. So if you’re driving on the old sticker, and you’re stopped for some reason and the officer checks the sticker, you’ll be cited for driving an uninspected vehicle, which is a moving violation that adds points to your license. There are rare reports of people even being ticketed for this when the car is parked. Plus, there is the safety part of the inspection and the emissions part. If you fail the emission part, you get a black “R” sticker with a 60-day grace period for you to get the car repaired, but if you fail for a safety reason, you get a red “R” sticker with no grace period—you can be pulled over any time and ticketed—and an exhaust leak is regarded as a safety issue. I’m uncertain exactly how they check for exhaust leaks, whether they do the hand-over-the-tailpipe test on every single car or only on cars that have loud-sounding exhausts.

So. I’d bought the Armada with a leaky but largely asymptomatic exhaust. The inspection sticker on the car was good through August, but it wasn’t my sticker. Legally I was required to get the beast inspected, but … should I? The risk was that it would fail and I’d lose the valid-looking sticker, be given a big red rejection sticker that’s far more visible (moving violation-wise), and have to spend real money replacing the exhaust.

I thought it over. The exhaust didn’t sound loud to me to begin with, and I’d patched the two big leaks, so it had to be quieter and better-sealed than before. Do it. Get it inspected. Cross it off the list. Be legal about it, as I am with most things these days. I brought it in.

Bad idea. It failed. I’d rolled the dice and lost. The car I’d bought to have around in case I needed to drop everything and buy something big now had a large red “R” on the windshield that could land me an expensive ticket.

To make matters worse, a winter nor’easter was forecast to move in and dump 8–12 inches of snow, effectively cutting off access to my garage. And the logistics of major exhaust surgery on the Armada were daunting, as the vehicle’s weight is uncomfortably close to the 6000-pound limit of my mid-rise lift. I’d likely need to do the whole thing on the garage floor, which, at age 65 with back issues, didn’t sound like a lot of fun.

I still do essentially all my own work, but I realize that there are times when you need to, as they say, just pay the man (or woman). Was this one of those times? I wasn’t sure. It drives me crazy when I’m put in a situation where I need to pay someone 10 times what it would cost for me to do something myself.

I looked on RockAuto (you gotta love RockAuto) and found that there are several well-priced aftermarket cat-back exhausts available for the Armada, two of which are less than $200 shipped to my house. The question was the slippery slope of that secondary catalytic converter’s paper-thin rear-facing flange. Since I don’t weld, if that flange broke or wouldn’t seal, I’d need to replace that cat. I wanted to know what the cat’s front flange looked like (where it mates with the primary cat), but I couldn’t get under the car, so I stuffed my phone under and shot some pics. What I saw was concerning. The idea of a minor exhaust repair potentially cascading into replacing two catalytic converters made me want to consider my next steps very carefully.

What’s a Hack Mechanic to do? Tune in next week in find out.

***

Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Exhaust Problem (Part 1) appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Read all the books you want. Watch all the TV shows and YouTube mechanic videos that have ever been filmed. Sit and have a conversation with everyone who has turned a wrench. You still won’t be a mechanic, because practice and experience cannot be taught.

When younger enthusiasts recount certain adventures (or misadventures) to those with a few more years in the hobby, the seasoned folks will nod along. A mechanic’s rites of passage often need no explaining; by definition, these experiences have become universally accepted as ones that you must encounter and conquer to become proficient.

Which of these 11 rites of passage have you experienced, and which do you think changed you the most?

Rite of Passage #1: Roadside repair with makeshift parts

Whether on the road or in the shop, there comes a time when what you have is all you’ve got, and what you have just needs to work. Gaskets cut out of beer packaging, throttle cables made of shoestrings, or bailing wire on a part or piece that should be properly connected, but isn’t … If you understand a system well enough to engineer a functional fix on the fly, you truly understand how that system works.

Rite of Passage #2: Busted knuckles

You know the bolt is about to break free, so you give it a little extra oomph—and slam your hand into something. Usually, that something is heavy, rusty, or sharp … possibly, all three. Keep a record of your last tetanus shot handy, and know that we’ve all been there. Pulling towards yourself is often safer, except when it comes to cutting tools or other sharp implements.

Rite of Passage #3: Trapped tools

The order of operations during disassembly and assembly is important—but you’ve got to pay attention to your tools, too. We’ve all been in situations when the excitement of a bolt coming loose makes us forget the limited space we’re working with, and suddenly our wrench is trapped between a bolt and a hard place.

Rite of Passage #4: Broken hardware

When a bolt chooses to Marie Antoinette itself, or threads stretch past the plasticity point and become unusable, progress can get tough. The fact of the matter is that rookies are more likely to break hardware, but there is a bit of a bell curve: As you tackle more and more projects, the quality of your work often rises; and then, as you gain confidence to handle the problems you now expect to encounter, the quality of your work tends to dip. Learning new methods for dealing with broken and stuck hardware is a never-ending quest for any wrench, green or seasoned.

Rite of Passage #5: Buying the shop manual

Just about everyone went through a phase when they felt as though they knew everything. Most advance out of such a state to understand that, even with everything they know, the shop manual knows more. Learning just how important and helpful a shop manual can be is often a freeing experience: Buying one is the first step to being self-sufficient because it allows you to solve problems without calling in experts or endlessly searching the web.

Rite of Passage #6: Disappearing parts

How else are you going to learn to organize your shop if you never experience the mildly panicked search for something you sat down right there? Everyone who ever gave you advice about doing DIY work probably told you to bag and tag parts and hardware, but most of us had to learn the benefits of organization the hard way to truly understand them.

Rite of Passage #7: Endless parts search

You saw that cool hunk of metal on the side of the road and just had to have it. Now you got it home and are excited to get to work and … Wait, there are no parts available for this? Sometimes the coolest models are the ones with the most problems and buying one that needs everything without realizing none of the parts exists is the gearhead’s version of falling in love with a crazy person: You often can’t give them what they need, and if you try, you’re going to be doing a lot of work (and probably spending a lot of money).

Rite of Passage #8: First rebuilt engine start-up

The thrum of a well-tuned engine is magnificent, but the stutter and cough of one chugging to life for the first time is even more enthralling. Was everything assembled correctly? Was anything forgotten? How is the combination of parts you chose going to work together? It all becomes clear with the first touch of the key. Weathering that storm of nerves is an experience unlike any other.

Rite of Passage #9: Ruined clothes

It was supposed to be a quick, clean job. Now that pair of jeans that used to be nice is stained with oil. (The situation is even worse if you’ve just ruined a pair of pants that your significant other specifically told you not to wear in the garage.) Typically when doing DIY work you dress to protect, not to impress. Hubris may protest, calling that an obvious truth, but the drawer of “work clothes” indicates we occasionally need a reminder.

Rite of Passage #10: Inclement weather moving in

Having a garage is a luxury that some of us take for granted. Most of us started by working on whatever we had wherever we could: Laying on our backs in gravel driveways, sitting cross-legged on the dirt of the back yard, or even leaning over core supports on the side of the street. If the sun was shining when you started work, your lack of protection from the elements becomes obvious as the clouds gather and the wind picks up. Being soaking wet, cold, and/or dirty while trying to assemble or diagnose your car is not fun, but we all must experience this misery to truly appreciate mild weather and good shelter.

Rite of Passage #11: Fixing what is not broken

The excitement to work on a project is sometimes so great that it must be satiated—even when there is work that needs to be done. I personally recall my father giving me the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” speech while in my early teens; I had just made a mess of the garage floor taking apart something that had worked when I started and, more than likely, would never work correctly again. Poor thing.

Do you have to go through all of these to be a decent mechanic? Of course not, but many of us have experienced most, if not all, of these and more. Think we missed a rite of passage that changed you? Let us know about it in the comments below.

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Today’s automobiles don’t require regular tune-ups like the cars of yore once needed. The electronic sensors and computers that regulate spark, timing, and fuel mixture are not maintenance items, although they do have to be replaced if they fail. And in today’s engines, spark plugs operate well for 100,000 miles or more. There are still filters to be replaced and components to be checked, but modern maintenance procedures are far different than what we old-timers remember.

Older cars need more attention on a more frequent basis. A typical owner’s manual for a 1950s car calls for a 10,000-mile that includes swapping out spark plugs, replacing points and condenser, and checking the carburetor idle mixture and ignition timing. In addition, recommended maintenance calls for oil changes every 2000 miles and regular lubrication of numerous components in the engine and chassis. With an older classic or an ancient beater, regular maintenance of ignition parts and filters is critical to smooth running and adequate power. Let’s walk through the process together.

Step 1: Swap out the spark plugs

To replace the spark plugs, carefully remove the plug wires and their insulating boots from each plug. If you think you’re not going to be able to tell which wire belongs to which plug, tag the wires. Inspect them: If you see deterioration of the insulating boots, or severe burns or cracking of the cables, replace them. Likewise, if the cables’ contacts are corroded to the point where they can’t be cleaned, replace the wires.

To remove the spark plugs, you’ll need a 3/8-inch drive ratchet and a spark plug socket. In most cases, a short extension allows better access. A ratchet with a flex head that can rotate to different angles can be helpful. A 5/8-inch or 16-mm hex socket will fit many plugs. Some Fords use plugs with a 9/16th-inch hex. A few European and Asian vehicles use 14mm plugs, and there are a few applications that use plugs with a 7/8-inch, 3/4-inch, or 18-mm hex. Most older American cars are fitted with plugs that have a 13/16-inch hex.

Some BMWs are equipped with plugs that require a thin-wall, 12-point, 14-mm socket for removal. Check the specs for your car before purchasing a tool.

Once the spark plug is fully loosened, extract the magnet or a rubber sleeve inside that grips the plug (most cars have one or the other). On many cars, that combination of ratchet, socket, and short extension is all you’ll need, but on some models, it may not allow you to access all the plugs. My ’55 Chevy V-8 is equipped with a combination generator/power steering pump, and some left-bank plugs are best serviced from under the car with a 13/16-inch open-end wrench.

Before installing the new plugs, inspect them for damaged insulators or bent electrodes, then set the gap between the inner and outer electrodes. For most older vehicles with coil ignition, a gap of 0.025 inches is generally recommended. For even older vehicles with magneto ignition, the gap should be set to 0.020 inches. You can use a conventional feeler gauge to set the gap, but a round wire gauge is better. I have a tool that consists of a calibrated ramp of gradually increasing thickness. By sliding the plug along the ramp, the gap is easily measured. Your auto parts counterman may stock gapping tools as giveaway items. At the very least, they are inexpensive.

If you have to change the gap, carefully bend the outer electrode with needle-nose pliers or with the slot on the gapping tool. Don’t bang the electrode against a hard surface: You might crack the insulator, which can cause a short.

Some plugs come with the metal gasket installed. On others, you have to work it on over the threaded end. Place a small amount of dielectric grease on the plug threads and install them. Tighten moderately. If space permits the use of a torque wrench, torque them to 25 pounds. If you can’t use a torque wrench, screw the plugs in by hand until they seat, then tighten another half-turn with your wrench. It’s always best to start them by hand; there’s nothing like a cross-threaded spark plug to ruin your day.

Step 2: Service the distributor

The replacement and adjustment of distributor parts is fairly easy on many cars, as the distributor is mounted at either the side or at the front of the engine. Except on my ’55 Bel Air, in which the distributor at the rear of the engine and snug up against the firewall. One must either have really long arms or lie atop the engine to reach it.

On some cars, the distributor cap can be removed with the spark plug wires attached. On my old Chevy that’s near impossible, as the wires are routed behind the engine, and there’s not much room for maneuvering. In any case, you’ll want to remove the wires from the cap at some point to check for corrosion or other damage. I mark the position of the number one cylinder’s wire in the cap, then pull all the wires out of the cap, wiggling each a bit as I tug on them so as not to damage the wire terminals. Armed with the firing order (1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 for my Chevy) and the rotation (clockwise), it is easy to reinstall them correctly. But because the wires disappear behind the engine and under the exhaust manifolds before they arrive at the spark plugs, I number them as well, wrapping a short piece of masking tape with the cylinder number written on it around each wire.

After removing the distributor cap, have a look inside. There you’ll see contacts that distribute voltage to the spark plugs for each of the cylinders. For example, the cap for an eight-cylinder engine has eight contacts evenly spaced within the circumference of the cap. If the contacts are badly corroded or if the cap is damaged, they should be replaced. The contacts will likely be mildly corroded. In that case, clean them with a small, sharp knife or similar tool.

Remove the rotor from the top of the distributor shaft. Check for corrosion on the conductor at the rotor’s outer edge. Mild corrosion can be removed with an emory cloth or small file. Severe corrosion that has caused pitting or loss of material is grounds for replacement.

Within the distributor, you’ll find the breaker points and condenser attached to the breaker plate with screws. While old-time service manuals suggest that points can be cleaned and readjusted if they are in fairly good condition, I replace them if I’ve already dug in this deep. Many distributor parts for older cars are still available from standard aftermarket sources, even for cars that are 70 or more years old. And they’re generally not very expensive: Breaker points for my ’55 Chevy, as listed in the East Coast Chevy parts catalog, sell for $15.00. Other distributor parts are equally inexpensive.

Ignition parts for less common cars may be harder to find. But suppliers who specialize in servicing classics and exotics should have them. Of course, you may pay considerably more. Ignition points for a Ferrari 250 GTO are $53.50 from awitalian.com.

The breaker points are attached to the distributor breaker plate with one or two screws. You might also find an eccentric adjusting screw that can close or open the point gap when it’s turned with the locking screw loosened. Be careful removing the screws, as they’re small and it’s easy to drop them.

On most systems, the condenser is wired to the breaker points via a screw terminal and is held in a bracket that is attached to the breaker plate with one screw. The points and condenser can usually be removed together.

Before installing new points and condenser, apply a very small amount of dielectric grease to the distributor shaft cam. Install the points and condenser. Some points are adjusted with a slotted screw hole in the breaker point assembly that enables adjustment of the installation position. The points on most 1957 to 1974 GM cars are adjusted using an 1/8-inch Allen socket adjustment screw that can be accessed with the distributor cap removed, or through a sliding metal window in the cap. Thus, on these models, final adjustment of the points can be completed with a dwell meter after reassembly. But whichever type of breaker point adjustment you’re dealing with, it’s important to set the air gap before buttoning things up, even if you intend to fine-tune the adjustment with a dwell meter after starting the car.

The breaker points are fitted with a cam follower that rides on the distributor cam. To adjust the air gap, crank the engine until the cam follower is on a peak of the cam. Then adjust the gap to 0.015 inches by moving the breaker point assembly in or out before tightening the screw or screws that lock it in place. On those GM cars with the Allen adjustment, just turn the Allen screw until the correct air gap is achieved.

Install the rotor, cap, and plug wires. Then, if you have a dwell meter, attach its black lead to ground and its green lead to the negative terminal on the coil or as directed by the instructions for your meter. Dwell is the number of degrees of rotation that the points remain closed. Start the engine. You should see a reading of about 30 degrees dwell for V-8 engines. A degree or two in either direction is okay. A six- or four-cylinder engine will be happiest with a couple of degrees more dwell.

If dwell is not correct, you will have to readjust the points. If you are working on a ’57 to ’74 GM car, you can adjust the dwell while the engine is running by turning the 1/8-inch Allen screw, accessed through the metal shutter in the distributor cap. For most other cars, remove the distributor cap and readjust the air gap, moving the breaker point assembly closer to the cam for less dwell and further away from the cam for more dwell. If dwell bounces around more than a degree or two, the distributor shaft bearings are probably worn, and the distributor should be replaced.

Step 3: Check ignition timing

After installing new points, a check of ignition timing is necessary. Attach your timing light inductive lead to the number one spark-plug wire, and attach its black and red power leads to positive and negative contacts. Disconnect the vacuum advance and plug the vacuum line. On most cars, there will be a line on the harmonic balancer that indicates top dead center (TDC) for the number one cylinder. Behind the harmonic balancer, on the engine, there will be a degree scale. With timing light attached and engine running, aim that line at the degree scale. The flashing light will indicate how many degrees before top dead center the plug is firing. The spec for my Chevy is 8 degrees before top dead center (BTDC), which is indicated by four lines on the scale. With today’s higher octane fuels, I set it to 10 degrees BTDC.

Step 4: Replace filters

At minimum, your car probably has filters for air, oil, and fuel. Of course you should change your oil filter every time you change your oil. And for a classic car that is driven infrequently, oil change intervals should be 2000 miles or every two years.

Fuel filter intervals vary widely by filter type, and many classic owners who don’t put many miles on their car may never have to change it. But a good rule of thumb calls for replacing the fuel filter after 20,000 miles of driving.

Air filters made of paper or synthetic material should last at least 20,000 miles. Oil bath filters, like that on my ’55 Chevy, should be cleaned and refilled with oil at tune-up time. But the filter housing oil level should be checked every 1000 miles or so. I clean the wire mesh element of the oil bath in a solvent bucket and then blow it out gently with the air gun. I then douse the element with SAE 50 engine oil and fill the reservoir to the full indicator mark with the same oil. If temperatures are expected to remain below freezing for an extended time, I use SAE 20 oil. When servicing the oil bath air cleaner, I cover the areas of the engine around the carburetor with plastic drop cloths, because drips are inevitable.

Step 5: Adjust idle mixture

Before 1980 or so, carburetor idle mixture adjustment was an important part of a tuneup. Begin by setting the idle rpm using the adjustment screw on the carburetor throttle linkage. For my old ’55, GM recommends setting the rpm to 450 rpm. If you have a dwell meter, it probably doubles as a tachometer. A vacuum gauge will also be necessary to pinpoint the idle mixture setting.

With the vacuum gauge attached to a manifold vacuum port, turn the idle mix screw gradually in clockwise and/or counterclockwise direction until you find the spot where rpm peaks and the vacuum reading is highest. If that increases the idle rpm above the spec for your car (or what you’re comfortable with in terms of vehicle creep and smooth idle), reset the idle speed via the idle speed screw on the throttle linkage, and then recheck the mixture adjustment. If you’re unable to detect any difference in engine performance as a result of this procedure, you may have a vacuum leak or a bad carburetor.

If you don’t have a tachometer or vacuum gauge, you can probably get a good approximate idle mixture setting just by adjusting for what your ears tell you is the maximum engine speed. A lot of old timers set idle mix strictly by ear, made possible through lots of experience.

In every case, lots of experience is a mechanic’s best friend.

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At 32 by 24 feet, my garage is not huge, but it is certainly big enough to work on fun toys and stash away projects. The line between workshop and storage facility can be a tough one to walk, and lately the hoarding portion of my brain has been winning the battle between making progress on projects and accumulating stuff.

After successfully balancing storage and workspace for three years, I found myself at a breaking point. I went out to the garage on a Saturday morning, hot coffee in hand, ready to work on something. I was greeted by the reality that, no matter what project I wanted to work on, I needed to rearrange some pile of stuff in order to get started on it. All three work surfaces—48 square feet of space—were covered.

Having to shuffle junk to get work done was such a buzzkill that I did little more than pick up something, fiddle with it for a minute, and go back inside the house. The proverbial parking lot was full, the fire lane was occupied, and somehow there was even stuff parked on top. There was no more space to store things, which meant there was no more space to work on things.

This situation demanded that I purge all of my spare motorcycle parts. The stacks of metal and plastic had no real organization. Each bin was labeled “parts.” Just about every Honda XR that has crossed the threshold into this space has been partially, if not fully, disassembled. Some got put back together. For a long time any XR bit that I deemed “usable” I put on a shelf. After three years in this shop, it was time to re-evaluate my definition of what should be saved.

Everything that I had so carefully stacked on a shelf I pulled out and laid on the floor, where each part was inspected, wiped down, and finally sorted before going back onto the shelf—or into the discard pile. The sad reality of the task was learning just how much straight-up junk I was keeping. Why did I need three sets of bent-up foot pegs? Or two frayed clutch cables? Multiple sets of bent handlebars?

My system of storing parts was all wrong. A parts stash should not be a repository of anything that can be useful; it needs to be full of things that are worth storing. With great care I had assembled the perfect place to work on projects and then used it to store scrap metal.

It was a game of keeping the best and culling the rest. I have a few rare pieces and a few valuable ones, and even a couple that are both. I am oddly chuffed about my collection of cylinder heads, so I stored those carefully under the workbench. While most of the bent-up footpeg pile went into the scrap bin for recycling, I kept the best pair because I expect to do a restoration one day and I’m gambling that OEM pegs might be hard to find by then. (Only need one pair, though.) Anything I knew to be OEM-correct and of restoration quality I retained. Dozens of cables became a few good spares that could be used for test fitment or to allow a project to limp along until a new cable arrived in the mail—they are only $8 and still in mass production. The used countershaft sprockets felt so good to expunge that I can’t believe I ever held onto them at all.

Now that I’ve confronted my excess junk, all my projects will progress. The feeling is sublime: A clean workspace primed and ready to take advantage of any spare time I can find. Without the need to clean a spot before being productive, 30 minutes of work is actually 30 minutes of work, not 15 minutes of shuffling and 15 minutes of work. All that time adds up, but if you had told me I could find more time to work on projects by taking out the trash, I’d have called you crazy. Now I know it was me that was crazy. What was my plan for those worn-out rear sprockets, anyway?

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One of the topics I get asked about and over is the “My car won’t start” question. At this point in my life, I have my family pretty well programmed to not say “it won’t start” and to instead give the much more descriptive “it won’t crank” or “it cranks but it won’t start,” as such information is absolutely key to a diagnosis, particularly a remote one. I thought that, on this cold New England winter day, I’d lay out the basic car-won’t-start troubleshooting procedure.

A car needs three things to start: The battery needs to spin the starter motor, the fuel/air mixture must get sucked into the engine, and the spark plugs need to fire. Yes, the engine also needs compression and the ignition has to be timed at least in the ball park, but if the car was starting yesterday and it’s not today, the odds are it’s not due to those last two.

Let’s begin with the battery and the starter motor. The starter has two components—the starter motor itself, and the solenoid, which is an electrical relay that allows you to crank the engine without sending hundreds of amps through the steering column and ignition switch. The solenoid also has a little plunger inside it with a gear at the end that connects the starter to the gear on the outer edge of the flywheel, causing the engine to spin. For electrical connections, the solenoid has a long fat cable that’s directly connected to the positive battery terminal, and a short braided cable connected to the starter motor. The starter/solenoid are grounded by the fact that they’re mounted directly to the grounded engine, either directly to the negative battery terminal or indirectly via chassis ground. When the solenoid receives 12V from the ignition switch, it closes its internal contacts, allowing current to flow through the short braided cable to the starter motor and spin the engine. So if turning the key doesn’t spin the engine, the fault is either in the battery, the starter, the solenoid, the ignition switch, or the wiring between the switch and the solenoid.

By far the most common cause for the starter not spinning the engine, or spinning it too slowly for it to start, is a weak or dead battery. If you turn the key and hear CLICK but there’s little or no engine cranking, that means the battery has enough charge to energize the solenoid, close its internal contacts, and move the plunger/gear moving forward, but not enough for the starter to spin the engine.

The first thing to do is check the battery voltage. Take a multimeter set to measure voltage (and if you don’t own a multimeter, just go buy one; auto-ranging meters can be had for $20 on Amazon), put the red and black leads across the positive and negative battery terminals and see if it reads the 12.6 volts that a fully-charged battery should have. As a rough rule of thumb, for every 0.2 volts the battery drops, the charge is down 25 percent, so by the time it’s under 12 volts, it’s essentially discharged, at least as far as the ability to spin the engine quickly. And if it’s down into the single volts, it’s deeply discharged. Now, it is possible for a just-recharged battery to read 12.6 volts and not be able to deliver sufficient cranking amps to spin the engine, but the best way to think about checking battery voltage is that if you find it’s low, you’ve found the source of the car-won’t-start problem.

If the battery voltage is fine but you turn the key and hear absolutely nothing, or hear one click and then nothing, and if none of the electrical systems in the car are working at all or are barely working (if, for example, the dome light is dim), the problem could be that the battery posts and the clamps at the ends of the battery cables are corroded enough to prevent good contact from being made. So before you pony up the $150+ it takes these days to buy a new battery, clean the posts and clamps with a battery post cleaner and try again. Also be certain to check the ground connections from the negative battery terminal to both the engine block and chassis. If one of these ground connections fails, electricity is forced to take the path through the other one, which can cause a no-crank condition.

If the posts are clean and the ground paths are good but even once the battery is recharged it still won’t crank the car, or only does so for a short amount of time, you can use a battery analyzer that use resistance as a measure of battery health. I’ve found they work pretty well. But really the gold-standard test is to remove the old battery, clean the clamps, and install a new or a known-good battery. If the car then cranks and starts, the battery was the problem. Note that, particularly in winter, due to low temperatures sapping battery strength and corrosion on the battery terminals causing high resistance in the contact with the jaws on the jumper cables, the failure of a car to crank with a jump-start can be highly misleading. Time after time I’ve experienced no-crank conditions that vanished immediately when a good battery was dropped directly into the car.

If the battery is dead, it’s crucially important that you figure out why it’s dead. If it’s winter, the battery is five years old, and the terminals are a corroded mess, then odds are that the battery has simply reached the end of its useful life. But if the battery is recent and it keeps running down to the point where it won’t crank the engine, something is making that happen. The cause can be that the car’s charging system (the alternator and voltage regulator and the wiring connecting them to the battery) isn’t working. As I say over and over, the resting voltage of a car battery is 12.6V, but with the engine running, it should increase by about 1–1.5V to between about 13.5–14.2V. So if you start the car, check the battery voltage, and still see 12.6V, the battery isn’t being recharged while you drive, so it will die on you again.

Other things causing a battery to drain can be that you’re leaving something on without knowing it, such as a trunk light or a power antenna. Or it can be a so-called parasitic drain where something subtle in the car is sucking power. Parasitic drains can be maddening. If the problem rears its head when the car hasn’t been driven for a week, sometimes the easiest thing is simply to install a battery disconnect switch, flip it off when you park the car in your driveway, and flip it on when you need to use the car.

If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the battery and its connections are good and you hear no CLICK when you turn the key, odds are that the solenoid isn’t receiving voltage from the ignition switch. You can trouble-shoot this in two ways. You can use a multimeter to check for voltage on the quick-connect tab of the solenoid when the key is turned to the crank position. If there’s not voltage there, the ignition switch, or the wiring between it and the solenoid, is suspect. If the car has an automatic transmission, there may be a problem in the lock-out switch that allows the engine to be cranked only if the selector is in the park position.

The other way to check the solenoid is to make a jumper wire with a quick-connect connector on one end, slide it onto the tab on the solenoid, and—after you set the handbrake and make sure the car isn’t in gear—touch the other end to battery positive. If that doesn’t cause the solenoid to click, then either the solenoid is bad or there’s not a ground path between the solenoid and the battery. If the solenoid clicks but the starter doesn’t spin, then either the starter is bad or the positive and negative current paths are corroded. Note that bypassing the ignition like this and feeding 12V directly to the solenoid is exactly what you’re doing when you use one of those trigger-style remote starter switches. Note also that there’s an old-school technique where, instead of using a jumper wire, you take a long screwdriver, touch the tip to the starter’s heavy-duty positive post, and lean it against the solenoid terminal to fire it. I strongly advise not doing this, as it’s way too easy for the screwdriver to slip and short to ground. A jumper wire accomplishes the same thing and is much safer.

If you’re certain that the battery and the current paths are good, and the starter won’t spin or sounds labored, and it’s hot to the touch, odds are that the starter has reached the end of the line. Once you have the starter out of the car, you can test it just to be certain by using jumper cables to connect the fat positive post and any convenient point on the case to a battery, and touching the post on the solenoid to battery positive. Make sure, though, to stand on it, as when it starts to spin, it’ll jump around.

Now that you have the engine cranking, if the car still doesn’t start, you have to deal with fuel and spark. While it’s possible for an engine to have both fuel and spark and still not start, odds are strong that a crank-but-no-start condition is caused by one of them. Let’s deal with spark first.

On an old-school vintage car with a single ignition coil feeding a distributor and plug wires going to the spark plugs at each cylinder, it’s a simple matter to pull the center wire out of the distributor cap, hold it ¼-inch from ground with insulated pliers, and have someone crank the engine while you check for spark. If you see it, then the coil is firing and high voltage is going to the distributor. Do the same test with a plug wire. If there’s spark going into the distributor but none reaching the spark plugs, the problem is in the cap or the rotor. If there’s no spark at all from the coil, odds are that the points have closed up, the condenser isn’t grounded, or one of the wires has come off the coil. There’s really not much to vintage ignition systems, and no-spark problems can always be solved via replacement of components with known-good ones. Suspect the points and the connections first, then the condenser, and the coil last.

On modern cars, it’s much more difficult to directly check for spark. Instead of having a single ignition coil feeding a distributor with exposed plug wires, most cars since the mid-1990s have had a coil-on-plug design (also called “stick coils”) where individual coils sit directly on top of the spark plugs in a recess in the head, so there’s no easy way to directly verify spark. While any number of things can cause a no-spark condition, a likely suspect is the crankshaft position sensor, as without that fiducial, the car’s ECU doesn’t know when to fire the plugs. If it goes bad, hopefully it’ll throw a code that can be read with a scan tool.

If you have spark but the car still won’t start, odds are it’s a fuel delivery issue. A quick and easy test is to take a can of starting fluid and give a blast down the throat of the carb with the throttles open, or in a fuel-injected car, into the throttle body. If the car starts, runs for a few seconds, then dies, you’ve nailed it as a fuel-delivery problem. The time-tested method is, with a fire extinguisher at the ready, to disconnect the fuel line heading into the carburetor and put the end into a clear bottle while cranking the engine. Sometimes you find a bad fuel pump, sometimes you find that a porous gas line is causing air to get sucked instead of fuel, and sometimes you find that the gas tank is full of rust and is clogging up the filter. You need to step through it, back to front, and find the problem.

On a fuel-injected car, care must be taken because the fuel pressures are much higher, but depending on the age of the car, you may still be able to disconnect the fuel line from the fuel rail, energize the fuel pump by cranking the engine, and verify that fuel is squirting out. At some point, though, most fuel-injected cars switched over from simple rubber hoses and hose clamps to dedicated fittings with crimp-on connectors, and instead of putting the hose end in a bottle, it may be necessary to use a fuel pressure gauge with the proper fitting to screw into the test port on the fuel rail. If there’s no pressure, then the fuel pump isn’t running. The problem could be in the pump or the relay that controls it. An enthusiast forum will usually have information on the location of the relay, enabling you to jumper over it (connect pin 30 to pin 87). If that doesn’t bring things to life, the fuel pump itself probably needs to be replaced or at least troubleshot to see if an in-tank hose has fallen off it.

If temperatures are cold and the engine cranks and has both gas and spark but it still won’t start, it’s likely an issue in the cold-start circuit. On a carburetor, this is the choke. The choke plates should rotate closed over the top of the carb, and the carb linkage should settle on the fast-idle cam so the throttle plates are partially open. On a primitive electronically fuel-injected car, there’s usually a cold-start injector in the throttle body that opens up to squirt fuel while the engine is cranking and for some short amount of time afterward. For troubleshooting reasons, it’s fairly common practice to either wire these to a little push-button switch or to connect them directly to the starter solenoid so you know they’re receiving voltage during cranking.

There, that’s most of it.

But don’t message me saying “HELP! My car won’t start!” I hate that. If I can train my wife and kids, I can train you.

***

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A great number of words have been spilt over the years regarding tools and their use. The utility of objects can be amazing at times. Yet even the greatest tool known to man is borderline useless if you can’t find it, it’s broken, or you have to spend more time digging it out from under other things than actually using it. Enter the toolbox. It’s a humble box of drawers and slides that keeps our beloved tools safe from harm or kidnapping.

It’s also typically the last thing any of us think about. The tools inside are critically important but the thing holding them is merely a cabinet to most casual viewers. It is more than that though, and out of respect for one of the hardest-working non-tool objects in the garage here are some toolbox tune-up tips.

Toolbox Tip #1: Empty out and clean every few years

Sometimes it makes sense to have a bunch of seemingly random stuff in your toolbox. Most of the time it doesn’t. Depending on who you are, how you work, and what you work on, it might be smart to go ahead and make the rule that the only thing that lives in your toolbox is. . . tools.

I say this because I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to finding homes for things I don’t need to be keeping. That includes stuffing any number of trinkets and doo-dads into my toolbox. All of those things inevitably get in the way when I am trying to actually work. As a hobbyist and not a professional mechanic this small amount of time doesn’t amount to much time lost, but dealing with minor inconveniences can stack up and sap some of the joy out of working on your projects.

Toolbox Tip #2: Lube the drawer slides

This only takes a minute with a can of aerosol lubricant to make sure your drawers continue to work like new for years to come. We ask drawers to carry a lot of weight and older slides can use the help to make sure they are not sticking or grinding chunks of dirt or debris into the delicate parts. Extend the slides out fully, blow them off with canned air or an air nozzle, then give them a light spray with a silicone or dry-film lubricant. Grease or oil-based lubes will likely just attract dust so be careful what you grab out of the chemical cabinet.

Toolbox Tip #3: Label the drawers

Most of us have kept everything in the same place for decades but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to have reminders from time to time of where that thing you are looking for is. I’ve personally also found that sometimes the brain gets to thinking about something and that one-track mind forgets other tool options I might have that could do a job better. That whole out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing can cost you sometimes.

Labels also allow helpers to assist more easily—both in getting and returning tools. Who doesn’t like the thought of their helper actually assisting with cleanup? If they know where things go, it won’t be just a pile on top of the box.

Toolbox Tip #4: Add power for a charging drawer

We are getting a little luxurious here but stay with us. Battery tools are more popular than ever, and that means chargers are cluttering up our workspace. With a little planning, it is often possible to snake a short extension cord into a drawer via the side or back, which allows the charger to hide inside. Kits featuring motion-rated cables and outlets exist and can be had for reasonable money considering the space they can free up in and around your toolbox. Of course, always monitor charging batteries to lower fire risk.

Toolbox Tip #5: Keep (or make) it mobile

Nothing is more annoying than working on a project that only fits on the other side of your workspace from where your tools are. A rolling cart is a good option, but the ability to roll your entire toolset right to where you need it can be extremely nice. Adding wheels to a toolbox you already own might get clunky, but it is often worth it. Just be sure to use casters appropriate for the weight of a toolbox. Most toolboxes come with wheels but it is always tempting to build or stash them into a corner. Keeping the ability to move your toolbox allows for easily creating ideal working conditions or at least allowing easy reorganization and cleaning of your space.

Toolbox Tip #6: Let it evolve

It’s cool to still have the same box after decades in the garage, but don’t let nostalgia cloud your sanity. What lives where inside or even the toolbox itself is not sacred and replacing or reorganizing can greatly benefit your functionality and productivity. Switching to a larger box that allows better access to the tools you use most elevates your working experience more than most other tool investments. After all, regardless of which tool you are reaching for it is likely inside your toolbox. Before you can use any tools, you have to use your toolbox.

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The evolution of the automobile has been non-stop from the moment Karl Benz first threw the flywheel ’round on his Patent Motorwagen. The technology, process, and tools needed to keep cars running have evolved from the adjustable spanners and flat head screwdrivers to complex, hyper-specific specialized tools that spend more time laying in toolbox drawers than being used. Some old tools have stood the test of time while others have faded from common use.

We are tool hoarders ourselves, and objects designed for utility that are still functional will always have a place in our box but it is interesting to look into the corners of the toolbox and see what tools are getting less and less use over the years. Whether due to an improved design usurping the use of an older tool, or the task a specialty tool was design for becoming less popular due to car construction and use changing, tools evolve as quickly—if not more—than the car itself. Here are seven examples of tools that are no longer the toolbox staples they once were—for better or worse.

Bumper jacks

In a world of bumper covers, the thought of attaching a lifting mechanism to the exterior of your car and using it to lift the vehicle is some type of strange fever dream. It wasn’t always that way though. Flat tires have been around longer than the automobile and the need to pick up the car followed right along. Bumper jacks are good in concept but the lack of any safety catch or stabilization to keep from tipping over makes them treacherous to use. They still have utility in off-road situations but that can also make use even more dangerous.

Verdict: Keep as a reminder of how far we’ve come.

Brake pliers

Somehow in the history of cars, there have been just two types of brakes commonly found behind the wheels: Drum or disc. Drum brakes can provide all the stopping power needed while also wearing like iron thanks to the enclosed and thus relatively debris-free nature of the design. That same design also has a handful of tension springs stretched carefully over small studs that can be serviced with groove-joint pliers and a screwdriver, but there are also brake pliers that rose and slipped from popularity right alongside drum brakes.

With modern materials and the relatively limited use of drum-brake cars, servicing drums has gotten less common to the point that while special tools can make the job easier it is only marginal and certainly not required.

Verdict: Keep them if you’ve got them but can likely pass if building your toolkit.

Growler

We aren’t talking about that curmudgeon of a mechanic who seems to only communicate in grunts and growls as the ratchet clicks to remove parts. No, the growler here is used to test the windings of a motor or generator. The armature is placed on a bed that flows alternating current into the windings. Using a ferrous rod to locate the magnetic field that will be created by a short makes for easy diagnostics. The price drop that came with the mass production and parts sharing between various models relegated these to hobby benches or the back room of specialist shops. Since rebuilding motors or alternators has become rare, these are practically a novelty.

Verdict: Keep if you’ve got the space, but often these find problems that are difficult to source parts to fix.

Vernier caliper

The increase in affordable precision has been quiet but amazing for at-home DIY projects. Good precision measuring devices used to be limited to the hands of skilled technicians and specialists in machine and fabrication shops. It took skill and training to properly use and read items like the vernier scale on calipers used in fabrication and precision machine work. Then digital calipers entered the market and the prices dropped year after year to the point that now a set of calipers accurate enough for most home use can be had for under $50.

Verdict: Use what you like and what works best for you. Regardless of what that is, be sure to keep any and all precision tools stored carefully to prevent damage.

Timing light

When we first wrote about tools that were fading from popularity last year, the comments section lit up with the suggestion that timing lights were left out. It’s been decades since a car rolling off the assembly line featured a tunable distributor, as the ignition is often now controlled by a computer working off data provided by a crankshaft or camshaft position sensor (or both) to control the firing of individual coils for each spark plug and cylinder. Adjusting the timing of the spark in the cylinder is changed with a laptop rather than a wrench and strobe light. Timing lights have been relegated to specialist shops and DIY garages.

Verdict: Keep it if it works, but consider a modern digital light if building a vintage-focused toolset as the features and capability have come a long way since the strobes of old.

Point file

Another from the ignition side of things. Even before computerized ignition was the advent of electronic or non-points-based discharge. Long gone are the days of having to swap a set of points on the side of the road or scratch off the char of the small faces to allow the coil to charge. A points file was handy for if or when a condenser would fail or the points would otherwise get crummy enough to not allow enough current through.

Verdict: If one is already in your glovebox, keep it for nostalgia’s sake and just in case. You never know who it might help.

Brake lathe or shoe arcing machine

Drum brakes often have more swept area compared to disc brakes, but that additional friction material is useless if it is not in contact with the brake surface. The heat retention characteristics of drums can sometimes lead to warping that would previously be cleaned up by “turning” the drums to create a nice concentric surface around the shoes. While drums can still be found on modern cars the drums are often cast so thin that turning them is no longer an option and instead we must skip straight to replacement.

Shoe arcing machines do the same thing as brake lathes but set the radius of the friction material to match that of the drum. It’s critical for good brake performance on some vintage cars but has faded from popularity significantly due to the health concerns of grinding friction materials—especially asbestos.

Verdict: Save if you’ve got the space, or sell to a vintage shop if you don’t. We likely won’t see new versions of these tools made and they so help keep our cars safely going down the road. 

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There are few laws of project cars, but one that is undeniable and rules over every single one of us who enjoys turning wrenches is that there is always more rust than it looks like.

Always.

Rust takes away the ability to enjoy working on a car. It makes routine tasks a battle fought with penetrating oil, heat, and large-caliber impact wrenches. It’s a brutal task to cut out the cancer that is iron oxide once it gets a hold of the steel panels. Leave any rust, and it will only come back faster, spreading like that puddle of oil from the time you forget to put the drain plug back in—slowly, but maliciously.  If you are going to remove rust, you have to remove all of the rust. If you can’t cut it all out, you have to resort to a more involved process: submerging the whole chassis in an acid dip to remove every last oxidized spec.

The idea of dipping cars in large vats of solutions is nearly as old as the car itself. Assembly lines have been using this method to paint unibody chassis structures for decades. In those cases, the end goal of the process is typically additive; there’s more car coming out the other side of the dip than there was going in. Conversely, When you acid dip a car, you’re looking to remove the paints and finishes that were applied to the body during the production paint dip. These chemical baths remove everything, taking the chassis back down to bare metal.

When doing a very detailed restoration you need to get back to the point of totally clean metal. There are multitudes of ways to strip layers of paint, sealers, primers, body filler, or undercoatings that involve abrasives. Pushing abrasives via air or water comes with the side effects of introducing heat and local pressure, which can warp and damage delicate panels, leaving more work than just hand sanding using a random orbital and sandpaper. Instead, all that labor can be put to better use if you let two large containers of chemicals do the work.

The first tank in the acid dip process is an alkaline bath that works to remove the layers of paint and other surface treatments that may be found on an aging car shell. That soak typically lasts a couple of days, and it’s followed by a rinse with a pressure washer to blast off the paint and undercoating. The bath softens and lifts all the paint but takes a couple of soaks to get it ready for the main feature: the acid dip.

If the thought of a large vat of acid is slightly off-putting, know that you are not alone. The tank is filled with phosphoric acid which is not incredibly strong as far as acids are concerned. In concentrations, it can cause burns to the skin, but this is not some vat of liquid where things go to disappear. Instead, the acid is chemically altering the FeO2 of rust to neutralize it. Effectively, it suffocates and kills rust, leaving behind a neutralized surface.

One final quick dip in the alkaline bath is required to make sure that none of the acid continues munching away at the metal from the inside out. Then a soaking with an electrophoretic paint, known as E-coating, seals all that fresh clean metal and sets a surface that can either be prepped for paint or removed with abrasives to make more extensive repairs.

By the end of the process, you know exactly what you have to work with and can be confident that no rust is hiding in the shadows, waiting to come back stronger. Instead, you have a car that can be protected with modern materials and finishes that could last decades with regular use. We like the idea of that.

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Car people dream of winter wonderland conditions for a couple of reasons. Some look forward to holing up in the garage and working on their project car, drinking a warm cup of coffee while reading a great book about road trips, or maybe even planning their next drive when the salt finally washes away. If you are faithful to a brand and not the car itself though, the winter season holds plenty of interesting options that encourage you to make the most of the fluffy power while we have it. Here are four examples of car makers embracing the winter season.

BMW Bobsled

Audi might have climbed the ski jump, but BMW took sliding back down the hill to a new extreme when it partnered with the U.S.A. bobsled team to crate its racing sled. While there might not be an engine, the heavy use of lightweight materials and complex aerodynamics is where the automaker’s knowledge came into play. The Bavarian-designed sleds first went dashing through the snow during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and replaced a 20-year-old platform that Team U.S.A. had previously been using. The top speed was just shy of 80mph at the bottom of the run.

Chrysler Sno-Runner

For those who prefer a more adventurous route down the mountainside rather than a perfectly smooth one, Chrysler has you covered. Well, not technically covered, but at least an option for getting around out in the fluffy snow. The Sno-Runner was born in the late 1970s out of Chrysler’s desperation to make a profit. In 1979, this wild cross-breed between a snowmobile and a minibike was unleashed into the wild.

The narrow rear track is powered by a West Bend two-stroke engine originally produced for chainsaw use. The frame is sealed and holds fuel that is pumped into the cylinder by a type of carburetor rarely found on motor vehicles. A single ski up front makes for interesting handling and the whole operation does not do great with loose, fluffy snow but it stands as an interesting attempt at something different.

Ford’s snowblower

The Sno-Runner was Chrysler trying new things, but Ford has typically been more risk-averse and keen on partnerships. That’s why you could be forgiven if you forgot about the Ford Snowblowers. Some people love to work, or at least love to get out of their driveway in the winter months, and that can often mean clearing your own escape route. Ford was still in the tractor and implement market in the 1970s, but rather than produce everything itself, it decided to re-brand machines built by outfits known for various products. These two-stage snowblowers were produced by Gilson or Jacobson and then painted Ford Blue and branded. They can still be found in the secondhand market today if you are looking for just the right snowblower to match your vintage pickup.

Porsche snow bike

Porsche was a brand born on the Austrian ski slopes as Ferry motored up and down the mountainsides in what would become the 356. The brand evolved over the years and has put the Porsche name on a good number of non-Porsche-built items, but the Avora-Porsche 212 Skibob is one we learned about recently and still has us a little perplexed. The first bicycle with skis instead of wheels was patented before 1900 but it took until the mid-1950s to have an international race of skibobs or snowbikes.

From there it only got weirder. This Porsche-branded skibob is from the 1970s. It’s constructed of molded polyfoam and folds up neatly for transport to and from the slopes. With no brakes, limited suspension, and small skis that attach to your feet to help aid in balance, it sure seems like skibob riding is only for the brave. The handling characteristics of the rear-engined 911 might be interesting, but this is another level entirely.

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Deep in the rustbelt, there exists a place with so much iron oxide that fighting it has become as regular an occurrence as oil changes or tire rotation. This battle has become so routine that the products and creations made to combat the flecks of red and brown began to be exported. PB Blaster is headquartered northwest of the birthplace of American steel in Cleveland and has been helping the everyman wage war on rusty hardware for years. Now one brewery is helping us celebrate victory against rust, or at least have a cold consolation prize as we put our tools away.

Collision Bend Brewing Company might sound like they are more likely to create a “paint-match pilsner” or “insurance estimate ale,” but instead it was head brewer Ben Northeim who created the Loosen Up Lager, which is now all we want in our garage fridge. “B’laster actually reached out to us back in the summer and wanted to make a beer,” said Northiem via email. “How could we say no to doing a collaboration with another Cleveland company?”

If there are characteristics of a garage beer, Loosen up Lager seems to have all of them: Easy drinking, available in a can, and reasonable alcohol by volume (5.2%). Northiem let us know that drinkers can expect tasting notes of toasted bread, caramel, toffee, and a very slight nuttiness. We can now all rejoice that the decision to make it taste like the real PB B’laster was immediately nixed. Of course, PB Blaster is not fit for human consumption, but ask anyone who has been rolling around under a car trying to get exhaust hardware off and they will tell you that they unintentionally discovered exactly what B’laster tastes like.

So we can say with confidence what this doesn’t taste like, but if you want to taste it for yourself, you better act fast. This first batch of Loosen Up Lager is only available for a limited time—very limited according to Northeim. Use Collision Bend Brewery’s website to find your six pack. If you miss out like we likely will, just know that Northiem tipped us off that another round is on the way, but the exact release is under wraps a bit longer.

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Nearly 20 percent of drivers admit to picking their nose in their cars. That admittedly gross statistic (based on a U.K. survey) alludes to a larger truth: We tend to think of our cars as private sanctuaries. Yet technology for self-driving cars, much of it already on the market, threatens to turn that sanctuary into a place of intense and constant observation.

“Imagine a world where every car on the road has multiple cameras filming all at the same time,” said Tifani Sadek, a former GM lawyer who’s now director of the University of Michigan’s Law and Mobility program. “We’ve created a massive surveillance state that just didn’t exist before.”

There are a number of ways in which modern cars can watch us. Exterior cameras (the Tesla Model 3 has eight) survey the road, while interior cameras monitor driver alertness. What those cameras see in many cases gets transmitted and used for further development of autonomous vehicles. For instance, Mobileye, one of the leading suppliers of cameras for vehicles, uses the stream from millions of vehicles for what it calls Road Experience Management—a continually updated map of roads around the world.

The greatest shield for our personal information is the U.S. Constitution. In particular, the Fourth Amendment prevents search and seizure without “probable cause.” However, this right is not absolute. For one thing, a private individual or corporation can simply ask for consent to collect and use information—it’s usually buried in those multipage disclosures we all mindlessly accept. Even without that, a court will ask whether your expectation of privacy was “reasonable.” What exactly qualifies as reasonable depends on several factors, including where you are (in your home, you might reasonably expect a lot of privacy; walking down Times Square, very little) and from whom you want privacy (there’s generally greater protection against government intrusion than from individuals or companies). The standard has also evolved over time. Forty years ago, you’d never expect a company to know or care what photos you looked at or what news stories you read. Nowadays, companies like Google and Facebook monetize such information to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Therein lies a Catch-22: Intrusions into our privacy have a way of lowering the threshold for the next intrusion. “Government and private-industry surveillance techniques created for one purpose are rarely restricted to that purpose, and every expansion of a data bank and every new use for the data opens the door to more and more privacy abuses,” warned the ACLU back in 2001, when it was advocating against traffic-light cameras.

The constant encroachment not only erodes our legal rights but needles us psychologically. We’re already being tracked by our phones and getting eavesdropped on by Alexa. Does it really make that much of a difference if we’re also being watched in our cars?

It very much does, says Sadek, because of how we use our vehicles and, more specifically, whom we put in them. “We have passengers, and we have minors in the car,” she notes. “If I get into an autonomous vehicle that has a camera, it’s watching my kids, too.”

Granted, most companies aren’t out to steal your individual information. Mobileye, for instance, says it scrubs identifying details from its camera footage, not just because doing so is ethical but also because it makes the data easier to transmit and process. The fact that you told your boss you were at home when you were actually driving to a Taylor Swift concert is a boring waste of bandwidth (but beware that if you’re in a company car, your boss might be able to track your location).

Most automakers who operate in the United States have committed to “Consumer Privacy Protection Principles,” a document created by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. Some of those principles are distressingly vague (“Participating Members commit to collecting Covered Information only as needed for legitimate business purposes”) but at the very least reflect a desire to protect privacy beyond the letter of the law. It’s worth acknowledging that real-world driving data has the potential to dramatically improve safety on public roads, as well. Most of us trade privacy for far less. “I know Google is crawling through my emails, and I don’t mind it, because it tipped me off that I’m going to be late due to extra traffic on the road,” says Sadek.

In any event, shutting down the car cameras is likely impossible. It may be more reasonable to expect laws that clarify what kind of information a car (or any technology) can collect from an individual. In many places, such laws already exist. In 2016, the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation, which stipulates an individual’s “fundamental right” to certain levels of data protection from both public entities and private companies. Some U.S. states, like California, have passed similar bills. Given how easy it is for data to cross state lines, the need for federal regulations seems obvious. “We’re trying to read this 200-year-old document to figure out what it means about autonomous vehicles,” says Sadek. “It would be much easier simply to pass some legislation that clearly states what rights you have, and what rights you don’t have.”

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It’s been said a thousand times before, but we will say it again: Engines are just air pumps. The more air and fuel you put in, the more power you get out. Of course, anyone who has played with engines long enough knows there is a point of diminishing returns on the vast majority of engine designs. Rarely, however, do we get a first-hand look at the exact constraints.

Luckily Steve Morris, a noted race-engine builder, isn’t afraid to identify the problems that keep a Ford SOHC 427—one of the hero engines of the 1960s—from making the kind of horsepower we see in today’s high-output powerplants.

The single overhead-cam 427 is one of Ford’s most famous engines, for good reason. Known as the “cammer,” this V-8 was born as a rival to the venerable Chrysler 426 Hemi, which was dominating NASCAR ovals. However, NASCAR didn’t like that manufacturers were building engines that diverged further and further from the ones in street cars, and for 1965, organizers added a provision to the rulebook regarding “special racing engines.” Chrysler sat out the season in protest. Ford, whose SOHC 427 was no longer eligible, pivoted and used the 427 Wedge, which it had been running for a couple years.

The legend of the cammer lived on, thanks to racers in other disciplines who saw its potential. Drag racers embraced the SOHC 427 despite its nearly six-foot-long timing chain, a feature that gives the engine much of its unique character. Another contributing factor: The camshafts, which rotate in the same direction. Their profiles are mirrored side to side, based on how the valves are situated relative to the cam. That orientation is something that causes Steve Morris a lot of headaches as he chases four-figure horsepower.

The geometry of the valvetrain is stuck in the 1960s for sure. Each of the rocker arms has a roller on one side that rides on the camshaft and a pivoting adjustor cap that engages the valve stem. Each arm also contains an oil passage, which will not allow oil to flow if the adjustor is at too much of an angle. Keeping components from over-extending themselves is critical to keep everything slippery. As Steve points out, the oil passages could be reengineered, but that would require a lot of time. Few people are willing to pay for that kind of intricate development in a one-off engine.

The solution is to dial in the length of the valve stem, even after modifying the rocker arms with larger follower wheels. The amount of lift planned for the camshaft has set this whole problem in motion, but that airflow is critical to making the horsepower Steve’s customer desires. He is just lucky that the short-block is more or less the same as other FE engine blocks, without the provisions for lifters. New castings are available, but that doesn’t mean it’s as simple as bolting things together. Steve estimates he must spend over 100 hours mocking up this particular engine before he can begin final assembly. Even at time-lapse speed, the intricacy of the project is obvious.

Overall, this video provides a fascinating look into exactly what it takes to make unique high-performance engines. This engine even got mounted on the dynamometer—before the customer decided they wanted to take the engine home and either take a break or finish the project themselves. Will this SOHC 427 make the big power numbers everyone hopes? We may never know, but we have a new appreciation for just how tough it is to even try.

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Earlier this year, I declared I would not buy any more motorcycles. Now I’m stuck in a deep debate over how many parts can be purchased for a project before they qualify as the purchase of a project. It’s not going well.

New Year’s resolutions are hard. I bet my failure rate is right around the national average of 91 percent. (And yes, I actually looked that up.)

My lust to store one more motorcycle in an already hardworking shop grew so strong that I began to creatively interpret my own rulebook. My desire to build a flat-track racer trumped my resolution to focus on the projects I already have. The compromise is going to be how the project gets done and where I source the pieces. Two simple rules: It’s gotta be cheap and it’s gotta be available.

Each fall I try to go through my storage shelf and mentally catalog exactly what junk is holding my floor to the ground. I don’t have enough storage space to keep everything, and sorting through keeps me from stashing things that truly have zero value.

Several Honda XR250Rs of the late 1980s have come through my garage in the last few years. Three were parts bikes that got broken down and boxed to serve as spares during my first year of racing. Somewhere in there, I accumulated enough spares to build a second race bike. Another dredge through the shelf brought forth a bounty that persuaded me to build a flat-track race bike rather than to sell some of the parts. This type of logic never fails to entertain, does it?

After talking to a few dirt-track racers and looking through spec sheets for aftermarket frames, I realized that the 1986 model year XR250R frame sitting outside next to my scrap pile actually had good enough geometry to be fun to ride and to be competitive in the right venues and classes. The swingarm was under one workbench, along with the triple trees. Forks were leaning in the corner under the coat rack. Rear shock, in a bin on the shelf. That was the bones. Now I just needed … everything else.

The deck could be stacked, though, and for me that meant doing a lot of the mental work up front. Much of it I had already done, because the idea of building a flat-track bike, disc-brake conversion and all, has been rattling around in my head for years. I have drawings and scribbled lists dating back a decade.

Building what I wanted started with defining what I wanted: A racer that fit into a vintage class, had decent parts support, and also allowed me to get creative when building it. A CRF250 or 450 is what I should own, on paper. All the parts I need are a credit-card swipe away. However, my credit card has had a water-cooled kinda last three months, and if building parts and doing things creatively is my goal, then why start with a bolt-together project? No fun in that.

Of course, I started with one of my XR250R frames. Sadly, I only have two on hand and they are both chassis with drum rear brakes. While the drum-brake path is familiar, it’s not ideal for this project. So I am planning a disc-brake conversion, and will use a modern rear wheel for cheaper gearing and rotor options. I can also use take-off calipers and master cylinders, as the pure-bred race stuff is overkill for my skills. I’m not about to say I’m building this bike on a budget, because things will get out of hand at some point, but I’m taking budget into heavy consideration.

The first big sticking point was wheels. For the race tires that I should be running, 19-inch rims are all but necessary. Buying hoops and spokes and lacing my own wheels is not out of the question, but a fellow racer mentioned that building spacers for a modern motocross bike wheel is almost easier than building up a stock hub. Even better, that option would give me a strong wheel with non-custom spokes, as a fair number of modern bikes ship from the factory with 19-inch rear wheels.

I nabbed a CRF450 wheel from eBay for $125. It needs a few spokes and a good cleaning, but it was still hundreds cheaper than the alternative. The front was even cheaper: Adventures with the 1983 Goldwing that haunted my driveway for a few years reminded me that the cast front wheels—known as Comstars—are fairly light and use a 17mm axle diameter, the same as a stock XR250 front axle. I don’t even need to source special bearings, just spend some time on the lathe.

The prospects are exciting, mainly because there are so many parts of this project and plan that I have never tackled before. It is a path that will require me to learn new things. For instance, more complex lathe projects. I know enough to be dangerous, but only enough, so when I realized a lathe project was the first step to getting an idea of how much I would need to lower the suspension, I was a little intimidated. The swing arm pivot is two needle roller bearings pressed in on each side. This put me in the middle of a catch-22. It really makes no sense to install a set of new bearings just to have to pull them out to blast and finish the swing arm, but blasting and finishing the swing arm now is a fool’s errand as fabrication needs to be done on and around the swing arm that would likely ruin the finish anyway. What to do?

Chuck up some aluminum in the lathe, that’s what. Getting the newer rear wheel and older front wheel to fit requires new spacers to properly center the wheels and also adapt the larger 22mm rear wheel bearings to fit the 17mm axle. To learn the process I would need for the wheel spacers, I chose to turn down some spacers that will take the place of the needle bearings in the swing arm. I don’t need smoothly pivoting suspension right now, I just need a bike in roughly one piece. That compromise allowed me to do my first solo project on the lathe, which taught me the basic process and primed me for the next step: building the precision wheel spacers.

Each step of this coming build is a problem I am excited to solve, and that alone all but guarantees my success, because my goal is not to have a fast race bike but to know how to build things. Experience is far more valuable to me than another motorcycle in the garage. That’s how I know this project will get done. Didn’t even need a resolution to know that.

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There are multitudes of odd and interesting things in the automotive-enthusiast universe. One of the more interesting objects belongs to the world of the concours d’elegance: factory-fit toolkits. The cars least likely to need on-the-go maintenance are often the examples most likely to have these desirable kits: for example, concours-bound Ferraris. Marque expert Tom Yang recently posted a video talking through all the finer points of the vintage tools that were meant to keep Maranello’s finest on the road, tools that now are the final touch for examples that rarely see the road.

A factory-fit toolkit recalls a different era of the automobile. Toolkits allowed drivers to solve a problem roadside and limp their vehicle to a safe location. Ironically, the tools in factory kits are often the last ones you would want to use to actually work on your car: The wrenches and pliers were typically built by the car company or sourced as affordably as possible. They rarely display the attention to detail or finish that good tools require. Can’t criticize the automakers too much, though; these tools were meant to be a last resort.

Over the years, these antique toolkits became critical in the Ferrari-judging world. With the rise of concours and exacting restorations, suddenly the tools you thought you’d never need became all you could ever want.

See, top-tier concours judging is based on a points system, with a maximum score of 100. Flaws or incorrect parts earn point deductions. A properly spec’d toolkit accounts for four points of the 100-point total accord to Yang, a man who would know. That means, if you want to reach the top tier of concours competition, your car must have a toolkit.

Of course, having a bunch of tools in a canvas bag or plastic bin is not what judges are looking for. Originality is paramount, from the materials of the roll to the tools themselves. I’ve personally been a part of the hunt for specific bits and bobs to complete a Ferrari toolkit while walking the rows of the Hershey AACA fall swap meet. We got lucky, but it truly wasn’t til now that I understood just how fortunate we were.

It just goes to show that the restoration-rabbit hole is as deep as one wants to go. Hearing Yang talk through the exacting details that separate the best from the rest feels like a seminar, and we love that he is willing to share this information. For most of us, it’s fun car trivia, but there is likely someone out there who now knows the exact spark-plug wrench they should be looking for to capture those last critical points.

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Halloween is right around the corner, and any number of scary ghouls and goblins will soon be at your door asking for sweet treats. The holiday got us thinking about DIY experiences that don’t leave our minds so easily. A few projects still keep us up at night, and the thought of repeating certain procedures can provoke a cold sweat. We aren’t saying cars are cursed or possessed—we’ll leave that to the movies—but we all know at least a few vehicles for which it was hard to prove otherwise.

From losing tools to stripping threads, here are the scariest scenarios we’ve encountered in the garage.

Using a spring compressor

The McPherson-strut front suspension design has a lot going for it, like easy installation and cost-effectiveness. Sadly, changing springs or dampers in McPherson struts can be a terror. A spring this powerful is essentially a pipe bomb, and cheap or home-fabricated spring compressors that underestimate the spring’s stored tension are legitimately dangerous. Just the thought of hearing a creak from the spring compressor and seeing a spring shoot off at full force gives us nightmares that would make most horror flicks look tame.

Discovering rust under a paint bubble

You would never pick at a scab, but sometimes you can’t help but give a light poke at that discolored spot on the quarter panel of your classic. Next thing you know, your finger has promoted inner fender to the prestigious status of outer fender. The damage only gets worse from that moment: Iron oxide takes over, a pestilence that no spooky campfire story could ever conjure. Rust is a threat that hangs over everything in your garage. You’ll start seeing the brown-ish red everywhere, until even your mixed drink seems to include red rum. It can drive a man insane, that rust.

Losing a bolt

We all know what it’s like when the bolt or tool that you just had in your hand is—poof—gone. A portal to the fifth dimension opened, swallowing that one small but critical piece of your project. The thought of where that piece of hardware went will haunt you. I’m not scared of Casper, but I am terrified of where that piston pin circlip might have gone.

Stripping a bolt

At last, final assembly. Your workbench is covered in perfectly clean, ready-to-assemble parts. You painstakingly kept all the threads of all your fasteners clean, but somehow a hard-to-reach bolt that only requires 35 foot-pounds of torque just … won’t … tighten. All of a sudden, “righty-tighty, left-loosey” becomes “righty loosey, lefty also loosey.” The split second your wrench meets no resistance, the horrors of dealing with the consequences come into sharp focus.

Burning through paint

The paint on a vehicle can get really shiny if you remove enough of it to eliminate scratches, scrapes, and other imperfections. However, the mere thought of burning through the paint of their beloved classics has kept thousands of owners from so much as looking at an electric polisher. Thanks to modern compounds, this automotive horror story no longer needs to strike fear in your heart. Random-orbit polishers and diminishing-grit compounds allow you to be gentler with paint than ever before, even if the process requires a certain touch and understanding, and the fear of burn-through lingers in the room like a ghost.

What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.

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If there are two things we all agree on, they are the following: We can always save one more project vehicle, and we need one more tool. I had been telling myself I was going to stop purchasing shop equipment for a bit, but when strolling an estate sale with the missus, I spotted a chance to upgrade my shop’s DIY capabilities for pennies on the dollar. I’d be crazy to not jump on the opportunity, right?

Glad we agree.

It was a grungy portable bandsaw, sitting on the floor in the back room of a house. Initially, it didn’t grab me. The price tag said $100 and there are enough projects already sitting on my workbench that could use that cash. I walked out to see what must-have items my wife had found (a 100-foot garden hose, for the record), a green sign by the cash box caught my eye: today, everything was 25% off. Tomorrow, a deeper discount. A tiny tinge of fear—I could be missing out—poked at that soft part of my brain. I walked back to the portaband saw.

On the surface, a bandsaw is not hugely useful when you work primarily on classic cars and vintage motorcycles. You’re more likely to need one if you travel to job sites that require you to frequently cut pipe or large cable. A bandsaw is not particularly precise, and this model’s handheld nature requires that the workpiece be properly sized, even before cutting, so both of your hands are free to control the saw, rather than hold the piece to be cut. I rarely do large-scale work, but I’m not the only person who has limited space and more dreams than he knows what to do with.

Enter the portable bandsaw table. Swag Offroad makes the model I chose: a few chunks of hefty metal plate bent into the right shapes to bolt to each other and to my workbench. This table makes a portable bandsaw quite un-portable, but raises its utility by an extreme amount.

Of course, I had to rebuild the saw before mounting it to the table, because this tool had clearly worked hard for a few years before I rescued it from the concrete floor. Fresh guides, a couple blades, and cleaning of the armature and brushes–the latter of which were in surprisingly good shape—along with a double-checking of the wiring, and this tool was ready to go to work.

The table bolted together easily, though my saw is an older model than Swag Offroad had in mind when they made this table, and thus I had to use a little bit of fabrication and vision to mount mine properly. Finally, it was time to solve the most important problem: Making the saw run with no hand operation. A zip-tie around the trigger switch proved the concept worked, but it meant that the saw was running long before and after I made a cut. I wasn’t willing to use plug and un-plug as an on/off control, either.

Luckily there are a bunch of cable-operated pedals that use the factory trigger switch. A foot pedal allowed me to leave the saw plugged in and ready and, when I am ready to cut, I just press the foot switch. For safety, I store the switch on the side of the workbench where it can’t accidentally be tripped over. I also still unplug the saw.

For a tool I didn’t think I really needed, this bandsaw sure has been useful. It helped cut all the metal angle to build the table on which it now lives, along with some small feet for a couple engines. The saw is cleaner and quicker than an angle grinder, and the results are better, too. All-in, I have around $300 into this new tool—including some spare blades—and I know this investment will open doors in the future. The only drawback is the throat depth: The saw can only handle material that is less than 4 and 3/4 inches deep. Still plenty big to handle exhaust tubing for any of my projects, or the tubing for a new subframe or frame repair on my motorcycles.

This once-portable bandsaw was a fun project that brought a ton of function into my shop. Did I need more tools? Apparently so. Or maybe my conviction was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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It’s that time of year, and I don’t mean decorative gourd season. No, it’s the time when the DIY devout start casting hooks into the depths of the project car pond hoping to reel in the right winter undertaking. While every project is unique, a few universal truths span them all, regardless of how the vehicle appears in those crunchy, dimly lit photos you’re seeing in a Marketplace ad. To that end, these are the top five things your own project will need, regardless of what it is or what shape it’s in. You can’t say we didn’t warn you.

Patience

Someone else’s project—or worse, abandoned project—is going to require a massive amount of mental gymnastics to figure out what they were thinking when taking it apart, storing pieces, or putting it back together. Occasionally that isn’t difficult, but even then it takes a lot of patience to sort through what someone else has done and try to decide if their process is acceptable to you. Do you trust the previous person based on what you see? Do you think they cleaned and assembled things to the same standard you would? Are you willing to risk it? Taking the time to wrestle with that question will be crucial to how you proceed.

Cleaning

Whether it’s a venture someone else started or one that was never gotten to, project cars rarely get tender loving care when stored. Dust, dirt, and moisture combine to create some of the grungiest substances known to man. Just getting a project car home can leave pounds of dirt and debris on a trailer, and that’s before any real cleaning has started. We often get caught up in the excitement of the big tasks involved with bringing a project car back to life, but the reality is less glamorous, and a lot of time—more than you think—is going to be spent scrubbing and just generally making things un-grimy.

Tires

We don’t know what it is about project cars, but they seem always to be sitting on the worst rubber we’ve seen since the last project car that rolled into the shop. Tires are expensive, so they’re often the last thing a project car will get. This means that when you buy a project, there’s a good chance its tires aren’t even round anymore, let alone safe to drive on. Even just sitting on dry-rotted rubber can be dangerous, as blowouts can occur. Check the date code just to be sure, but in general every project car will need fresh rubber before it ever reaches the driving stage of the process.

Fluids

Another item that isn’t worth gambling on is anything that flows. Fuel, brake fluid, coolant, transmission fluid, and even differential oil are all items you should change by default. Sure, there’s a chance that what’s in there is serviceable, but more than likely your project car has questionable service records—if any at all. Mentally reset the clock on all the regular changes by knocking them out all at once. This also forces you to look at a couple intimate areas of a car, which more than likely will tell you a lot about what else you might need to do.

“Un-screwing”

No, I’m not talking about backing out threaded fasteners here. I’m talking about winding back previous repairs. Project cars often live at the bottom of their value curve before appreciation picks up and owners begin to see the potential. That means repairs done while the car was worth little may be incomplete, or, well, crude. Un-screwing them could be as simple as cleaning up shoddy wiring, or as in depth as rust repair from sitting neglected in a field. If you are buying the cheapest example of anything, it likely has been screwed with by someone who didn’t know or didn’t care. You will have to deal with that.

Project cars are incredibly rewarding to see through. We know a lot of you readers have worked on a project or twelve over the years and these five things are likely not the only universal truths. What have you found to be true? Leave a comment below.

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The tools of the automotive trade have remained fairly basic for more do-it-yourself types. Wrenches, hammers, saws, screwdrivers, and a few offshoot variations thereof. How those tools are used and what they are used on has certainly evolved, but for the most part, modern technology has mainly focused on specializing those core tool designs rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

But every so often, there’s a leap in technology that grows to redefine what we garage dwellers are capable of. Not only have prices of tools reached what feels like an all-time low, but some new materials and processes have also come forth and given us the ability to do work better, faster, or safer than ever—all without needing to be a professional with a full shop.

Induction heater

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Heat is a superpower for DIY folks. The more methods at your disposal to add heat to parts and pieces, the better chance you have of never dealing with broken or mangled hardware. The only option used to be heat guns or open flames, but then induction heaters came onto the scene.

The heart of the system is a small controller and a coil of wire. The controller sends a current through the coil and that current creates an electromagnetic field that has the power to heat ferrous metals to red-hot temperatures very quickly and with great precision. No open flame, no heat outside the coil, and safe to touch shortly after heating. It makes for the perfect tight-space solution to heat corroded hardware. The price is still a bit of an investment for most, but this is very much a buy once, cry once tool, as there are no tanks to refill like an oxy-acetylene or propane torch. Just keep in mind that this magical apparatus won’t work on aluminum (or any other non-magnetic) hardware.

Electric Impact wrenches

Impact wrenches have been around for decades, but the compact and powerful modern electric versions are a downright luxury compared to the air hog anchors of years past. No more compressor, air line, or lack of adjustability. These days we have the ability to pick whichever tool brand we prefer and buy a kit with an impact wrench and driver that covers the vast majority of DIY needs.

A 1/2″ impact is lightweight and packable, and some can hit harder than the air impacts of just 10 years ago. Ensuring a battery is charged pales in comparison to the upkeep of a compressor and air lines in a shop, and that’s before you talk cost. Electric impacts make disassembly a breeze and are all but a staple of any home shop these days.

Ultrasonic cleaners

While not required to keep vintage cars and trucks running, effectively cleaning parts is critical to restoration efforts. Ultrasonic cleaners have dropped in price to the point where it finally makes sense for home shops to dedicate space on the workbench for one. I am a recent convert to the ultrasonic world and while there is a learning curve, it is fairly mellow and the tools enable passive cleaning which gives me time to do the tasks in the garage I actually enjoy rather than running copper wire through another carburetor passageway.

This is because ultrasonic cleaners are great for cleaning impossible-to-reach passageways thanks to the way the ultrasonic waves cause bubbles to form and burst on the surface of parts and pieces inside the tub. It creates a light scrubbing action that breaks up deposits and junk. Combined with the right cleaning solution, it is possible to pull nearly ready-to-reassemble parts right from your ultrasonic cleaner.

Insert machine tooling

While most of us lust after having the fabrication superpowers of a knee mill or a lathe in our shop, the footprint and power demands often leave us wanting. Beyond just having the big tool is the need for the skills and tooling to actually complete the processes and create the ideas we have in our heads. That used to mean having the skills and tools to grind your own cutters and tooling, but thanks to affordable insert tooling, it has never been easier to run a mill or lathe in a home shop. Yes, carbide insert tooling really doesn’t show its benefits until it is being run at production speeds and feeds, but it makes for easier setup and roughly the same finished product for most home machinists. This has opened a door for a safer and easier gateway into machining.

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Modern repair technology has come a really long way. We as humans have the ability to restore function to so many broken or damaged things. It’s amazing, but we should also understand what cannot be repaired. The one major example that people often forget is the human ear. Our hearing is a delicate thing that once gone is typically gone forever. Luckily it is pretty easy to prevent damage and the old cliche about an ounce of prevention holds true here. For $200 you can have 4 solid options for all-day comfort and safety.

Hearing protection, like most personal safety items in the shop, comes in various levels of protection. Having to use the same piece of equipment for every situation could cause you to use none at all due to the annoyance of stopping to find the right hearing protection. That search can sometimes take longer than the project you need hearing protection for. Short jobs are just as damaging as big jobs though. Tinnitus and hearing loss do not care about your timeline.

There are a couple of terms we need to define before we are able to compare and understand what makes one solution better than another for certain tasks. The first is decibel and how we measure sound. Sounds pressure waves traveling through air bump up against our eardrums which vibrate against three bones—the malleus, incus, and stapes—which comprise our inner ear. Those vibrations are interpreted by our brains. Parts of that system can get damaged by too much or constant pressure that comes from loud noise. Just 70 decibels for an extended period of time can be damaging. For reference that is roughly equivalent to a vacuum cleaner running six feet away.

The second term to know is NRR or Noise Reduction Rating. This is the metric through which the efficacy of hearing protection is judged. The higher the NRR the lower the transfer of sound through the hearing protection to the ear drum. When shopping for hearing protection this number should be easy to find and high is better for most situations but depending on the job you might not need the highest form of protection. In fact, having the four types of hearing protection listed below ought to cover most home garage needs.

Active noise-canceling headphones

Sometimes the noise is not much more than the dull roar of machines running in another room or a modern power tool running at arm’s length. It might add up to a dull roar that can be tolerable but why tolerate what you don’t have to? Active noise cancellation is technically not hearing protection but in the right situation, it sure feels like it.

Active noise cancellation does not insulate our ears from the surrounding noise. Instead, there is a microphone that picks up the surrounding noise and then produces the opposite sound waves via the speakers in the headphones to neutralize the surrounding noise to the wearer’s ears. It’s a fairly complicated system that has dropped significantly in price over the years and now there are sub-$50 options that work fairly well for general wearing. Best suited for steady background noise like an air compressor filling the tank.

Custom molded earplugs

The next step in your hearing protection journey is to go see an audiologist. Just like how you wouldn’t take advice about brushing your teeth from a 30-something writing about cars on the internet, you really shouldn’t take my word as gospel for how to best take care of your hearing. A professional has access to tools and information I don’t.

This is why I will tell you about my favorite thing my audiologist did for me: stuffed my ears full of foam. Well, that might be a little misleading, but mostly accurate. They took a mold of my ears and then used it to create reusable and extremely comfortable in-ear hearing protection specific to my ears. The NRR on most custom-molded ear plugs like these are in the 30-32 range but without interfering with taking a helmet or glasses on and off. They are low profile and comfortable for long-duration wearing like at a racetrack. My personal favorite for working in the pits at a track or fabricating in the shop where I might be doing small amounts of work with an angle grinder or die grinder and don’t want to have to take hearing protection off and on. A middle-ground option before full custom molded ear plugs is reusable triple-flange plugs.

Over-ear muffs

The old standard. Rather than trying to fit the sound blocking inside your ear, muffs create a barrier on the outside. These can be found in various levels of NRR and most importantly can be found in a multitude of sizes including some designs specifically for youth. For a quick job or if having something inside your ear canal for a long duration is uncomfortable, these are the solutions. The easy on and off nature along with durability makes it obvious why these have been the gold standard for a long time.

Like all the other options here, fit is important. ensure that the band over the top is adjusted properly to have the muffs sit over your ears and that the seal around the edge has good contact with your head. Even just the crack in the seal from having sunglass arms can be enough to limit the effectiveness of over-the-ear protection. A bonus is how these also keep your ears clean, which can be nice when doing a lot of grinding or are in a very dusty environment.

Foam “roll and stuff” ear plugs

Interestingly, the disposable option comes last and actually is the most effective. Foam earplugs often have the highest NRR and are the most affordable. That comes with the tradeoff of needing to properly insert them into your ear and also having spares or extras around due to their disposable nature. While foam earplugs can occasionally be reused it does open up the opportunity for ear infections if not careful. A whole bunch of these earplugs often come with a minimal price tag so they are worth having both in the shop and in your car since they are perfect for handing to someone who might be underprepared at an event or wrenching session.

Regardless of which style of hearing protection you favor, using something is better than nothing, and having the right thing on hand makes using proper hearing protection that much easier.

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Nothing allows you to safely use a tool or material outside of its design parameters quite like understanding how it works and preparing for what could go wrong. The freedom enjoyed by most people who work on cars comes from the ability to understand what they can change about a project—tools, materials, process—and what they cannot. While the tools and space you need to work on a given project are rigid, curiosity is endless and often leads you into interesting adventures.

My latest adventure was self-inflicted: I broke the head off a stuck bolt, a rite of passage for DIY enthusiasts. Some of you are even familiar with the second level of that situation, dealing with the broken “easy-out” screw extractor.

Some people take the easy way out (I will not apologize for that pun) and pay to replace the whole part. At first, it may have made sense to fix the broken bolt; when that little chunk of unobtanium easy-out became embedded in the bolt, the purse strings suddenly got a little looser.

An easy-out is not formed of unobtanium, though, but of high-carbon steel. Badass stuff in the metal world. It is hard, enabling it to bite into and grab a mutilated bolt—a problem we never admit to creating but always boast about fixing. On the Rockwell hardness scale, high-carbon steel falls in the middle of the chart. Even so, the material is very brittle—and not in the delicious way, like the peanut brittle Nana used to make. If you introduce a fraction of a side load while using an extractor, you will snap it off—often flush with your workpiece—leaving you defeated.

At least partially defeated. Now comes the escalation of force, the switch from rigid to flexible. Solving the problem of a broken extractor requires understanding the materials you are dealing with. If you rush ahead, you will end up with a mangled part and a pile of dull drill bits.

The last time I broke an easy-out, I immediately picked up the phone instead of the tools. This time, I couldn’t bring myself to call for more experienced assistance. I needed to deal with this myself.

I have a drill press sitting on my shop floor. It’s not the Bridgeport of my dreams, but it’s decent, and the more I looked at it, the more I realized this drill press had the capability I needed. With a little effort, I could build a good, rigid setup—enough to drill a right-angle hole, at least. If I could figure out how to fix this broken extractor myself, the process would likely bestow upon me the knowledge and experience to avoid this whole song and dance again. The catastrophe you are prepared for rarely strikes, right? Off to McMaster-Carr to buy some carbide.

Carbide is the next step up from high-carbon steel on the Rockwell hardness scale, which means it can pierce high-carbon steel without losing its edge. I selected two sizes of end mills made of carbide. With 90-degree tips designed specifically for plunge cutting, they should be able to remove not only the easy-out but also the bolt—and, likely, a decent amount of the aluminum of my workpiece, a case cover.

That last part was unfortunate but acceptable. Installing new threads or repairing those that remained would be easier than trying to save the delicate M6 threads. Not only were they formed decades ago, but, since they were on the oil-filter cover, they had also suffered hundreds of hamfisted tightenings and overtorques. Thread forms distort with multiple uses, especially when they are made of aluminum, so the thought of new threads in this piece was almost a little comforting. Doing the thread repair with the case cover off the motorcycle and on the bench was an obvious plus.

Carbide in hand, I had to think about setup. Luckily, the table of my drill press has T-slots in it to help the user create a more rigid setup. However, I could only do so much—especially after realizing there was no place locally to source T-nuts. My plan switched to going through my drawer of random hardware until I found the right combination of bolts and nuts. Finally, I had fastened the side cover to the table at three points. I then wound the table as high as I could to keep the quill as high and stiff as possible. The name of the game was rigidity. (This is not to be attempted with a cordless drill.)

With a little cutting oil to keep things cool, I started pecking at the cover with the lever that controlled the quill of the press. The 90-degree tip of the end mill enabled me to carefully locate the actual center—not the poorly drilled hole now filled with easy-out—and begin to remove material. It was a delicate game of managing speeds and feeds by hand: I had to put enough downward pressure on the end mill to prevent chatter—the cutting faces skipping along the surface of the material rather than biting into it—but not so much pressure that I began to generate heat.

Applying cutting oil and taking breaks every few minutes made the whole process feel like it took forever, but it was really maybe 10 minutes of actual work stretched across an hour, me stressing the whole time about breaking the end mill. That would all but require me to call for help, and I would not be real proud to carry this mess into someone else’s workspace.

Of course, the end mill broke. Luckily, there was plenty sticking up, so I grabbed what remained and yanked out the end-mill. With a small punch, I knocked the leftover easy-out onto the bench, which allowed me to step up to the 6.4mm bit to cut the final diameter of the hole. I used a tap to form threads and the repair was complete.

There were a number of ways to go about solving that last piece of the problem, but mine was the most final. The re-formed threads would fail at the same rate as the OE production ones—good enough, considering that the other two bolts for this oil filter cover are original threads.

In the garage, there are some rigid concepts that define the ways we can do things. High-speed steel will not drill out a carbide end mill; that is fact. How you use this knowledge, however, is highly variable. Once you understand the facts that constrain a project, your brain can switch fully to creative thinking and problem-solving. The materials I use demand to be used a certain way; knowing that enables me to choose the right tool for the job or, when doing something off-piste, to stack the deck in my favor. The combination of the flexible and inflexible will set your project free. It is the workbench yin and yang.

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I have always been curious to put one of my vintage cars on a dynamometer to test how much power it makes. However, such a test never made sense: Most of my cars are stock, with known factory outputs, and the few that are modified aren’t tailored for true performance. Currently, the most promising candidate is my 1965 Corvair: The flat-six under the trunklid sports a mild cam, high-flow air cleaners, upgraded electronic ignition, and a custom exhaust using era-correct headers. On the right day, it really sounds the business.

But … I know where the restrictions are in this engine and what it needs to make big power. The modifications on my car likely haven’t increased horsepower by a significant amount. The epitome of all bark, no bite. So when an acquaintance purchased a house that included a garage with a chassis dynamometer, I wasn’t scrambling for a session. Bad influences—nay, friends—wore me down, and before I could make any excuses about “fragile old car,” the Corvair had a date with a psychic.

That is the role of a dynamometer. It asks your car a few questions, tests its reaction to a challenge, and reveals something about that car based on the test.

First, the challenge had to be set up properly: The Corvair’s drive tires sat between a set of rollers, and straps from ground anchors cinched down the rear from a couple of carefully selected points on the suspension. The front end was doubly secured: a strap and a chock for each wheel.

Then came the hard part: the math.

Before we had started the engine, we had a little problem. The Mustang-brand dyno installed in the my friend’s two-car shop space uses a factor to interpret the data from the load cell. That factor stems from an older metric of “horsepower at 50 mph.” The nerds call it road load coefficient: essentially, it is how much horsepower a vehicle needs to drive down a flat road at 50 mph. Mustang Dynamometer has a handy chart for most models going all the way back to … 1971. No Corvairs built after 1969.

The Corvair’s silhouette—grille-less front end, flat tail—is unlike that of most vehicles in the 1970s. Substitute models weren’t obvious. We looked at the numbers for some cars, averaged a few, and … guessed.

Why sugarcoat it? For me and the Corvair, the numbers really don’t matter. Never did, never will. I was there to learn something new and have a fun afternoon.

We did, of course, have a side bet on whether my little white coupe would crack triple digits to the tire. The over/under figure stemmed from my memory of an old forum post claiming that the Corvair’s factory rating of 140 hp typically came out to around 100 hp at the tire. I was working with a … sort-of known quantity: The engine has been upgraded, but I don’t know its mileage and have no records of who built the engine, or when, or what parts they might have used. I’ve been inside the six enough to trust that it has been rebuilt and that the person who did the job was competent. That said, it’s still a little bit of a shrug as to exactly what is inside.

We entered our factor. Patrick, the owner of the dyno, talked me through the process: Drive up to the chosen gear and hold engine rpm at 3000. Give him a thumbs up, let off the throttle, and allow the engine to coast down to the desired start rpm. Give another thumbs up and, once Patrick returned the signal, mat the throttle.

The noise. The vibration. This subtle sensation of speed—burying my right foot, hearing the engine on song—sat right next to a feeling of calm: The only thing moving was the tachometer needle, which rose with all the speed of an octogenarian filling a buffet plate.

Right as the tachometer needle touched 5000 it was time to lift, put in the clutch, and let the dyno spin down a bit before lightly helping with the final slowdown using the Corvair’s brakes. Letting off the throttle was met with a big pop as flame shot out of the exhaust.

The cacophony of noise, vibration, and anticipation began to mellow. I was immediately proud of the car—nothing had exited the engine except a massive backfire when I closed the throttle. After letting the engine idle for a minute, we shut the car off. I got out, and we surrounded the dusty computer screen to see what the psychic had to say.

96 horsepower and 120 foot-pounds of torque. Not too shabby. 96 was in the ballpark, given that the original, 140-hp rating for this engine was measured in gross horsepower: The tests were done utilizing an engine, not a chassis, dyno and an engine from which most of the accessory drive had been removed. For the Corvair, the accessory drive is literally just the alternator, but the crank-horsepower figure is optimistic considering that many more components are needed to turn crankshaft rotation into forward motion. The transmission, differential, and other necessary accouterment all soak up a little power. Over the years I have heard drivetrain loss is in the 15 percent range for manual-transmission cars, but that “rule” is misleading at best. It’s hardly a rule, more of a generalization if anything. Being “down” 32 percent compared to the factory rating is actually not bad considering everything that can and should be factored in.

The peanut gallery checked my initial feeling of smug: At higher rpm, a screen of black smoke had poured out of the exhaust pipe—unburned fuel. Confusing, because when I went through and cleaned the carburetors years ago, I could tell there was no funny business inside. Jets were stock sizes, no evidence of machining. While their lack of modifications didn’t explain the smoke, it likely explained why the torque levels off and begins to drive down as rpm increased. What a lovely, flat torque curve.

Since we knew the car wouldn’t explode under the stress of the dyno, we decided to have some fun and take off the fan belt. The Corvair’s is an air-cooled engine: A bi-planar fan belt turns a magnesium fan that forces air down through the finned cylinders and cylinder heads. The system is critical to keeping a Corvair engine alive during regular use, but driving the fan sucks up a ton of horsepower. Your engine doesn’t even have to be air-cooled for you to observe the output difference with and without the fan: Plenty of people with access to dynos have tested flex fans versus electric fans on small-block V-8s.

After letting the big air-mover fans blow down the fan intake for a bit to cool things off as best we could, I popped the spring-loaded belt tensioner in and zip-tied the belt to the oil filter adapter to keep it from catching on the crank pulley during the dyno run. A clean pull felt a good bit spicier and the results revealed all those forum posts from armchair engineers (and real engineers) were pretty well spot-on.

Did I need to know these numbers? Of course not. And if I did, our method would have been a terrible way to discover them. Still, I got the opportunity to test my car in a safe, controlled environment. In just a few hours I learned the Corvair was running rich in the higher rpm range, something I likely would have never learned just driving around town. As I drove home, I thought about how to fix the fueling issues and debated with myself about plopping down the money for a modern cooling fan. Do I need it? No, but I now know what could be, and the prospect sure felt fun.

That psychic inside the dyno computer says the same thing to everyone and is also always right: You can make more power if you want. How much do you want to spend?

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Tires are critically important things. Those four patches of rubber are the only mechanical connection we have to the roads and trails we drive. Maintaining and monitoring those humble, treaded rubber doughnuts is critical to keeping yourself and others safe on the road and vital to preventing premature wear on your vehicle’s steering components. That’s why we all have tire-pressure gauges hanging around. If you don’t, you should.

Not all gauges are created equal. Like any calibrated tool, a tire-pressure gauge has inner workings that can sometimes begin to wear or become damaged. In both scenarios, the accuracy suffers. New tire pressure gauges are pretty cheap, but recently I learned that it was possible to re-calibrate vintage ones. Naturally, this sent me down an eBay rabbit hole.

The journey ended by clicking Buy It Now on a $15 Messer Accu Gauge with a nice worn-in feel. Even better, it has a foot-long hose and a bleeder valve—two of my favorite features on the $90 Intercomp tire pressure gauge I use for track-day and motorcycle tires. I worry about damaging my nice Intercomp gauge, and that fear means that I fail to regularly check the tire pressures on the Corvair. This vintage Accu Gauge would solve that problem well: It has a max of 60psi, which would be perfect for the pressures I run in the modern radial tires.

With anything else of this age that I buy used, the gauge went straight from the shipping packaging to the workbench for cleaning and inspection. This gauge was quite grime-free, with the exception of the polycarbonate face, which had gotten hot and deformed. I’ll make a new one, not a big deal.

Further inside lay the good stuff.

This is what’s called a Bourdon tube gauge. The design gets its name from Eugène Bourdon, a Frenchman who penned the design all the way back in 1849. The copper, C-shaped tubing is formed so that, when pressurized, it deforms. The rate of that deformation is linear, so Bourdon used it to drive a needle, which indicates pressure on a scale drawn on the gauge’s face. The copper tube deforms consistently and reliably, at least until it hardens or cracks. With such small movements day to day, such breakage will take a long time, but a fluctuating environment or heavy use can cause the copper tube to deform in different ways that also produce inaccuracy. In that case, the gauge must be recalibrated.

That is where the linkage comes in. This is the piece that translates the movement of the Bourdon tube to the gearset that moves the needle. That linkage often looks as if it is trying to take the longest path to connect two points; it’s not a straight and simple piece. However, the goofiness of the design allows for fine-tuning and calibration by opening or closing the gap, thus lengthening or shortening the linkage. This changes the ratio between the movement of the Bourdon tube and movement of the needle.

Now comes the fun part. By comparing the reading of the Messer gauge to that of the Intercomp, a modern one I know and trust, I can alter that linkage in small increments and retest until the vintage unit reads correctly and consistently in the range I will use most: For the Corvair, 20 to 32 psi. In a perfect world I would calibrate this gauge with a known quantity of some type, like a manometer or regulated air pressure. I have neither at home, so this method will do. The Corvair doesn’t require pinpoint accuracy. Once reassembled, the old gauge is ready for use.

This Messer gauge looks perfect in the glove box or front seat of my Corvair and also allows me to keep my more delicate, valuable Intercomp at home or in the race toolbox, where it belongs. Practical, vintage flair for $15? Seems like a no-brainer.

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Working on cars requires a whole slew of relatively specialized tools. Often times we don’t even realize how unique those tools and practices are until we talk to someone new to the hobby. Or someone who is on the outside looking in. Just one example: How casually we discuss (and practice) the act of lifting our multi-thousand pound vehicles into the air and then supporting them with separate load-bearing apparatuses that allow us to work on, disassemble, or reach under the vehicles. It’s dangerous when done right, and deadly when done wrong.

That sounds scary, and to a point it should be. Being cautious when the risks are this high is not a bad thing. That’s why we created a quick list of tips for using jack stands: good for newbies, but it’s also a refresher for those experienced enough to have lifted up a vehicle many times, in many ways over the years.

Buy once, cry never

There are many factors in selecting jack stands, and price is one that many of us are forced to consider. While tools can and will be shopped based on price point, jack stands should not be one of them. These are critical safety items that should come from reputable and trustworthy sources. The Harbor Freight jack stand debacle of 2020 should be burned in our collective memory for a long time, as being crushed by your car is not the way to go. Cheaping out with jack stands is a fast track to a mere feeling of safety, rather than possessing actual safety.

Jack stands should be sturdy with a good wide base. A secondary method of locking them at the desired height is also a plus. Do not modify jack stands or otherwise compromise safety features in the name of convenience. Doing so is only making it easier to get hurt.

Size appropriately

Jack stands produced after 2015 are rated as a pair. Which means if you find some at the local parts store that say they are “three-ton” jack stands, the ability to support the claimed 6000 pounds requires both stands. In reality, three-ton jack stands should be the smallest used in most home shops, as it gives a good safety margin when working on smaller cars, yet a set of four does have enough capability to hold a medium-sized truck or SUV in a pinch.

Remember that storing jack stands can be a hassle, so having one set that covers anything you’ll work on is the best way to go. That said, a small and large set of them is a nice luxury if you have the space. Inevitably something gets “stranded” on your one set of stands…and you’ll need another set shortly thereafter.

Trace the load path

Jack stand placement is as critical (if not more critical!) than proper sizing. The biggest jack stand in the world is useless if you place it in the wrong spot, letting the car fall down anyway. The service manual is the best place to look for jack points and jack stand placements. Even the owner’s manual in the glove box, a book that’s been shrinking over time and loaded with “please see dealer” language, likely still outlines the jack points for safe lifting. A quick internet search will likely reveal appropriate information too.

But sometimes that doesn’t work, or what you are doing is something the original engineer from decades past could have never imagined. That’s when a little bit of critical thinking goes a long way. Look under the car and locate a place that looks sturdy enough to place a jack stand, then follow what that is connected to. From there, imagine how it would support the load being placed on it. Supporting the rear of a car by placing stands under the rear differential makes sense because the entire weight of the car is normally supported by that part. Using a bumper or frame brace that doesn’t support and wasn’t designed for that load is a bad place to put a stand. If unsure, consult professionals.

Do the shake test

Now that your project is up in the air and supported by jack stands, there is one last step before you roll underneath: You gotta shake it. No, not the latest TikTok dance. Shake the car. Go to one of the corners and give it a good push and pull to make sure the car is stable and the stands are not going to move or shift while you are underneath. This is the same thing that mechanics in shops do when putting a car on a two post lift.

After all, now is the time to find that the ground isn’t really flat or the stands aren’t fully seated on their safety catch. Only after a good shake can you roll under the car with confidence that it will not be coming down on top of you.

Buddy system

It feels strange to do when performing an innocuous task like adjusting a transmission shift cable or removing a driveshaft, but telling someone that you are working underneath a car with jack stands is a good practice. A text or call to a friend just to say “hey, I’m working on my project and am under the car for a bit” is enough of a heads up: if they don’t hear from you in awhile they know to check on your well being. Being pinned or injured under a car with no means to get help should be horrifying to you, and encourage you to whatever is necessary to prevent it.

Keeping a phone on your person is one option, as is using smart speakers or other items that require nothing more than yelling at them to activate them. I personally have a Google Home Mini above my workbench, which allows me to broadcast a message to another speaker inside my house by just yelling at it. This lets me feel safe-ish when I am working on projects while my wife is inside. (Presumably enjoying her time without me.) This practice isn’t for everyone, but it works for me. Find a system that works for you and use it.

Cribbing away that sinking feeling

Motorcyclists are familiar with the peril of asphalt: Ride somewhere on a warm day, set the bike on the kickstand, stop for a coffee, and the bike is laying on its side by the time you get back. Vandals? Inattentive drivers parking too-big SUVs? Nope. The asphalt did that.

Asphalt comes in a variety of flavors and mixtures, some of which isn’t nearly as solid as it feels under your feet. A heavy load concentrated on a small point can sink into asphalt. And the weight of that motorcycle leaning on the kickstand’s relatively small area can punch a hole into asphalt. Lo and behold, the kickstand sinks down enough that the motorcycle tilts and falls over. Bad news, but it points to a bigger problem.

Now picture this kickstand is actually a jack stand under your project. With no warning, the car can shift as the asphalt gives way. Prevent this by using something like a chunk of wood to spread the load of the jack stand to a larger area. The same applies for any soft substrate like gravel or dirt. Cribbing is a common thing in heavy equipment transport/service, and by extension is a smart exercise to do when working on light duty vehicles as well.

Have another safety tip to add to the list? We’d love to hear it, as you can’t be too safe in these situations. So leave a comment below for everyone’s safety and well being.

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Years ago I met a person who created math equations for herself. It was fascinating to me: She enjoyed solving problems so much that she created them? Not only is that the worst version of reality television, it is also really dorky.

Who would go out of their way to create work for themselves? Who needs more things to do? For years she was the strange one, then it clicked: My project cars were the same as her math equations. Every hulk that enters my garage is a problem to be solved, and I revel in the self-inflicted challenges.

Heck, at least a math nerd only pays for paper and pencil. My hobby dictates my housing decisions. The house I live in now was purchased half because my wife liked it and half because I discovered its garage was a decent upgrade from my last one.

(Speaking of, I’m tired of being scolded by realtors for wanting to look in garages. It’s important. Stop acting like it’s not.)

Some get so addicted to creating problems they end up with a field full of cars and Tom Cotter knocking on their door. In the chaos of crusty project cars and parts, there sits a list. At the bottom of that list sits the first project. The one that came before them all. The one whose parts have already been paid for and put on the shelf, just waiting for the owner to find the time to install them. When Tom stops by, those boxes are always dusty.

I never understood how those situations happened. You spend good money on parts that your project car needs and then . . . just don’t do that job? Yet the white Corsa Coupe sitting in my own garage is proof that the same situation has found me. During a garage-shuffling last weekend, I found the new headliner and visors for the Corvair in boxes that I had lost in my own storage system. If that’s not a reality check, it’s going to take a fraud pen to prove it.

There was always another project shinier or more enticing than the delicate white headliner. Since the box contained the receipt for the parts, we don’t even have to guess how long I’ve been avoiding this project: Five years.

I owned zero motorcycles in 2018. Since then I have purchased twelve. You don’t do more than one a year on a writer’s salary unless you are buying some real projects. More things to fix. More new shiny objects. More distractions. You know what takes less time than installing a headliner? Scrolling Marketplace. Somehow, it always takes the exact amount of time you have. Never more, never less.

Since this personal archeological dig and discovery, I’ve been brushing back up on the installation method for a bow headliner like that in the Corvair. The process really is not that bad. I have the space to do it. The tools, too. The power to keep my hands clean for a day or two is within me. I am an unstoppable headliner-installing force!

I have not started the project.

Am I simply avoiding work? Seems unlikely. Some soul-searching reveals that I am scared to make the Corvair too nice. The safety-pinned headliner is one of the few reminders left of a one-way flight to Austin, Texas, when after multiple delays I arrived in the middle of the night, slept on a couch for a few hours, then used a basic toolkit to make the car drivable before pointing the headlights north for 2000 miles. Those safety pins were put in somewhere on the side of the road in Oklahoma after the headliner dropped down to rest on my head. If I replace the headliner, will I somehow forget the adventure that cemented my love for this car? Surely not.

For now, I’m not going to chance losing the memory. It’s driving season in Michigan, but not for much longer—I’m not going to waste the good weather that remains staring at a car sitting in my garage, no matter the condition of its interior. Maybe this winter I’ll get around to that headliner. Probably shouldn’t hold my breath, considering one of the motorcycles needs a new head gasket, and that’ll probably spiral into a restoration. So many fun problems to solve . . .

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Some shapes in the automotive world are just timeless, like the grille of a 1969 Mustang. Even restomod shops leave it alone. The same goes for tools: During an evening of working in the garage, you’re likely to touch several whose designs have survived, nearly unchanged, since they were invented.

For the sake of argument, let’s exclude anything that is simply a formed piece of metal—screwdrivers, sockets, and hammers—and focus on items with some kind of mechanism. Inventors are likely the first to tell you that perfection on the first or even the second try doesn’t happen often, but these five tools got awful close.

Ratchets

The use of gears to create a one-way mechanism is old—over a century and a half. J.J. Richardson patented the idea of a ratcheting wrench in June of 1863 and, while his design appears archaic by modern standards, it relies on the same principles as the ratchets that sit in virtually every toolbox around the world.

A center gear doubles as the attachment point for the socket. That gear interacts with two smaller ones that force it to spin either clockwise or counterclockwise. The direction of a modern rachet is easy to switch, and its gears have evolved to be much finer, minimizing the rotation required to grab the next tooth, thus making the ratchet more efficient in tighter spaces.

Bench vise

If you thought of one tool when you saw this article’s headline, it was probably this. History traces the bench vise back to the 1700s, but the first modern version was made of poured cast iron in the 1830s. The casting process was rudimentary, though, and resulted in a porous finished product that had the potential to break during use. Today, the best modern vises are forged.

Piston-ring compressor

The modern four-stroke engine traces back to Nicolaus August Otto and his experiments with compressing the air and fuel inside a cylinder prior to ignition. This discovery led to more efficient engines that gave us—literally—more bang for a buck’s worth of fuel.

To contain compression and combustion, you must put a seal on the piston; to do that, you must be able to compress said piston rings to fit into the cylinder bore while you assemble it. Consider that Otto was experimenting with his designs in the 1860s, and it’s reasonable to conclude that our spring-form piston ring compressors trace to this time period. Not everyone uses these tools, but those who do know just how important they can be.

Scissor jack

As long as there have been cars, we have needed to lift them. While an incline plane (a ramp) effectively raises the car while the vehicle is on its wheels, a spiral incline plane combined with four metal arms and a base will lift a car from any point to allow you to remove wheels or other parts. That is the essential form of a scissor jack: A screw that pulls together two arms that provide lift.

The design traces back at least 100 years and it is nearly comical how little has changed from the patent drawing to the folded-metal jacks found in the trunks of so many modern cars. Jacks and spare tires might be falling by the wayside, but the simplicity of a scissor jack will stand the test of time, even if it has never passed the test of safety with flying colors.

Vise grip

The main thing we need while working is a third hand, something that can hold our workpiece together or give us a handle on something otherwise untouchable. The over-cam design for locking jaw pliers might be the youngest one on this list: 99 years have passed since inventor and blacksmith William S. Petersen penned the design that became the nearly indispensable tool we know today. The easy-release lever was added in a slight redesign by Petersen in 1957 (above).

Have a tool to add to the list? Leave a comment below telling us another tool that has stood the test of time. The history behind what we take for granted can be quite fascinating.

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Of the few things we vintage car folks have to concede to modern car lovers is the fact that our choice of locomotion is loud. All the noise is worth it for the experience, but taking out some with the use of some hidden modern materials is about as controversial an opinion as upgrading to disc brakes. For all the support for sound deadening and damping, there is an awful lot of confusion around the web regarding usage and expectations.

On modern cars it is called NVH: Noise, vibration, and harshness. These three aspects factor into so many points of vehicle design in the modern era. As cars became a near-mandatory part of society, the time we spent in them increased and brought along an expectation that we are comfortable in them. Even a Model T is comfortable when you consider the time it was built.

“What did you say?”

Let’s address the first of the trio: Noise. This is the sound waves emitted from various parts of the car as they function. The lifted Jeep Gladiator next to you on the highway chose those mud terrain tires for function but the side effect is a lot of noise, especially when the tread gets worn. Even highway tread tires make some noise, so no one is immune. There are a multitude of other items on this list including exhaust, heater blower motors, suspension creaks or squeaks…

New cars have all the same noises that we notice on our vintage cars. They are just muffled, insulated, or disguised. Some are just plain quieter too. Insulation for this part of the NVH formula is usually a product that is designed to cut the transfer of sound waves from where they are created to where the driver sits. Paddings and foam layers do the task well but coverage and placement are key as the goal is to cut down on the noise but also not end up in a tiny, mobile recording studio. Even a Jaguar isn’t meant to be Abbey Road.

The whole goal is to cut the oscillations of the sound waves. The power of a sound wave diminishes as it passes through a material, and certain materials like foam, cardboard, leather, and synthetic fabrics, and even the passengers ourselves, absorb and reduce those sound waves before they can get to our ear drums. That is what we perceive as a reduction in noise.

Another huge part of noise control is sealing the outside, well, out. That means weatherstripping. The foam rubber that seals the window to the door and the door to the body are all places where sound and therefore annoying noise can leak into your car. Sound waves will diffract after passing through an opening which causes them to bounce around inside a car and feel even louder.

Why is there a Home Depot link in your car forum?

That’s pretty much it for stuff that makes noise as it functions in your car, but what about stuff that makes noise just from the nature of driving? Sounds funny to say, but we are talking about stuff like the sheet metal of door skins, floor panels, and firewalls. Things like this that have any large flat panels become defacto speakers when the vibrations that come with putting hundreds of spinning parts inside a larger bunch of spinning parts all going down a bumpy road come into play. Things are going to vibrate.

But similar to the thoughts above about changing the sound wave size rather than eliminating it, adding mass will slow the movement. Less shaking, less noise. This is why there is a great debate about sound-damping materials. The most popular options are your Dynamat and Husthmat types brands and the idea is to add mass. Those products come in a foil-backed butyl rubber sheet that can stick to just about any part of the car that can vibrate. If your hands are of the roofing callous kind, this material sounds familiar, but don’t be tempted to go to the home center and grab a stack of asphalt insulation tiles and start sticking it on the floor.

Butyl rubber is less susceptible to both heat and off-gassing. If you think new car smell is bad, imagine the smell of a warm asphalt roof each time you get in the car on a warm summer day. Asphalt would also likely slide down any vertical surface if the car got nice and warm like a summer day in the sun. That could seal off drains in door panels, pool up and make for uneven floors under the carpet, or melt onto wire harnesses and cables making working in the future even more difficult.

The second big debate in this space is coverage. Listen to some people and every square inch covered is the only way it’ll ever work. Here’s the thing though, the science doesn’t back this up—and neither do the manufacturer recommendations. The very companies trying to sell you the stuff typically say to cover 30 percent of available surface area for any noticeable effect, and past 60 percent there is a diminishing return. That’s in direct competition to their bottom line. Why lie?

The science is even simpler. A large panel catches the right harmonic of vibration and is now emitting tiny pressure waves that hit your ear drums. All we have to do is change the frequency that the panel vibrates so it is outside of most normally appearing driving conditions. A thin sheet of rubber and foil puts enough of a kibosh on the party vibes that sheet metal has a dull thud rather than a tinny sound when hit with a stone like in a fender well or floorboard. Larger panels like roof shells or firewalls will quiet down significantly as the panels will move less. Less movement, less noise.

Harshness

All cars fall somewhere between the Beast of Turin and a Rolls Royce Phantom. Anything can improve if you want to really engineer a solution. Does it always make sense in putting a band-aid on a bullet wound? Are any of the add-in sound damping and deadeners sold for vintage cars magic bullets to modern comfort? Hardly, but with proper application and expectations you might enjoy driving your car even more than ever. But remember, that Rolls Royce Phantom has hundreds of pounds of insulation material and engineering that is all focused on separating the occupants from any sign that they are indeed driving an automobile.

Harshness is the combination of how the sounds produced by the car wear on the operator. This one is less quantifiable and more personal. While the noise level can be measured in decibels, harshness is unique to each person. I’ve been able to tolerate weeks driving Hagerty’s 1917 Peerless Green Dragon which is one of the harshest vehicles I’ve spent real time in, yet I find my 2015 Chevrolet Express van in need of more sound deadening and insulation. Different expectations.

This is all to say that insulating your vintage ride can be well worth the effort but be sure you understand what products you are using, how they are designed to work, and what you should expect from them. A full layer of Hushmat brought down the noise in my 1965 Chevrolet Corvair, but my wife still finds it too harsh to enjoy. Her loss, but more importantly not my hearing loss—at least not anymore.

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The most sacred of car parts isn’t even really a car part, it’s the service manual. That wonderful stack of pages outlines a plethora of tasks, specifications, and procedures that people like us need to keep our cars, boats, and motorcycles healthy so we can enjoy them for decades to come. Sadly, the service manual has been flirting with the endangered species list for a while.

The battle over right-to-repair and the end users’ ability to maintain and service vehicles properly at home or without the need for proprietary tools and technology has been hotly contested in recent history. Factory repair manuals likely fall in a gray area of that debate since they are both a tool and not a tool at once. Often times these books and manuals have to exist as a reference for dealers and licensed technicians but with time, the manuals and materials leak out into the public and become the holy grail for those who dedicate their time and talent to keeping aging transportation on the road.

At least one brand is looking out for us though, and it is not who I would have expected. The two-wheeled creations from Zero Motorcycles may be battery-powered and relatively simple compared to gas-burning equivalents, but there are still best practices that are better to learn from the engineers who designed the things rather than through trial and error at home. Hence why Zero Motorcycles has elected to give away all its service literature to anyone, for free.

For instance, the Zero SR/F model has a Gates carbon belt drive that has to be tensioned a lot differently than a standard chain drive. The manuals cover everything from that complicated tensioning procedure to how to properly disconnect and disassemble parts and pieces of a highly-advanced electric motorcycle. Yet again, required? No, but it sure makes literally every job easier.

Kudos to you, Zero Motorcycles. We hope that more manufacturers follow your lead. It may seem like a small thing, but making vital information like what’s contained in a service manual available to any interested DIY-er plays a big part in making our cars live longer and allowing us garage-dwellers to do what we love.

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Even if you are doing a restoration, the task of assembling and filling all the systems of your car that have fluids in them is a large task. It’s often part of the last 10 percent of a project that often takes 90 percent of your time. While on the surface it is as easy as threading a few connectors, bleeding out air, and enjoying the drive, there are also a few things to keep in mind as you make some of what could be the final connections of your project car.

This topic came to mind when I dropped by the Redline Rebuild Garage to chat with one of Hagerty’s resident project car experts and Special Projects Editor Davin Rekow. He has been running wide open building a 440 Chrysler V-8 as of late, but off to the side sits the car that orange Mopar will live in: The Snowball dirt track racer. The team is pushing to get that car back on track and that includes sealing up all its systems. From the hustle and bustle in that shop, here are seven tips that will make your project better than ever—with no crack showing.

Take your time

This is a step that can make or break a project and it is best to take the moment ahead of actually picking up tools and parts to lay out a plan. What systems need plumbing? What materials are needed? Are there any techniques you’ll need for the job that you should try out now? The first time using a tubing bending or flaring tool should not be on what you hope is the finished part. Sure, that can work, but being lucky is a fickle thing, and trusting expensive parts and materials to luck is a fool’s errand.

Really this tip just comes down to the old saying “do it right or do it twice.” Davin has been plugging away at various aspects of this car for some time and is excited to have it done, but that doesn’t mean rushing and assembling a half-baked plan for things like brake lines, coolant hoses, fuel lines, or even oil lines and fittings. Well-thought-out and functional things take time to build. Give yourself enough time to do it right.

Mark the direction of flow

Sure, it seems obvious now, but what hose is going where and also what is inside of it and the fluid’s direction of travel is not as obvious once everything is assembled and you are no longer focused on the literal ins and outs of this system. Labels can be as boring or as interesting as you can imagine. A simple label by hand with a permanent marker is enough to get by but consider using zip ties or heat shrink to color code inlet and outlet hoses to prevent accidentally misassembling items in the future.

Keep it simple

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. While show-winning cars have lines tucked ever so tidy and carefully bent over every hump or lump in the chassis, most at-home projects cars are a more nuanced blend of function and form. Save time and effort by doing what is needed to keep the lines safe but also install easily. This is something that might need servicing in the future and if it takes all afternoon to make a single brake line that could end up damaged and need re-done it could be mildly infuriating.

Allow for movement

Cars move and flex when they are driving. If there is no allowance in the running of the lines that travel to various parts of the car to keep those lines from stretching or binding, it is only time before a failure occurs. Take a look at the hydraulic systems of your car and you will realize none of those are fun to lose suddenly and catastrophically.

Don’t confuse allowing some movement with us endorsing letting everything run wild. Like a toddler in a grocery store, the plumbing on your car is best kept in order, and from touching things it shouldn’t. The front brake hoses appear miles too long at first glance, but the suspension of this car is set up to allow for a fair amount of travel. The last thing you want limiting that travel is your brake hose.

Use the proper product

It should go without saying, but use the right material for the job. Fuel line doesn’t make a good vacuum line, and vacuum line makes a terrible fuel line. Don’t even mess around with anything not designed for a brake system being installed inside that critically important system. For example, the hoses routed to the fuel pump feeding the 440 in this race car are approved for ethanol usage. Will this engine run on ethanol? Hopefully not, but if blended fuel ends up in the tank it won’t cause problems. Future-proofing is basically free right now.

In a similar way, a braided stainless line is better than a rubber line for most applications according to Davin. Rubber lines collapse internally given enough time, or are easily sliced or rubbed through. Stainless braided withstands that and a whole lot more for a fractional price difference.

AN fittings can be great

The history of this often colorful hose ends traces back to the war effort during WWII. The Army and Navy agreed on the standards that became the AN fitting. It centers around a two-piece fitting that clamps to the hose and makes it easy to make custom hoses of various lengths and sizes. Davin likes using it on his automotive projects because it makes things more serviceable and tidy at the cost of unoriginality—and literal cost. If you can tolerate deviating from factory-correct and budget has some room using these fitting can make life a lot easier. AN fittings and hose are not cheap but the customization possible now that the fittings come in various colors, and the fact that you can get hose for just about any application off the shelf, make it tough to turn down—and that’s before you talk about how serviceable these connection make a car.

Square up

If there is one little detail that always catches my eye, it’s nicely square-cut hose ends. They fit on fittings cleaner, and when clamped correctly have a very finished look despite being the simplest and cheapest way of joining a hose. Using proper hose cutters or taking the time to dress the end of a hose with a razor knife is basically free and can add a subtle touch that elevates your project from “thrown together” to “nicely detailed.”

If you seasoned veterans have any additional tips that might make someone’s next plumbing job easier, cleaner, or more efficient, please share them in the comments below.

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Waking up a long-stored car is almost never boring. Some of us do it every year with our own fun cars. That is just one car though, and more than likely the process is pretty simple because street cars are often easy to store and wake up.

Race cars on the other hand have all kinds of problems that can pop up since they were never engineered to sit. They were built to do the opposite. So how hard is it to get a pickled NASCAR stock car back up to ready-to-race condition? The Richard Petty Museum staff recently woke up the 1987 Pontiac Grand Prix that Petty raced nearly 40 years ago and brought everyone along for the adventure via YouTube.

Waking a car like this tends to go one of two ways: Quite simple and easy, or a mental torture test of small thing after small thing cropping up preventing any steady forward progress. Restoration manager for the Petty Museum Brian Witcher easily rattles off what tasks were done on the car but that nine seconds of audio is radically different than actually completing the tasks.

For instance, the video starts with Witcher reassembling the fuel cell. Safety measures can have odd side effects when put into storage. Fuel cell foam is the prime example of this as it is possible for the foam that was meant to keep fuel from sloshing and spilling will break down during long periods of sitting and then clog a fuel filter or pump. Hardware doesn’t tend to loosen up just sitting, but considering this Petty Blue racer is headed for the Goodwood hill climb it’s worthwhile to take the extra step of putting the car up on a lift and checking everything front to back one good time. They are likely camouflaging a suspension tuneup under the guise of a “nut and bolt check” but that’s fine by us.

This car has a small-block Chevy that is likely in the 357 cubic inch range and makes north of 600 horsepower. It certainly sounds great through the boom tubes tucked tidily right under the rocker panels. What doesn’t fit as well is Witcher in the driver’s seat. Nothing points out how tailor-fit these cars are quite like someone other than who it was built for attempting to drive it. Regardless, we at least get to see the car run a few laps of the parking lot to shake down the chassis and get some temperature into that fire-breathing small-block. We will have to wait until the video from Goodwood Festival of Speed comes out to see it run with the throttle anywhere near wide open, but even just a taste is nice. It’s also good to know that even the pros face the same problems as us common folks when it comes to bringing cars out of storage. His is just capable of 190mph when it does. Mine, not so much.

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Few things in the automotive world are as complex as building an engine. Not assembling an engine; building an engine. It’s similar to cutting a diamond: The beauty of the finished product is simple, but the process—taking the time to ensure proper setup and function at every step—can be intense.

Becoming a professional engine builder requires years of experience. I’m definitely still an amateur, but these five things helped me make huge leaps in my own engine-building process.

Layout/space for layout

One of my first engine-rebuild jobs wasn’t even the full engine, just the top end of a vintage thumper after it was destroyed by a short and torrid love affair between intake valve and piston. I set up shop in a friend’s garage. We pulled bits and pieces off with reckless abandon, stacking them on the motorcycle lift under the bike. Only once we reached the reassembly stage did I realize all the parts we needed were a jumbled mess.

Today, I prepare my workspace. I prefer to have enough room to lay out each and every part: They don’t have to be organized very strictly, but nothing is stacked, in a box, or otherwise hidden from sight. Attention to detail is one of the most important resources in engine-building; I don’t want to waste it on making sure parts didn’t fall off the table or get jumbled underneath it.

White linens

Honda famously requires all its assembly-line workers to wear white head to toe: The process should be so clean that the uniform stays white. I’m not a professional engine builder, but I did stay at a hotel last night—and I kept the towel to lay on my workbench. Only once a part is fully ready to assemble is it placed on this now-sacred space. Depending on the component, I might even wrap it in a plastic bag or container first.

That clean white space is where I first assemble the engine—mentally. I can visually take stock of the parts and pieces and know that I have everything, and each component is properly prepared. This prevents me from being surprised or having to source something on short notice: If a part I thought was cleaned and ready needs additional work, I address it now, before assembly starts.

Write it down

A failed seal once forced me to rebuild an engine I had already assembled. As I took the engine apart, I did the standard “while I’m in there” look-around. The only problem was that I couldn’t tell whether the wear on a given part was new: Certain pieces like rocker arms are totally safe to reuse if still in spec, but failing to document the wear in specific terms leaves me open to confusion when trying to diagnose other issues. Did I re-use a worn part, or did I produce that wear because of a sloppy assembly?

Eliminate that game and draft a personalized cheat sheet. Anything that can be nominally measured gets touched by the digital calipers before being final-assembled. If taking a measurement isn’t possible, document a part’s condition, including any flaws that you might need to monitor or allow for in the future.

These sheets are also handy if any of my engines go up for sale before I run them or put them in a bike: The buyer can see from photos and notes exactly what they are buying.

Understand each part

Once I started noticing each individual piece of the engine worked, my brain was able to prioritize. Suddenly I worried less about using factory hardware to hold on a side cover and obsessed instead of the one little lip seal that ensures oil coming out of the oil pump goes through the crankshaft to the rod bearing.

This mental process is also great for troubleshooting issues, especially if, like me, you use some components outside of the engine’s original design parameters, and thus deal with problems and fixes that the original engineers would never imagine. If you truly understand the system, you can more quickly deduce which component is not doing its job.

Repetition

Just like it takes a couple of watches of Inception to know what the hell is going on in the second half of the movie, it takes more than one rebuild of an engine to fully understand what you are doing. It’s tough for us home garage folks, but rebuilding the same engine multiple times is an awesome way to learn a lot in a short amount of time.

Your first time through a build is often spent just trying to not do things wrong. Then, as your confidence builds, you start asking why this works, not how it works. Suddenly you are primed to understand what improvements you can make and, if you seek more performance, what is a good spend of your time and money.

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What better birthday to celebrate right before America’s than the Corvette’s? 70 years ago today, the first example of America’s sports car rolled out of the factory in Flint, Michigan.

Building that first car was an interesting process. The Ford Model T might have brought the production line to popularity 45 years earlier, but the first Corvette was hand-assembled. Workers at the Flint factory took the parts, pieces, and materials and painstakingly combined them into a functional automobile. That 1953 model was equipped with a Blue Flame inline-six engine mated to a two-speed Powerglide transmission—ironic, considering how many of the Corvette faithful consider the lack of three pedals in the eighth and latest generation to be an atrocity.

No matter how polarizing that drivetrain might be now, it was the Corvette’s body construction, not its transmission, that made waves at the time. Fiberglass was best known as a boat hull material; it was not yet widely used for car production.

Chevrolet’s fiberglass molds shaped a curvy little roadster, complete with plastic curtains, instead of windows, that snapped into place. All 1953 Corvettes were sprayed Polo White, with interiors upholstered in red. Despite the lack of color options, it took two days to assemble the first models. For comparison, it takes the Corvette factory in Bowling Green, Kentucky, three shifts to build a C8—roughly, a day and a half. Considering how much the Corvette has changed since those very simple, white-wall-tire cars of the ’50s, let alone how many more options are on the C8’s build sheet, that pace is pretty darn impressive.

What the Corvette would become could have only been a dream for those early owners. A new C8 Z06 can clear a quarter-mile at 131 mph before a 1953 Corvette has even reached 60 mph. What or where will the Corvette be next is certainly a great debate, but one thing is clear: Few American cars have such a beloved, long-running lineage.

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If you want to work on your own car, and have asked around for the best projects to start with, you’ve probably been given bad advice.

The most popular suggestions are often changing your oil and replacing your brake pads and/or rotors—in other words, high-consequence projects. If you are mechanically inclined, have a knowledgable supervisor, or are not as new to DIY as you say you are, these aren’t the worst ideas. For a true newcomer, however, oil- and brake changes are two of the riskiest places to start.

The first bolt you tighten shouldn’t be one as delicate as the oil drain plug; it’s too easy to over-torque, causing the threads to strip and the oil to leak. We want you to enjoy a long life of working on cars, not turn your engine to scrap metal after it drains all its oil. We certainly don’t want you to get in a collision because your brakes failed: Brakes are a safety requirement, and should never be disassembled and reassembled by a newbie alone.

The good news? There is lower-hanging fruit on the DIY tree. These eight projects might not be sexy, but each is a great way to learn how your car works. Better yet, your car will be safe to drive the entire time.

A good chassis lubin’

The chassis of a vintage car is peppered with grease zerks that allow a mechanic to push fresh lubricant into critical junctions and pivots—think suspension bushings and steering joints. (If you have a modern car, skip this one: Due to cost cutting and planned obsolescence, zerks are no more.)

Often, lubing a chassis can be accomplished without lifting the car. Squeezing in new lubricant from a grease gun is as simple as attaching the coupler and pumping grease into the fitting until you feel light resistance on the handle or see a small bit of grease push past the seals of the component you are working on. Take this opportunity to try and wiggle the part you are greasing. There will be a little movement, but nothing should feel sloppy or loose. If it does, congrats—you may have found your next project.

Flush away your (coolant) problems

Read any shop manual and you will find that a vehicle’s coolant should be changed on a relatively short interval. Since that coolant exists in a closed loop (we can’t see or touch it) and the temperature gauge behaves like it should, your car’s coolant is probably fine, right? Sort of.

Aging coolant—or improper coolant, since you never know what the previous owner put in—can cause lots of damage to an engine and to the heater core. Flushing coolant is simple and rarely requires special tools. (When it does, the tools are affordable.) Any problems will be signaled by the temp gauge on your car’s dash. After a coolant flush, overheating is common, usually due to an air bubble left in the system—another issue that is easily dealt with on vintage cars. Newer models, less so.

Take a brake … to inspect

To be clear: We are not telling you to work on your brakes; we’re telling you to inspect them.

This project might be the first time you put a car up on jack stands, thus giving you a chance to learn the proper jack points and technique before removing the car’s wheels and visually looking over its brakes.

What are you looking for? Pad thickness and rotor condition on disc-brake systems, drum condition and shoe life on drum setups. Keep an eye out for any fluid leaks: There should be no grease buildup or oil film on anything brake-related. If there is, talk to a pro. In the meantime, put the wheels and tires back on, and practice getting the car back on the ground before fully torquing the lug nuts.

Polish it off

Ever since detailing became all the rage a few years ago so, there is no shortage of how-to advice and guidance for cleaning your car—no matter what model year it is. Polishing your car’s paint requires you to get familiar with the vehicle and to understand the various processes, techniques, and tools of the detailing trade. Here are a few places to start, whether you’re washing off the first coat of dirt, trying clay for the first time, or simply trying to avoid the biggest mistakes.

Changing fluid, with no filter

Yeah, we said no oil changes earlier, too, but differential fluid changes are far easier. First off, differentials don’t run their fluid through a filter, and their housings are often more stout than those of oil pans.

The key tip here is to remove the fill plug first, not the drain plug. (Both are likely threaded.) If you succeed in getting the drain plug out only to find the fill is stuck or stripped, you are up a creek.

Let this be a lesson for future jobs: Think about the totality of the project. Anticipate which problems might appear, and plan for how things might change to the best of your ability.

Weather to strip, or not to strip …

Who doesn’t love watertight cars—or quiet ones? Weather-stripping helps to muffle noise coming into the cabin, whether from the road or the engine or from the air, making for a more enjoyable driving experience.

However, the foam rubber typically used for weather stripping will age like tires do: When a car is parked outside—as most project cars are at some point, even if not by you—UV light and fluctuating temperatures can its weather-stripping into a crumbling mess in short order. Cleaning and properly installing weather stripping is affordable, rewarding, and a real improvement for your car. Perfect starter project.

Get on the right track

Little things, like easy-to-use windows, go a long way to making an old car feel nicer than it is. A common pain point in vintage cars are windows—specifically, sticky regulators or jammed-up tracks. Either makes the task of cranking windows up or down difficult. Removing the door panel to get access to the mechanism for the windows is a fairly low-stakes operation. Once everything is properly greased and aligned, the result is something that a passenger will notice.

Wheel touch-ups

Paint work is complicated and time-consuming, and a good result requires tons of preparation. That is why few people’s first project cars ever see a fresh paint job. Instead, focus on the wheels—removing curb rash or spiffing up your rims’ finish can be a lot easier and cheaper.

If painting your wheels, use the “deck of cards” trick to save the annoyance of removing the tire: Wedge a line of cards between the rim of the wheel and the bead of the tire to keep the paint where it should be. Voilà—easy cleanup and good results, with no tape required. It almost never sticks to rubber, either.

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When do-it-yourself types talk about tools, they usually fall into one of two groups: Those who declare that premium tools are the way to go, and those who argue that, based on the average quality of today’s tools, paying more just isn’t worth it. The truth likely falls somewhere in between, especially once you consider that some tools get picked up more often than others. Still other tools, if they fail, have unusually high consequences.

When assembling their toolbox, everyone has a budget. Where can you cut a few corners, perhaps to justify buying a few higher-end ones? We dug around and found five garage must-haves. With these, the budget option carries no penalty—and just might be your best bet.

Pliers

I own some pricy pliers, and I’m constantly passing them over to grab a cheap set, one that can get little damaged or soaked in oil and not make me feel guilty. Does that mean I am too protective of my “nice tools?” Maybe, but it also means I probably could get by with only the budget-friendly option.

Remember those Snap-On pliers that made the rounds on social media awhile back, the ones you could use to pick up a nickel by its edge? Let’s call a gimmick a gimmick. In a home shop, you rarely need the precision offered by those pliers. They are likely easily damaged if used improperly, too.

Hacksaw

Saw blades are a place to shell out, but the actual hacksaw? Even the cheapies seem to last long enough to crop up at estate sales. After all, there aren’t many ways to improve on the recipe: a metal frame, plastic handle, and threaded adjustment for the blade tension.

Hacksaws can be found for as little as $5 or $6, and those of us who just work on cars at home are unlikely to notice or truly appreciate the more expensive options.

Flashlights

At some point, light is light. Flashlights can get expensive, and while it’s very likely some are worth the premium, most are just the same switches and bulbs in a “fancier” case. I’ve never needed a truly waterproof flashlight in my garage. I’ve never needed to use one as a hammer, either.

If taken care of with even a small amount of respect, like keeping fresh batteries installed to keep the corrosion out, cheap lights work for a long time at practically no cost.

Extensions

Not extension cords, but socket or ratchet extensions. So long as the machining for the two precision parts—where the ratchet and socket engage—is right, you’re pretty well good to go. Again, when used properly, extensions aren’t going to wear out: If you’re using hand tools, you’re unlikely to put enough torque on a garden-variety one to twist or break it.

(You shouldn’t be using one as a punch, anyway. We know you’ve never done that. Right?)

Organization

At the end of the day, your toolbox is your toolbox. If you know where things are, that is good enough. Some people prefer borderline- over fully organized tool storage, but we all find what works for us.

When you’re pinching pennies, fancy organizational inserts are low-hanging fruit. There are also a lot of truly budget DIY solutions for toolbox organization that require only medium effort.

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There is a fine line between buying the right tool for the job and spending so much on tools you don’t have anything left for the actual project. Sometimes a tool’s value doesn’t align with its price. Be a little frugal: At first, you might feel like you’re cutting corners, but after a while, you’ll notice the cash saved, and your wallet will be better prepared for that last-minute Marketplace purchase that “just needs carb work.”

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With every new DIY project comes a new challenge. So what happens when the challenge is self-imposed, arbitrary, and serves no financial purpose? Learning, that’s what.

My giant Chevy van recently returned to my driveway carrying the smallest motorcycle I could buy on Facebook Marketplace—a 2005 Honda CRF50. Only a few hours later, I began to wonder if I could get the minibike race-ready in a week, Overhaulin’ style.

If you are into cars and were alive between 2004 and 2015, you know the show. In each episode of Overhaulin’, professional hot-rod builder Chip Foose and an assembled crew would play dress-up and “steal” the car of some deserving person. That owner would be somehow distracted for a week, at the end of which the crew would return the car, completely re-done, in a big reveal.

Both my father and I enjoyed the show’s lack of “we’re going to lose the shop!” drama. Rather than yelling and sparks, the show focused on what the crew was changing about the car, whether cosmetic or mechanical, and why.

Of course, the show’s writers had to generate tension somehow. Overhaulin’ did that by putting the crew on a ridiculously short, seven-day timeline. Occasionally things did fail, but the consequences were low. A couple episodes dragged out a extra prank or two, each designed to buy the team an extra day before the owner learned their car wasn’t stolen at all. I didn’t really care, because the show made me feel like I was part of Foose’s process. In almost every episode, I learned something new about the design or technique of the experts.

When I bought the tiny CRF50 to do more small-motorcycle track days, Overhaulin’ provided the perfect challenge: Set the clock on the garage wall and rebuild the bike in seven days. If a team of 100 people could do it on a car, surely I could pull it off on a tiny, crusty bike.

Essentially, I would be taking a motorcycle apart, cleaning it, replacing a few parts, making it pretty, and then reassembling it. Nothing particularly difficult, especially considering that I intended to follow Overhaulin’ tradition by not really rebuilding much. The engine would stay together, saving me the same amount of time and energy as Foose and crew did by using crate engines. The biggest hiccups would occur as I made aftermarket parts play nice with each other.

Of course, I wouldn’t have a television crew to hide my compromises. Even Overhaulin’s big team of experienced problem-solvers nipped a corner or two—not that most viewers knew. TV simply cannot capture the assembly of still-off-gassing parts or the delivery of a car that hasn’t been aligned.

My project proved no different. With no time to use properly catalyzed clearcoat over the paint, the finish is already starting to wear in multiple spots. The seat has already torn due to some overzealous stretching of the cover as I stapled things in place to get rid of wrinkles. Final tuning took place well after day seven.

Only afterwards did I realize that completing my one-man restoration wasn’t the holy grail I thought it was, and that the secret behind Overhaulin’ was its team.

Years ago, myself and a group of 20 people or so rallied to stop by the garage of a friend, whose progress on his 1969 Firebird had stalled. We took four or five hours to “help” drop in the engine. Did we spent that time efficiently? Not at all. Two of us could have put that engine home faster, but I was more fulfilled by that experience than I ever was when working in my garage by myself.

The real winners on Overhaulin’ weren’t the cars’ owners. They were craftsman and women who worked long hours with a team building something they could be proud of, solving problems on a deadline. When I completed my dumb stunt, I was just tired, with a shoddily restored motorcycle.

Our vehicles don’t exist in a vacuum. Neither do we. What makes those cars and projects significant over time is how we choose to interact with their history and community. The characters, experts, and straight-up weirdos that we meet at shows and shops are the real gems of the car world, not the cars.

Next time you head to the garage, grab your phone before you grab your tools. Invite some friends over. The delay is worth the friendship.

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When it comes to the projects we choose to tackle in the garage, most of us look to turn out the best finished product we can. Sure, sometimes “good enough” is good enough. But once we have a given task under control, often it’s worth it to do those final few steps to take things up a few notches. Sometimes, they’re at the very end, which can seem like an exhaustive affair. It shouldn’t because it isn’t.

In fact, the vast majority of projects can be dressed up quite easily while working. Taking the time to make a few minor tweaks—which also happen to be affordable—can take a project from merely functional to something worth looking at and being proud of. Here are four items that I use in my garage to dial up the fit and finish of the cars and motorcycles that occupy my time.

High-quality paint

Most projects require some level of disassembly. That means you’ll have parts out on your workbench that might possibly never come off the car again. Now is the time to take an hour or two and put on some paint. Cleaning alone might be enough for some parts, but a good coat of paint creates a nice, even finish that, when properly applied, will last a long time.

You don’t even have to call up a painter to get good results. Find your local autobody supply and talk to the folks behind the counter. They exist to help you and will set you down the proper path in terms of selecting the right primer, color, and clear coat to get the best results. Yes, Rust-Oleum will work, but the durability provided by a properly catalyzed clear coat goes a long way when it comes to vintage engine bays that accumulate coatings from fluids like oil and gas over time. An added bonus is that most paint counters can mix custom colors into aerosol cans for you, and that means you can add one more custom touch. Granted, this bit of the extra mile will cost you more than a cheap rattle can, but the finished product is worth it. I promise.

New hardware

More and more, modern cars are produced with throwaway torque-to-yield bolts, but our vintage rides are composed of hardware that is often safe to reuse. That doesn’t mean it’s the best idea, though. Replacing partially rounded or otherwise damaged hardware is a quick way to dress up any repair. It also ensures that future you will not be left cursing present you for putting back in hardware of questionable integrity.

If replacing is not an option, at least grab a wire wheel and knock off all the crusty bits. A bench-mounted wire wheel is great, but the same effect can be had by clamping the hardware in your bench vise and using a drill to spin a cheap wire wheel. Be careful, because wires will fly out of these wheels. Eye protection is critical, and sweeping up right after is the best way to keep those small wires from getting into tires or other delicate areas.

Removing tags and labels

Whether it’s the California cancer warning or installation instructions, leaving unnecessary stickers on parts as you install them all but ensures the finished product will look odd. Removing stickers and labels creates a cleaner, more cohesive finished product. Use rubbing alcohol or dedicated cleaner to remove gooey adhesive once you’ve pulled off the stickers. If the sticker contains important information you might need in the future, consider simply relocating it to an area of the part that isn’t as visible when the assembly is together, or documenting the sticker with a photo and written notes in your project car log. You do keep a project car log, right?

Assembly protection

Nothing—and I mean nothing—is as disappointing as having a bench full of clean parts ready for assembly, only to drop a wrench or knock something over and cause a scratch or chip on finished surfaces. Going back far enough to properly fix it is a huge delay, and living with the damage is hardly fun. Instead, this is a situation where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Wrapping things in rags or covering them in painter’s tape ensures that everything will stay the proper finish, right up until the last second, when the project is put back together. Only then should you remove the protection. I have even used cheap vinyl wrap left over from other projects to act as a paint protection, since it is a little more durable than tape and comes off clean. Just be sure anything you painted is fully cured before covering. Peeling the paint off after it is all assembled is even worse than scratches. Ask me how I know…

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Of all the annoying things that people put on a pedestal, one stands above the rest: Doing a project yourself, at all costs.

A few years back, my father’s Model A coupe entered my garage in need of a second lease on life. One of the key upgrades was changing the battery cables. The Model A starter circuit requires massive amperage loads: When firing the 200-cubic-inch four-cylinder required more than 1–2 seconds of turning with the starter motor, the cables got warm to the touch. Considering how slow the starter cranked, that happened quite often.

In such a low voltage system there is only one way to maximize the amperage, and that is to reduce resistance. New, 2/0 gauge cable would solve the problem, so I decided to go order some.

I quickly realized I was looking for a part that didn’t exist—at least, not as a ready-to-install component on the shelf of a nearby store. However, I could buy the parts that comprised the cable and assemble it myself.

The job sounded easy enough—and it was. I bought some bulk cable, a few ends, and the cheapest crimping tool I could find. After five or six whacks with a 3-pound sledge, I had myself a brand-new set of cables. The ‘T had never started better, and the upgraded system continues to be dead reliable.

When a Model T in need of a new ring gear landed in my shop this fall, I immediately noticed the corroded 2-gauge cables. Thanks to the job on my dad’s ‘T, I knew exactly what this one needed.

This time, as I shopped online for cables and ends, I ended up at a website that would custom-build cables. After I priced the parts needed to do it myself, my cursor slipped, clicking the box for “build it for me.” The price of the order rose from $55.97 to $80.11. As I walked across the room to retrieve my wallet, I chewed on that price difference.

I’ve sunk endless time and dollars into projects of questionable validity. Farm bikes from the 1980s were never meant to road-race—but that hasn’t stopped me. Measuring, cutting, preparing, crimping, heat shrinking, and then finally installing those cables on the ‘T would take about an hour—an hour I could spend fixing the cylinder-head temperature gauge on my Corvair, or prepping one of the motorcycles for a weekend of riding. You know, things I wanted to do. And the cables were produced in Kentucky, right here in the U.S.!

The decision took about 20 seconds. I spent the extra $24.14.

I’m not rich, but there is a point at which opportunity cost weighs heavy. Why save pennies at the cost of the one thing you literally cannot purchase? You or I are not any less of a mechanic for making the choice to prioritize our time, and spend it on the tasks we enjoy. The decision doesn’t make us less knowledgeable; in fact, it makes us smarter.

The rewarding feeling of DIY projects is well understood in the Smith garage, but my priority lies in completing projects that enable me to grow. (Or minimizing the risk of damage, in the case of oil changes. I do those myself.) Building a set of battery cables was unlikely to teach me something new the second time around. Sure, I’d enjoy saying, “I built those,” but losing the bragging points was not that big of deal.

Seriously consider outsourcing projects to your advantage. Forgo DIY and instead enlist an expert, shop, or parts order—and feel no guilt. Most of us have have the luxury of choosing what we will become experts on. You may or may not have found where your expertise lies. I know I haven’t. But whether your time is worth anything? Well, you can figure that bit out on your own.

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At their very core, our cars are power tools. Keeping them properly maintained doesn’t absolutely require other power tools, but they sure do make life easier. Early man might have gotten by just fine using rocks to wrench on his Neolithicmobile, but rocks haven’t helped me with a garage project in decades. So let’s talk about handheld power tools.

Whether plugged into a wall outlet or juiced by batteries, power tools can make life a lot easier for many DIY projects. These six tools are must-haves for making the most of your time and getting jobs done more efficiently than ever.

Impact

Yes, manual impact drivers exist and very much have their place in the garage, but more often than not they lack the ease of use of an electric impact, as well as their broad scope: Half-inch models have the hammer weight to break free really stuck or otherwise medium- to high-torque fasteners. Think wheel lugnuts or big hardware. The next size down is three-eighths, followed by a quarter-inch impact driver, which is fairly weak compared to its bigger brothers but perfect for stubborn Phillips-head fasteners or other bolts that need a lot of pressure to ensure the bit doesn’t slip and strip the head.

Drill

Whether dealing with broken hardware or doing light fabrication, the ability to spin things accurately is important. Nothing does that better than a drill. Pair it with a nice set of twist bits, and you are fit to be dangerous. A drill’s ability to make good use of small wire wheels and other cleaning attachments also makes it a great middle ground between having a bench grinder and doing things manually with a wire brush. Even a small polishing pad can take the labor out of refinishing wheels or detailing paint.

Soldering iron

Like unclogging a shower drain, electrical work often falls into the category of uniformly despised jobs. But having the proper tools can turn any such work from nightmare to … tolerable, at least. A good soldering iron will make for strong and reliable connections that won’t pull apart, and you don’t risk accidentally cutting any wires with a crimp connector. Is it the only way to join wires? Not at all, but it might be the best. A soldering iron can also come in handy when you need to put heat into a stuck bolt in a delicate place.

Multimeter

On the topic of electrical problems and solutions, the multimeter is a tool that should arguably come before the soldering iron above. Finding and diagnosing is just as important as proper repair, and diagnosing electrical components without a multimeter is really just waiting for the lightbulb above your head to light up and tell you what’s wrong. Not the best method for doing things.

A multimeter gives you real information, whereas a test light merely gives a yes or no. If you need a refresher on what a multimeter can do, or you just need a boost of confidence to handle that electrical gremlin, check out our rundown of how to use a multimeter to be prepared for the next problem that gets you all amped up.

Digital calipers

It used to be that you needed to go to a machinist or a tool-and-die shop to see anyone handling precision measurement instruments like digital calipers. Not anymore. As the technology became more readily available, prices dropped accordingly. Now, your home shop can have a set of calipers for less than $20. Are they infallibly accurate? No, but with any measurement tool, half the accuracy is in the operator. Good digital calipers are perfect for zeroing in on the precise size of something where precise sizing is critical, and for checking the work of outside shops when the work comes back home.

Heat gun

Heat is a superpower for garage dwellers like us. From upholstery work to helping keep rubber seals pliable, a heat gun can put perfectly measured amounts of heat into a part. We even tested one recently to see if it could substitute for an open-flame torch, and the results were surprising. Once you have one in your toolbox, you’ll find more uses for a heat gun than you ever thought possible.

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As I wrote about last month, the original numbers-matching engine to my 1973 BMW 3.0CSi E9 coupe had been sitting in the corner of the garage at my mother’s house since I pulled it out and swapped it for a newer freshly-rebuilt engine in 1989. My sister and I inherited the property after my mother passed, and some cleanout of items like the engine was long overdue.

I wrote (in a lot of detail) why continuing to hold onto the engine made very little sense to me. My argument for dragging it straight to the recycle bin was that a) I am never going to rebuild and reinstall it, and b) after I die and my heirs advertise the car, if someone wants to own a fully-original numbers-matching E9 coupe, why on earth would they choose to buy this one that’s been not only color-changed but repainted in a non-factory color? These factors resulted in my somewhat passionate defense of why I think that not feeling responsible for the rest of my days for a hypothetical future of a 350-pound lump—simply because it has seven numbers stamped into it—doesn’t make me a bad person.

However, the steps required to remove the engine from the garage were the same whether I was going to tow it back to my house in Newton, Massachusetts, or to the recycle bin—it had to either be put in the back of the truck or dragged into a trailer.

In days past, when I’ve needed to move an engine, I’ve disassembled my engine hoist and loaded it into the back of the truck. Like most hoists, it has four main pieces—the base, the backbone, the arm, and the hydraulic cylinder. The backbone is held to the base with three bolts, and there’s a pivot bolt on the arm, another on the cylinder, and a few other small fasteners. Disassembling it, loading it, driving to the scene of some engine-related crime, reassembling it, using it, and disassembling it again to take it back home never used to be a big deal. But now that I’m closing in on the big six-five and have back issues, doing this alone is trolling for back pain. Yes, I can ask for help, but I prefer to use that free spin card only when it’s truly necessary.

So instead, I thought I could put the engine on a furniture dolly, then use my Warn PullzAll 120VAC electric winch to pull it up a ramp and into the back of the truck. What’s more, I had the bright idea that I could dry-run this on the other big part in the garage—the entire front subframe from another E9 coupe I’d parted out a few years before pulling the engine from mine. The subframe was standing upright in the back of the garage, resting on the engine. Sure enough, all by my lonesome, back-injured self, I was able to tip the subframe over onto the furniture dolly and winch it up a board I found in the house (it turned out to be the top piece of a discarded piano) and into the truck.

I then disassembled the subframe in place in the back of the truck, kept the steering components, and drove the bare subframe directly to the scrap metal bin (if there’s a part that lasts the lifetime of a BMW E9 coupe and thus there’s virtually zero demand for, it’s the front subframe). Gee, I thought—maybe this was more of a dry run for what to do with the engine than I’d planned.

Although this was successful, it made me realize that while tipping the 350-pound engine onto the furniture dolly to get it out into the street probably wasn’t unreasonable, winching it up a narrow wooden board acting as a ramp certainly was. I was going to need a little U-Haul trailer.

I broke the job into two steps. In the first, I went over to the house with the goal of getting the engine on the dolly. I was smart enough to know that it was doubtful I could do it alone, so I pressed my youngest son, who lives upstairs in the house, into service. It was pretty comical. Not surprisingly, the weight of the engine immediately caused the dolly to tip up. We wound up needing to brace the dolly against the wall and have him stand on one end as the engine tipped onto it. We then employed a 10-foot-long 2×4 to lever the engine so its center of gravity was about in the middle of the dolly. Finally I ratchet-strapped it in place. It looked like a very greasy Christmas goose.

About a week later, I rented a little U-Haul 4×8 cargo trailer. Having seen landscapers wheel all manner of lawn equipment out of and into similar small cargo trailers, I just assumed that the U-Haul ones had a smooth fold-down wooden rear ramp, and that this would be preferable to the open utility trailers where the ramp is a decidedly less-smooth metal grate or a corrugated piece of floor. It wasn’t until I rented the utility trailer and they had it all hooked up that I walked behind it and saw that the door opened to the side instead of folding down. My mistake—the side-opening door is clearly shown on the U-Haul website. I had them exchange it for a small utility trailer.

Rolling the engine into the street and positioning it at the bottom of the trailer’s short ramp was trivial—the furniture dolly did its job flawlessly. Winching it up the ramp, however, was not. Even with a small piece of plywood at the bottom as a little helper ramp, the little wheels on the furniture dolly didn’t like the metal grating on the ramp, and they bit into the gap between the ramp and the bed of the trailer. Fortunately, I’d brought a four-foot pipe with me, and judicious levering of the dolly coaxed the wheels into position. Once the engine and dolly were on the bed of the trailer, it still didn’t roll easily, as the corrugated floor tripped up the wheels. But I got it in and strapped down. If I had to do it over again, I’d bring two larger thin sheets of plywood to completely cover both the ramp and the bed.

As approached the turn-off to my street, I realized that all I had to do was continue straight for another half a mile and I’d be at the Newton recycling center, where I imagined simply unstrapping the engine, lowering the gate, hitting the accelerator pedal in the truck, and letting nature take its course.

But I’d already made the decision: The engine was coming home. And not because I suddenly imagined a scenario where it might be used. Or because, as I said at the end of the original piece, that the numbers-matching engine is like the character in The Sixth Sense who thinks he still has someone to help in this world (although if someone with a very original 3.0CSi coupe—which was a Euro-only model—contacted me saying that their engine just put a rod through the block and for originality’s sake they’re trying to find a block with a European VIN as close to theirs as possible, I’d be all ears).

No, the thing that tipped the scales was about as undramatic as they come. Many decisions I make are based on this simple bit of mental calculus: If it costs you nothing to leave an option open, why not do that? Ninety-five percent of the work had already been done. All I needed to do was clear a spot for it at the end of my driveway and throw a tarp over it.

Unloading the engine in the driveway was trivial, as gravity was on my side. I pulled the vehicles on the right side of the driveway (the Winnebago Rialta and the BMW Z3—the truck usually sits there as well) out into the street, and used the 4-foot pipe to lever the engine and dolly out. They made quite a racket going down the trailer’s gate, but once they were on the asphalt, they gracefully rolled down the driveway and smashed through the garage door.

Just kidding.

So yeah, I kind of kicked the can down the road. But that’s OK. Since the engine will now be sitting outside (tarped, but still outside), at some point soon I’ll source a valve cover and spend an hour with plastic wrap, rubber bands, and Gorilla tape sealing up the coolant inlets and the ports on the head.

Although the plans my wife and I were hatching during the pandemic to find a garage-centric property have stalled, I doubt the house in Newton will be my final abode. If I were to bet, I’d wager that within the next few years we go somewhere else, and I’ll need to move the engine again. Maybe it’s best that I think of it not as an albatross, but as a good luck charm.

Oh, my God. I figured it out. You know what the dead numbers-matching is? It’s the car’s Picture of Dorian Grey (the Oscar Wilde novel about the portrait in the attic that looks worse and worse while its real-life subject commits all manner of sins but never ages). This is perfect. By dumping the thing at the end of the driveway under a tarp, I’ve ensured that my precious E9 coupe will remain forever young. Maybe if I pull the tarp off the engine and let the rain get it, the little scrape on the car’s right rear wheel arch will self-heal.

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Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

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There are lots of tools in any garage but only a handful are investments or generational purchases like a good bench vise. These chunks of metal are often literal fixtures on our workbenches and are something that can be used in a multitude of ways to solve all kinds of problems when tackling repair or restoration tasks.

A vise can be as simple as just something to clamp or hold workpieces or have additional features like an anvil for allowing hammer work. Regardless, having a sturdy vise that is secure and can be trusted is basically a safety feature in the workshop. The ability to properly hold material or parts is critical to any precision process or just generally working on things in a safe manner.

For something so important, it is best to know a little about what you are buying because a higher price tag does not always mean better—especially for those just working on home projects. Here are four things to consider when shopping for your bench vise.

Cast vs forged

Vises are metal, or at least 99% of vises are. That doesn’t make them equal though. How the body of the vise was formed matters for how strong it will be while in use. A cast vise is produced by pouring molten metal into a mold and then allowing it to cool in place before removing the mold and doing some cleanup on the part to remove rough edges or casting marks. This method leaves the possibility that there is an impurity or flaw inside the casting that you may never know is there until the vise fails.

The other option is a forged vise. This process starts with a solid chunk of material which is heated and hammered into the final shape. This helps ensure the material is solid and strong. The difference between a cast and a forged vise is huge in terms of durability and tolerance for misuse and abuse. Of course, pricing matches the functionality and durability since forged vises are more difficult to make.

Jaw opening

This is simply how far apart the vise is able to open without falling apart. Most home DIY folks don’t need much more than five inches or so of clamping width, but vise shopping is a time to be thinking about the future and what types of projects or hobbies you might dive into at some point. Most hobbyists can get by with a vise that has 4-5 inches of opening, but having the option for larger pieces or using the vise as a small press is nice and that means scaling up. A larger jaw opening means that the vise will take up more bench space so it is still a trade-off between utility and space.

Jaw type and material

What material do you plan on working with most often? Delicate things? Pipes? Most vises have the option to change the jaw faces but it is not something most users do regularly. Serrated jaws are likely the most common, but can leave marks and impressions on soft materials like wood or aluminum. Soft jaws can often be purchased that will hold to the jaw face with a magnet and allow for more delicate holding, but can also be annoying to work with as they can fall off or shift when working, and also be damaged by heat.

The addition of pipe jaws can be nice if fabrication is something you expect to be doing, as the angled opening does a better job at holding round objects without distorting or damaging them.

Mounting and base

You can have the strongest vise in the world but if the mounting between those jaws and your bench is lacking your vise isn’t that strong after all. Take a look at your workspace and ensure that the vise you select fits the space you plan to put it. Affixing it to your workbench should be done with serious hardware, not just what you happen to have laying around.

Another item to consider is a fixed vs rotating base. Again, both have strengths and weaknesses but it all depends on how you plan to use the vise. A rotating base is often much easier to use and provides a lot of utility for regular use while a fixed base is much sturdier for hammering material or other heavy-duty tasks.

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In short, there is no perfect vise for all tasks but with a little planning, you can find the perfect vise for your workshop needs. Do we all want a Wilton Bullet or some other total overkill vise? Well yeah, but there are likely some less pricey options that will fulfill your needs and last a long time. Also, don’t rule out buying a used vise at a swap meet, garage, or estate sale as this can be a great way to get a quality vise that might just need a little repair or love before serving valiantly for years. Just know you are likely best served shopping locally since shipping often gets expensive on bulky, heavy items like a vise.

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Some of the most strongly held opinions in the classic car world surround the matter of vehicle storage. Unfortunately, these opinions are difficult to evaluate: Though we may have a decent understanding of how our cars and their engines work, we may lack the ability to test all the theories and opinions regarding their “proper” storage. And who would risk mistreating a treasured vehicle?

That’s why it’s great when someone shares detailed, first-hand experience. The latest example concerns a small-block Ford built for a NASCAR stock car that ended up living on the shop floor for nearly 20 years. We get to compare its power output before and after storage, using the dyno sheet when it was built in 2004 and comparing that to present-day results. For the “after” dyno run, the engine receives no prep other than a little oil in the cylinders.

The experiment comes courtesy of Stapleton42 on YouTube, who was tipped off to a long-stored but freshly built Ford C3 engine. It was built, broken in, and made power pulls on the dyno before it was crated up and left to sit. No turning over from time to time. No special lubes. Just an engine sitting on the floor.

So how much power did the engine lose after all those years of “improper” storage?

None.

You’re either not surprised by this at all, or you’re shocked the engine didn’t grenade itself once up to temperature.

Let’s discuss each reaction individually.

Reaction 1: Nonplussed.

Simply sitting on a shop floor doesn’t put any wear on the internal parts of an engine. Worst-case scenario, the piston rings rust to the cylinder walls, or other corrosion creeps in and causes additional friction in unexpected places.

This situation likely cures itself, as those piston rings are essentially scraping the bore of the cylinders clean with each stroke. The engine likely was down a bit of compression on first startup, but after just a few moments of running, all that corrosion was put into the oil and caught in the filter. No big deal.

Reaction 2: Shock.

If you’re in this camp, you’ve thought about the situation and are less focused on the big picture issues and more on the details.

The nature of a pushrod V-8 means that no matter where the crankshaft stops in its rotation, some valves—each of which opens and closes via springs—will be held open. You’d expect that keeping a spring compressed for 19 years would be detrimental to it. The dyno operator in the video points out that is only part of the problem: When roller lifters are used, the lifter—more specifically, the bushing or bearing at the lifter’s tip—has been under pressure for decades. This component is more likely to cause a problem than an over-compressed spring: if the bearing is slightly bound up and refuses to rotate properly, the camshaft could wipe a lobe on startup.

While this diagnosis is pretty specific to race engines, we extrapolate the principals to barn finds or otherwise “lost and found” vehicles that have sat for years. The bits and pieces in cars are often far more durable than we give them credit for and if the relatively delicate race engine pieces survive this kinda of neglect, a consumer-grade engine likely will have even less trouble; these are built to withstand a larger amount of neglect, in most cases.

Will this NASCAR engine now run forever without any further maintenance? Maybe. Only time would tell, but most everyone involved agrees that some amount of teardown and inspection would be wise. The low cost of gaskets could save the high cost of destroyed parts. A little caution never hurt anyone, especially an engine builder.

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With warmer weather finally arriving in many parts of the country, spring driving season is once again upon us. This article originally published in 2020, but these checks were as relevant then as they are today. Here’s to many more miles this year! –Ed.

If you’re reading this, you almost certainly have a non-daily-driven enthusiast car somewhere in a locked garage. It’s time to unlock the door, let that puppy out, fire it up, and drive it.

But you need to check a few things first.

I assume that the car has been sitting over the winter—say, three to six months. If the car’s been sitting for years instead of months, you get into a whole other level of issues like bad gas, clogged fuel lines, corroded cooling-system components, and failed brake and clutch hydraulic seals. But for a season’s sit, the list below should be pretty good.

Enabling the rollout

The cars that I store offsite are in rented, traditional, one-car-per-roll-up-garage-bay spaces and thus can be brought out at a moment’s notice, but at my house I have a shoebox-proportioned garage with a single door into which four cars are stuffed in two rows, nose-to-tail.

The car immediately behind the door can be pulled out easily, and the one behind that (on the mid-rise lift) is next in line, but the other two are typically blocked in by a winter’s worth of tools and parts.

Once that Maginot Line is cleared, I need to slide a car to the right on wheel dollies. This turns my space from a four-car, winter garage to a three-car, three-season garage, which it remains until first snow. It also means that one formerly garaged car must go somewhere, creating a chain reaction that sets off a shuffle in the other places where I store cars.

Tires

If, when you roll open the garage door for the first time in months, one of your car’s tires is wheel-on-the-cement flat, you kind of have to start with the tires, so let’s. Obviously, if that’s the case, you need to air that tire up before you can move the car. If you don’t have an air compressor in the garage, buy a portable one that runs off the cigarette-lighter socket, or better yet, runs off 12V DC or a 120VAC adapter.

I’ll air up the tire and then see what it’s going to do. If you immediately hear it hissing from a puncture or a bad valve stem, then you need to stop everything, jack up the car, pull the wheel off, and either swap on another wheel and tire or get this one fixed. But if you don’t, you can see whether the leak deflates the tire over hours or days. Just remember that it deflated over the winter, so it’s going to do it again.

Then, check the air pressure of all four tires. While you’re doing that, it’s a good idea to inspect the tire sidewalls for cracking. Odds are that if the car is stored indoors, the tires aren’t going to get much worse over a single winter, but it’s easy for 10 years to go by one winter at a time and the tires to cross from old-but-OK to sheeh-I-don’t-want-to-drive-farther-than-to-the-gas-station-on-those.

Battery

We’ll come back to the battery in cranking (below), but here’s where I talk about what you should’ve done when you put the car away last fall. If the battery has been on a tender or trickle-charger for the winter, it’s probably fine. Since I store several of my cars in a remote garage without electricity, I can’t trickle-charge them, so instead I simply unhook the negative battery terminal over the winter. Most of the time, when I reconnect it three or four or six months later, the engine turns right over.

But if you didn’t do either of these things, you’ll probably have a problem.

You can take a multimeter, set it to measure voltage, and put the two probes on the battery terminals. If it reads 12.6 volts, or near it, the battery is fully charged, and if it’s in good health and the cable connections are good, it should turn the engine over. But with every 0.2-volt drop, the battery loses about 25 percent of its cranking power, so if it’s reading closer to 12 volts than 12.6, it’s is unlikely to crank the engine over without being connected to a good three-stage charger for several hours. So measure the battery’s voltage, and if you need to charge it, charge it.

Fluids inside

Check the oil, coolant, and brake fluid levels. I’m pretty bad at keeping track of which car had an oil change when, so I do it more by the seat of my pants. If the oil looks black, I make a note to change it soon. I give a quick look inside the radiator or expansion tank to both check the level and see if there’s any oil in there indicating a weakening head gasket.

Fluids outside

Next, look under the engine compartment for evidence of leaks. Hopefully all you find is a few dots of oil from where the car’s been leaking out the front timing cover for the last 40 years and nothing more.

Anything green is antifreeze, and its source should be identified before you drive the car, as a minor leak can quickly mushroom into a gusher. Blue liquid can be either antifreeze or washer fluid. Clear liquids are usually power steering or brake fluid. I’m not above doing the pinky-in-the-fluid-and-tongue-touch-to-the-pinky test (antifreeze is sickly sweet), but I’m old and cannot be easily killed.

Move to the back of the car where the fuel tank is, schooch under, look, and sniff. Vintage cars have metal fuel tanks, and they can leak from age, particularly with ethanol’s propensity for attracting water. Since it’s good practice to store a car with a full tank of gas (this eliminates the chance for humid air to get into the tank and contaminate the gas with water), if you find the tank leaking, it ruins your day, since you now need to drain it. Gas can also leak from rotted or cracked rubber fuel lines.

Gasoline isn’t like oil or antifreeze; there should be a zero-tolerance policy for any amount of fuel leakage. You should also sniff in the engine compartment to be certain gas isn’t leaking there.

The critter check

If your garage has an affinity for rodents and they’ve made your car home, they can deposit a lot of material in the air cleaner in a short amount of time. It’s good insurance to pop the top off the air cleaner and have a quick look.

Hoses and belts

Give the hoses and belts a quick inspection. Squeeze the hoses. If any of them are pillowy soft, order replacements. Inspect the belts for cracks and cuts and put a thumb on each of them to check the tension. If they’re obviously loose, take a moment and tighten them.

The crank-over

If the car has passed the above checks, the engine is ready to be cranked. As I said above, if the battery is fully charged and registering about 12.6 volts, it should crank when you turn the key. If it doesn’t crank, clean the battery and cable terminals and try again.

If the voltage is a little low, you can jump-start the car, but if the battery is deeply drained (turn the key and you get a click of the starter but that’s all), or worse, flatlined (less than 10.5 volts, or the car’s dash lights barely even turn on), it’s best to replace it before you drive the car. Alternators aren’t designed to charge deeply discharged batteries. Although old analog cars often don’t seem to mind, post-OBDII cars with a proliferation of electronic control modules can do very odd things, including bucking and dying, if a deeply discharged battery is jump-started and the car is driven.

If the car is fuel-injected, it will likely start in just a few seconds when the starter is cranked. If it doesn’t, the fuel pump may not be running, either due to a popped fuse, stuck relay, or the pump itself.

Carbureted cars often take much longer to start due to the lower fuel pump pressure, the need to refill the float bowls, the far less precise air/fuel metering, and the lack of direct spray into the cylinders. A short blast of starting fluid into the carburetor throat can coax the engine to life. If a carbureted car still won’t start after sitting, the problem is often that an old fuel line has become dry-rotted and is sucking air rather than fuel.

The eyeballs-on idle

Once the engine is running, let it idle for about a minute. Then shut it off and look under the engine for any fluid dripping or streaming out.

Twice around the block

It’s common for brake pads to stick to rotors from sitting. If the car has been stored indoors, the rotors probably won’t have rusted much, but still you want to scope it out. Take the car for an easy lap around the block. Brake gently to verify that the brake pedal is firm and functional, then more firmly. Pick up speed and do it again. Note any brake-pedal shudder (pulsation), pulling to one side, or steering-wheel shimmy. Pull back into the driveway and check again for any fluid leakage.

A real test drive

Take the car up onto the highway or other road where you can build speed. Verify that it comes up to operating temperature in about the middle of the gauge and stays there. Continue to test the brakes for shuddering or pulling. If the brake pedal is still pulsating, there are still unwiped deposits on it. A series of hard braking exercises (first verifying that no one is behind you) may wipe the rotors clean, or you may find that it doesn’t go away and you need to buy new rotors.

If there’s steering-wheel shimmy that wasn’t there in the fall, it’s likely the tires are flat-spotted from sitting. It may go away. It may not. Come home, recheck for fluid leakage, and check again the next morning.

If the car passes these tests, I feel pretty good about thinking that it’s in about the same condition it was in when put away in the fall and I’m ready to begin to enjoy it in the spring. But keep in mind that successfully emerging from storage doesn’t mean that the car has been healed of any known problems. Cars are not biological systems; they don’t mend themselves with a good long sleep.

***

Rob Siegel has been writing the column The Hack Mechanic for BMW CCA Roundel magazine for 34 years and is the author of five automotive books. His new book, Resurrecting Bertha: Buying back our wedding car after 26 years in storage, is available on Amazon, as are his other books, like Ran When Parked. You can order personally inscribed copies here.

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A while back, a friend expressed frustration to me about a security Torx bolt inside the steering column of his vintage Ford. He knew there was red Loctite holding the bolt in place, so getting it out would require heat. A heat gun would be his weapon of choice. “That’s never going to work,” I thought, but also trusted that he knew what he was doing.

His plan ended up failing, mostly due to other variables, but it led to an interesting question: How could we test the efficacy of various popular methods for heating parts in the garage?

We both had our opinions, so our approach had to be scientific, or at least quasi-scientific. Being married to a real-life scientist (I only play one on the internet), I consulted my wife and spend an evening designing a repeatable and measurable test. The goal was to not only to measure the effectiveness of popular heating strategies across a few applications, but also to see if unconventional methods—like my friend’s heat gun approach—might be actually useful in certain situations.

The test

I grabbed an old trailer axle and lopped off the end. This chunk of 1/2″ steel with some tube welded was a reasonable stand-in for a car part, replicating the heat sink (absorption of heat by a piece of metal away from another area) that often plays out in multi-piece components. I then drilled a hole, threaded it, and put in a new bolt with a couple spacers to ensure the bolt had some stretch and tension.

Repeatability is a core tenet of any test. In each run, the bolt was torqued to 50 foot pounds with a dab of red Loctite on the threads and then left to cure for 10 hours—not a perfect duplication of a corroded fastener or something that has been torqued down for decades but a fair baseline for the methods we tested. 

To keep the breaking-loose torque on the fastener consistent, I used a jack handle and a weight hung on the end—in this case a sledgehammer and receiver hitch tube. This ensured that there was no additional force acting on the bolt and effectively isolated the variables to what we were testing: the heat breaking down the Loctite. Each experiment occurred in my garage, at a room temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Each heat source was applied to one side of the steel plate surrounding the bolt until the bolt broke free and the weight dropped. The chief data point we were recording was time elapsed, but for the sake of more data (and an interesting talking point), I also measured the temperature of the steel plate and bolt right after each the bolt broke free, using an infrared thermometer.

The heat sources

MAP-Pro

The yellow tanks you find at the hardware store are no longer MAPP gas like they once were. Now those tanks are MAP-Pro, which replaces the blend of methylacetylene, propadiene, and propane molecules that makes up MAPP for a gas that only contains propylene and propane. MAPP was discontinued in 2008, which is unfortunate for garage dwellers like you and I because true MAPP gas burned at 5300 degrees Fahrenheit; MAP-Pro burns at 3730 degrees.

Propane

This one should be familiar, as it’s the substance many of us rely on for home heating and cooking. Morgan even used propane for engine fuel at one point! It comes blue tanks at the store, usually right next to the MAP Pro bottles on the shelf. Propane is readily available in many different storage forms, though, and it’s suitable for multitude of tasks. It’s very often employed for soldering or sweating copper pipes in plumbing applications. Burning slightly cooler than MAP-Pro at 3600 degrees, propane is common in a lot of home garages.

Butane kitchen torch

Butane is best known for its use in lighters and other small utility-type torches, such as the kitchen torch we used in this experiment. Butane carries the same potential energy as propane, so burned in the same volume and efficiency it should produce similar results. However, this kitchen torch is much smaller than the ones we used with MAP-Pro and propane, despite the more focused flame. I was particularly curious about how this one would work out, because I’ve personally often wondered if it would come in handy for gently heating delicate parts with a greater demand for accuracy.

Heat gun

Using electric coils and a fan, a heat gun uses resistance to create heat and directed airflow to apply it to your chosen material. Adjustability for temperature and fan speed is nice, but the imprecise nature of how the heat is distributed can sometimes be an issue. Working under a dashboard or on something with plastic components might require using a heat shield to keep hot air from unintentionally affecting sensitive components. For things like heat shrink tubing or softening rubber hoses or lines, however, a heat gun’s soft and variable heat is tough to beat.

Oxyacetylene torch

The beast of the bunch. Twin tanks, hot enough to cut plate steel when properly utilized. The old saying about a stuck fastener that “can’t be tight if it’s liquid” stems from oxyacetylene heat. By far, use of this tool requires the most skill and attention of any torch we’ve discussed thus far. For that reason it rarely appears in DIYer hands. Flame temperatures can reach 6300 degrees and, combined with a rosebud or large welding tip, can put a lot of heat into a workpiece very quickly. This ability can help keep heat localized when used properly, or, when misused, can cause major damage. Add in the ability to use this torch for welding and brazing of materials and it’s easy to see why these setups are popular for more than just slow-motion shots of people using a striker and lighting the flame.

The results!

Consider this your disclaimer: As much as I tried to remove variables from this test, some remained. Take a second to study the chart above.

So, are results what you expected? If so, keep in mind that reinforcing knowledge is still a kind of knowledge gained. An interesting note, too: I used a “0” tip for the oxyacetylene torch, which is a relatively small welding tip. It still pumped enough heat into the steel plate to soften the Loctite faster than anything else. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to reset the test and try again with a rosebud or larger tip to see if it would work even faster. I suspect it would.

The big takeaway from my perspective: My friend was actually right, at least in a sense.

The heat gun did loosen the Loctite, but the time required and lack of localized heat application makes for a questionable use case in the context of breaking bolts free. In a relatively fragile environment, like under a dashboard, I would be worried about the amount of hot air being pushed in the vicinity of wiring looms or delicate sensors. It would likely still be best to shield or otherwise protect items, even from “only” 1000 degrees that a heat gun can produce. Sometimes, counterintuitively, more heat for a shorter time can save not only time but also materials.

There is a right tool for every job, and sometimes we don’t have it. It happens. I am just happy to know that all of these are legitimate options in a pinch. Pretty sweet, actually.

Is there something else from the garage you would like to see tested in this type of manner? Leave it as a comment below and we’ll see if we can devise a test and share the results. Who doesn’t love learning?

***

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My phone stopped ringing recently. No matter what settings I adjust, calls go straight to voicemail. The fear of missing a friend’s text or call leads me to pick up the phone and check it even more often than I already do. (An unhealthy amount.) So when I saw I had missed a call from Davin Reckow, I was both annoyed and intrigued. What could the Redline Rebuild hero need from me?

Dropping what I was doing, I called him back.

“Hey, missed your call. How’s it going?”

“Oh, pretty good. Say, you don’t happen to have a balancer for a Corvair hanging around, do ya?”

The harmonic balancer is a humble piece on most cars. It dampens the resonance and torsional vibrations that come from a multi-cylinder engine. Some Corvair engines have harmonic balancers, some don’t. Those that do have a decent chance of experiencing a failure if their balancer is swapped for the solid pulley of the other engines.

Davin was in the throes of attempting to bring a Corvair back to life for Hagerty’s Will It Run? YouTube series. This meant he needs the right parts, and no one in Traverse City, Michigan stocks Corvair parts except, well, me most likely.

“Any chance you can bring that spare over to the shop?”

Of course, I said yes.

I couldn’t help feeling honored. This was Davin, a man who has helped me on dozens of projects by lending advice or tools or clarifying my understanding of a system or problem. He has been a mentor to me in the 12 years he and I have known each other. Who am I to be helping him out?

Well, I’m the guy who has spent 20 years relatively obsessed with the air-cooled wonder that is the Corvair, a car that Chevrolet released to the world in 1960. The same car that shared few parts with its contemporaries at a time when the U.S. carmakers were really putting in effort to stretch tooling costs and lower MSRP. It was things like all those unique parts that likely shortened the Corvair’s lifespan, ignore all the drivel about that lawyer-turned-politician and his book. Corvairs have always been a little odd and often to its own detriment, so when you have a friend who might know more about them than you do, you call.

Not having the puller I needed to remove the balancer Davin needed, I had to get creative. I grabbed a piece of angle iron from my small stash of stock, drilled three holes in it to match up with those in the crank center and in the threaded puller holes. In the center I used the threaded foot from a shelf to which I had added casters, and then I scrounged up a few bolts that matched the threaded holes in the balancer. The shelf foot wedged between the crank snout and the puller so that, when I tightened the outer bolts evenly, the angle iron pushed on the snout and pulled the balancer right off the crankshaft’s taper.

A crude tool, but it made the job quick and easy. As a bonus, my solution would fit between the rear engine mount and the pulley when the engine was installed in a car, the situation that Davin and I were tackling. I talked him through what parts could be left in place for the balancer swap and recommended a course of action. I also called out a few Corvair-specific problems he could expect to encounter, including:

• The nests that form under the “turkey roaster.” (This phrase is slang for the sheetmetal that sits atop the engine to direct the cooling airflow.) It’s a perfect animal home, and, when occupied, blocks all the air that should be forced down through the cylinder and cylinder head cooling fins.
• The mechanical fuel pump diaphragm, which often fails in a manner that floods the crankcase with fuel.
• Last but not least, the heater ducting that can cut your driveshafts in half

Like I said, weird cars. Nearly every make and model of vehicle has some kind of intricacy or weird insider knowledge, though. That’s part of the fun in this hobby—mentally amassing thousands of facts and figures that only apply to very specific situations. Do I need to know the proper valve-lash tolerances for the ’68–69 L88 Corvette engine? Not at all, but I do: .022-inches for the intake, .024-inches for the exhaust.

Being called upon by someone that I see as knowing more than me is something of an honor, but the more I thought about it, the less that feeling had to do with Corvair stuff. It had more to do with the general feeling of helping someone with whom I shared a mission: To save vintage vehicles, keep them on the road, and ensure any and all knowledge is handed down, logged, or otherwise preserved.

It is within our human nature to feel the need to be needed, to know that our specific knowledge and skills matter. Nothing feeds that innate desire like being asked to help. And when the person asking is someone we respect, the warm and fuzzy feeling that we matter is only amplified. Studies show that this feeling of purpose and value releases dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin within our bodies. These three neurotransmitters are the fuel, air, and spark that make a human run correctly.

All of that warm-and-fuzzy can come from picking up the phone and asking your friends for help, whether you actually need it or not. Consider this a call for you to go out into the garage and do something—but you have to call friend over to assist.

It doesn’t matter if the work on your project doesn’t get done, or if it takes a lot longer; sometimes the maintenance we truly need is for ourselves, just sharing our expertise and having it appreciated. So call a friend. Just not me, because my phone still doesn’t ring.

***

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This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

You might think it strange that a rabid car enthusiast and a man of means from Italy would have no Fiats, Alfa Romeos, or Ferraris in his collection. But retired billionaire jeweler Nicola Bulgari’s driving interest makes perfect sense when you understand its origin.

In 1944, after Rome was liberated from Nazi occupation, young Bulgari marveled at a 1935 Buick 96S driven by American soldiers on the streets of his home city.

When he came to the States in the 1970s to develop his family’s jewelry business, Bulgari brought his deep love of classic American automotive elegance. This led to his founding of Allentown, Pennsylvania’s NB Center for American Automotive Heritage.

The private, 27-acre campus includes a working drive-in theater and a fully functional gas station with vintage pumps. It also boasts 2 miles of road, multiple restoration shops, a 24,000-square-foot lodge for car club functions, and buildings for storage and displaying the 192-strong collection central to Bulgari’s crusade—reminding Americans that they build the best cars in the world and always have.

That’s where the NB Center’s newest and youngest mechanic comes in, 21-year-old Anthony Maguschak. He helps restore the center’s cars—Oldsmobiles, DeSotos, Hudsons, Cadillacs, and Bulgari’s beloved Buicks—which form the backbone of the largest historical trust of American cars and information from the 1920s through the early ’50s.

“Three months before COVID hit, I was headed to Penn State to study wildlife technology,” Maguschak says. “Then I realized career opportunities in the field were scarce.” He sat down with his parents and told them that what he really wanted to do was work on cars for a living.

Once accepted to Penn College of Technology’s two-year restoration program, Maguschak spent the pandemic studying and working under the hood.

“I found everything interesting and fun—the mechanics, transmissions, chassis, bodywork, paint, and upholstery,” he says. While the rest of the world hit pause, the learning at Penn never slowed, and Maguschak was offered a three-month internship opportunity from Keith Flickinger, the NB Center’s curator and chief restorer.

“I am constantly visiting and working with America’s top restoration colleges, looking for young talent like Anthony,” Flickinger says, adding that there aren’t many like Maguschak. “Remember his name. He’s just a rock star—smart, dedicated, driven to learn. He’s an old soul way beyond his 21 years.”

Passion is what fuels the work at the NB Center, and it’s what Flickinger seeks most. “I can teach a skill set, and the RPM Foundation solves the problem of funding to cover lodging, meals—the things I don’t want students worrying about while they’re here learning and working with our professionals.”

Now employed full time at the center, Maguschak primarily works with a small team of seven restorers who maintain every car in “ready-to-drive” condition.

With a new visitors center and library, the collection will continue to expand with the goal of becoming a global destination. But Flickinger is quick to point out that Bulgari’s founding mission is about more than preserving old cars, documents, and photos.

“We like to say that we don’t need to restore another car. We just need to educate future generations with our facility. It’s about paying it forward, by teaching and inspiring young people who will go do the same.”

People just like Anthony Maguschak.

***

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The garage is a space that can be many things. It can be a shrine to a favorite car or a workspace that’s chock full of tools. Depending on who you are and what you enjoy in the garage, there are a number of things that may conspire to maim and injure the relatively delicate human body. Some of those are obvious. They wear warning labels and tamper-resistant guards aimed at protecting us from ourselves. Other items in the garage are just as dangerous but come with no warning label. Like a snake in the grass, you have to be aware to even know you are in danger. Here are six of those items you might have and not even think about.

Sleeves

We all wear clothes. Okay, most of us wear clothes and all of us have likely said the old saying about rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. That saying exists for a reason. As much of a danger as it is to be working on your hot rod in the nude, it can be just as dangerous to have loose clothing on. The machines we work on are very powerful, even the small ones like cordless drills, and are capable of catching a bit of cloth and whipping it into a fury.

This is often discussed when working with big equipment like lathes or milling machines, but an alternator pulley or cooling fan is just as—if not more—powerful. Adjusting carburetor tuning or ignition timing on an engine puts us in a place where we can get pulled into things quickly if not careful. An unbuttoned flannel shirt or hooded sweatshirt with strings hanging down is just as dangerous as sleeves too, so it pays to be conscious of what you are wearing and how it might conspire to hurt you.

Chips

No, we aren’t going to stop you from crunching away on some Lay’s while in the garage, but there are chips to be scared of. Any time you are drilling or turning you are cutting away small pieces of metal that are called chips. These slivers of metal are dangerous at first because they are often hot and thrown away from the workpiece. Safety glasses are critical there. Once they hit the floor the danger is not over though. Those chips are hot for a little while, but often sharp forever. They can become prickly little tire deflators in short order if you forget to sweep up or roll a tire over them without thinking.

Heavy things up high

I’ll admit I’ve stood on a stool to grab that bin off the top shelf only to find it’s heavier than I remember when it finally slips off and all the weight is in my hands. Luckily that ended okay but it was merely luck that I wasn’t injured due to falling off the stool or dropping that bin on myself or something I care about. Garages serve as storage as much as a workspace for lots of us and while it is funny to think that the storage side could potentially be dangerous, it happens.

The fridge contents

The garage fridge is a sacred place to some. It can help lubricate our tongues until the fun stories come out around our buddies. It can also help with press-fit parts by chilling them until they shrink just enough to make popping things in place a little easier. Lastly, it can cause us to forget the basics and not respect the power of the tools and vehicles we work on. When in doubt, stay sober until the project is done and it’s just the clean-up left.

Chargers or tenders

Sadly, we are not talking Dodge or chicken here. Seasonal storage is the (unfortunate) norm for many owners and that means keeping batteries topped up so cars will be ready when driving season arrives. There is also the rising popularity of battery tools which require occasional charging to keep in working order. Leaving either of these items plugged in for extended periods is often safe as the devices have fuses or safeties built in, but those are not fail-proof.

All it takes is a battery to get overcharged, or a wire to get rubbed a few too many times and cause an arc and suddenly there’s fire. It often happens silently and causes damage quickly. Check your chargers or tender regularly to see if they are warm to the touch or otherwise defective. If possible, unplug them when not needed as it will minimize the risk of something melting down without you being there to catch it.

Air

Yes, be scared of everything! Just kidding, this is really only for compressed air. As tempting as it is to use compressed air to blow dust and debris off your skin while working, it carries risks that not all are aware of. Most air lines in shops run at least 90psi of pressure and when that is funneled through a nozzle and pointed at our relatively porous skin there is the chance an air bubble can form under our skin. That is called an air embolism and causes serious health concerns. Blowing your skin off also can force contaminates into you skin rather than off of it. Human bodies cannot process many of the chemicals that are common in garage projects so on a long enough timeline this will poison you from within.

***

Of course, someone could make an argument that just about anything is dangerous and it would likely hold some truth. Anyone picking up tools and working in the garage accepts some risk but it is always best to understand the dangers you are engaging with and understand how to mitigate the risk if appropriate.

***

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After a short hiatus of hands-on projects, I’ve been returning to the garage to deal with a few tasks that have been sitting on my back burner. Top of the list is sorting through the various parts and pieces that have accumulated in the 10 years since I moved to Michigan and began to hoard the parts and pieces that will certainly get used one day.

The sad theme of my cache? Stripped nuts and bolts.

Most of it is OEM Honda hardware. I can still buy it, but I fear the day I won’t have that option. I could replace all of it with socket-headed cap screws—the threads are standard metric—but the flanged head with the hemispherical dent in its center is a touch that I like on my bikes. It’s the correct stuff, and a good build deserves it. Sadly, the previous owners of the motorcycles I’ve bought didn’t have such respect for the little things.

Many of the bikes’ nuts and bolts have rounded-off corners or are otherwise damaged in a way that suggests an inconsiderate mechanic rather abuse on the road or trail. With my thrifty (read: cheap) nature, the bikes I bring home rarely come from loving homes. The last one, an ’86 Honda XR250R, came from a dirt lot adjacent to a house whose roof had collapsed. I think the 14-year old who sold me the bike was squatting in it.

Humans have advanced to the point where we’ve made so many tools that one person could never own them all if they tried. The sheer number of available tools has made it easy for users to reach for the wrong one. If it kinda works, it becomes their go-to.

That doesn’t make that tool the right choice.

Allow me to present an example, which happens to be a personal pet peeve: 12-point sockets.

Go to your favorite local hardware store and look into the bins of nuts and bolts. Then put your car on jack stands (if it’s already there, I’m sorry) and spend five minutes poking around and noting the hardware that holds the thing together.

Just leave this window open in your browser. It’ll be here when you get back.

I promise.

What did you find? Most of those fasteners have six sides with six tidy corners. What isn’t a hex-, Torx-, or Phillips-head is likely hexagonal in shape and would fit perfectly into a six-point socket. It would also fit in a 12-point socket—but poorly.

I can state this as fact because science backs me up. Look closely at the two sockets, of the same size, side by side. Notice that the six-point socket has thicker walls than the 12-point one. Also, look at the facets inside. If you have a quality set of sockets, these surfaces won’t actually be flat; instead, each section will have a slight arch to it.

This concave surfacing helps the socket engage the fastener farther towards its center, on what’s called the fastener’s flank. Together, the six-point’s superior rigidity and optimal contact point transfer torque more evenly from the socket to the fastener. This design also deflects less twisting power during high-torque situations, like those produced when you’re wrestling with a corroded or very tight piece of hardware.

According to a patent filing by Snap-on tools, the goal of a socket design is to “engage the flank of the fastener at a distance of about 30 to 60 percent of half a length of the flank away from the corner of the fastener.” This prevents the fastener’s corners from being wiped off by the socket, leaving you with a stressful evening of dealing with a newly round bolt.

Before you say it, yes—I will happily admit that there are three parts to this equation: Tool, workpiece, and user.

Think about all the times you’ve heard people complain about modern “cheese-grade” hardware. This is the stuff that is unmarked and made of an alloy that seems to be heavy on the sugar and spice but has none of the nice carbon, zinc plating, or heat treatment found on grade-five and above hardware.

Low-grade hardware commonly found on budget-focused products, combined with a less-than-conscientious user who selects a sub-optimal tool is a recipe for failure and frustration. It is up to the user to select the proper tool for the job.

Often, the perceived ease of engagement offered by a 12-point socket is traded for greater risk of rounding off hardware and creating even more of a pain.

So, I propose a rebranding of 12-point sockets in your mind: They are speciality tools.

There are twelve-point fasteners and, of course, that means you should be prepared for them. An 8mm 12-point can stand in for the special XZN hardware found on Volkswagen Auto Group cars, just as one example. That’s a pretty narrow use case, though. Oh, and I have to mention ARP bolts, along with the other aftermarket hardware that surely exists. Heck, I could swear I’ve seen factory-installed connecting-rod bolts with 12-point heads.

Twelve-point sockets always seem to be around, though. Look in any one of the starter toolkits at your local hardware store, and you’ll find a matched set of six- and 12-point socket duplicates.

I chalk this up to two reasons: It is handy to have two sockets of the same size if only because you might lose one or need two in order to separate a nut-and-bolt union. Also, notice how so many of those kits are sold on tool count: high number of tools for a low price. Just $250 for 290 tools, and these kits often go on sale around the end of the year for close to $100, even.

That tool number is a big part of the manufacturer’s value play. The reality is that duplicates—and the practice of counting each screwdriver tip that can be inserted into the single screwdriver included in the kit—builds value in the customer’s mind. It also means that we view each tool in those sets as something we need and must use. That’s just not true, though. Even with these toolkits.

Look, in most situations, a 12-point will do the job. But if a fastener gets tight, rusty, slightly rounded, or otherwise damaged, why take the risk of starting with an inferior tool and hoping that the proper one can save you if things go wrong?

The sales pitch that double the points is handy for when a bolt is slightly hidden or tough to get to is backwards. Yes, a 12-point socket can engage a six-point bolt every 30 degrees of rotation, but if you’re are unable to rotate a 6-point socket to get settled onto a bolt, how are you going tighten or loosen the bolt once the socket’s engaged? Should the inferior socket damage the hardware, you can only hope that a six-point can save the day. Even if it does, you’ve now wasted time doing the job twice. Just use the right tool the first time and save yourself the stress of having to replace rounded bolts.

Or don’t. I fully recognize it’s your shop, your tools, and your hands. You can take the risk if you want.

But if you are the person who rounds off hardware with a 12-point, uses a six-point to remove it, and then just goes ahead and reinstalls it … would you please stop selling me motorcycles?

***

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Free time is not free. Free time comes with working efficiently, which minimizes the time needed to get the finished product you so desire. You could ensure your tools are all in the garage, suggesting they are technically all in one place. But nothing is more infuriating than spending five minutes wandering around the garage to find a tool you only need for 30 seconds. And then repeat it again for another misplaced item. It can literally drive a person mad.

On the other hand, there are people who genuinely believe organization is just a waste. Everyone works in their own ways, so we aren’t about to suggest anyone is wrong for keeping their tools how they please. But, with an interest in organization in mind, here are the four levels of tool storage you will likely encounter if you visit enough garages.

Level 0: I have one of those

You are elbow deep in a water pump swap at your friend’s garage when you realize you need a shallow 6-point socket on an 3″ extension. You friend looks at you and says “yeah, I’ve got one of those” and then starts picking up various items and projects on their workbench. Your automotive repair has now turned into a game of “I Spy: Garage Edition.”

We all get caught between projects from time to time, or something of high-importance rolls in and requires pausing something you were actively working on. We how these situations come to life. But if this is your modus operandi, perhaps it’s time to upgrade and quite literally get your poop in a group.

Level 1: It’s in the box somewhere

We have now advanced to the most basic level of tool organization: Having everything contained in one place. But the tools are loose and haphazardly mixed. Sockets and wrenches require picking up and turning to see exact sizing, as if denying that the two options of standard and metric exist. You are no longer walking about the garage searching for things, but still pulling drawers like a cabinet maker looking for that jig he knows he made back in 2011.

Not everyone needs to take out a second mortgage to have one of the tool trucks drop off the latest and greatest toolbox, but having one place for your tools is the best course of action if you own tools. Heck, most tool kits these days come in blow-molded packaging that can be downright annoying in some situations, but it undeniably keeps things together and halfway organized. The various ratchets, screwdrivers, saws, and hammers we accumulate with time last longer and work better when properly taken care of and not left in the dirt, or on the floor. (Or in the saltwater marsh that forms underneath anything I park during the winter.) Tools also work best when they are not lost. A tool in the hand is worth… five on the shelf?

Level 2: It’s in that drawer

The chaos in now reduced to a smaller space! The drawers wear a label describing what’s inside, and those items are returned to the same place. You still have to poke around to find exactly what you need, and it might even be a little tougher since everything in the drawer is the same type. Need a half inch box wrench in a drawer full of box wrenches? That’s just annoying.

I suspect this is the level most DIY and at-home mechanics operate on, mostly because it is the easiest to maintain. Clean up only requires wiping a few things down and then tossing handfuls back in the prescribed drawer. The time spent finding something is saved by how easy it is to put back. If you value your time at zero or know your tools extremely well, this is a relatively acceptable way to operate.

Level 3: It’s on a rail, in an organizer, or otherwise sorted

To most, this is the level that is considered “basic organization.” The toolbox now uses dividers in its drawers, or various fixtures to attach like-minded tools together. This creates an environment that makes for quicker locating of tools while working on a project. This level of organization also makes it easier when working on something new, or a project with mixed fasteners: I’m looking at you, American OEMs that mix metric and SAE fasteners.

When sockets are mounted to a rail, you can grab the whole rail and take it to your workspace, instead of making multiple trips to get the right size for the task. The rail also ensures sockets will not roll away while performing automotive yoga under a dashboard. Nothing hurts like watching something roll (or fall just out of reach) while literally shoulder-deep working on something. But sockets on rails can’t roll.

Level 4: It’s right there, and I can tell immediately if it’s not

For neurotic wrench turners, there is the ultimate in organization: Custom cut foam. It’s commonly referred to as Kaizen foam, but that is like calling all nose-blowing tissue a Kleenex. This is a multi-layer foam that can be sliced into, then pulled out in sections to exactly fit various tools or parts. We think it might have jumped into garages from the camera and film world, because this foam is great for packing delicate items into travel cases.

Each layer is 1/8″ thick, so it is as simple as tracing the tool you want to store, setting the depth of your knife, cutting the shape (while ensuring you keep the knife vertical), and removing the now-released foam. Bingo: you now have a perfect pocket for cradling anything you can imagine. And as a bonus, most of these foams have one color on top and a different color in the middle layers, allowing you to sight-check if anything is missing.

The idea of tool organization is likely as old as tools themselves, which means the cost to keep your toolbox tidy has dropped over the years. Time is money, and your time is not free. Socket rails and organizers are things that we can say with 100% confidence are worth a trip to Harbor Freight.

So where do you fall in this hierarchy, and do you want to see more tips on keeping your box organized and ready for work? We may have a few tricks that are cheap or free that we could be convinced to share, but only if you promise to not be a level zero organizer. Don’t worry, we’ll take your word and won’t ask for proof.

***

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Releasing the air trapped in your car’s hydraulic brake system is crucial. Brake systems rely on a master cylinder to push fluid through the lines, and the fluid then imparts force on the piston (or pistons) in an individual wheel’s brake cylinders or calipers. The piston squeezes the brake drum or rotor, using friction to turn speed into heat and bringing the vehicle to a halt. The fluid is very efficient at activating the cylinder/caliper because it is nearly incompressible.

On the other hand, air is compressible; when it’s trapped in your brake lines, air can result in a spongy pedal and an ineffective stopping system. (Modern braking systems also use an electronically controlled distribution block for antilock- and traction-control systems, and the blocks are sensitive to air and to degraded fluid.)

So we agree that you want to keep air out of the system, but on the off chance that a few bubbles sneak in during a project, how remove you do them from the vehicle’s brake lines? There are multiple ways to bleed a brake system, and understanding each method is important so that you can decide the best approach for your project.

Gravity

Let’s start with the easiest of all the options: Doing nothing. Well, almost nothing. The concept here is simple. By filling the master cylinder and opening the bleeder screws at each wheel, gravity will gradually force the fluid through the lines and push out the air bubbles.

This method requires the appropriate tools to catch the fluid as it drips out of the bleeders. In addition, you must ensure the reservoir for the master cylinder never runs dry. Letting it run dry reintroduces air into the system, and you’ll have to drain all the fluid and start from scratch.

What sounds like the simplest method is actually one that’s very situationally dependent. Simple brake systems like those found on early hydraulic-brake-equipped cars can possibly be finished after a gravity bleed, but more often than not, the gravity approach is just the first step of bleeding a system. One of the following processes is usually needed to finish the job.

Pump and pass

Rather than leave the dirty work to gravity alone, sometimes it’s best to make the system work for you. That means using brake pressure to push fluid through the lines. You’ve likely performed this method before: Use a friend to pump the brake pedal three to four times to build up pressure, and then tell them to hold their foot on the pedal while you open the bleeder screw at one wheel. This allows the system to burp fluid—and, hopefully, air bubbles. Close the bleeder before your helper releases the brake pedal and repeat the process until no more air bubbles exit when the bleeder screw is opened.

There are a couple of things that make this pumping method more effective than gravity bleeding. For one, the fluid moves faster, making it more likely to force out any trapped air. Then there’s the fact that building pressure in the system shrinks the air bubbles—because the air compresses—so it condenses large bubbles and speeds their evacuation.

The pump-and-pass method can help when your brake lines have multiple unions, bends, or valves. Each of those tends to allow air pockets to hang around, causing frustration if you stick with just gravity bleeding.

Check valve

The pump-and-pass method is the most popular, but it can be tiring or annoying for the person helping inside the vehicle. Luckily there is a way to eliminate the need for a helper, and it doesn’t require fancy tools.

The first option is Speed Bleeders. These replace the bleeder screw at each wheel with one equipped with a small check ball and spring, making the screw a one-way valve when the check ball is loosened. Connect a hose to the bleeder, open the screw, pump the pedal until no more air is being pushed out, then tighten the bleeder and move to the next wheel. The method is pretty simple, but it does require changing out the bleeder screws.

If you want to accomplish the same task without buying bleeder screws, use a simple bottle and a hose. An empty brake-fluid bottle is often best, but you can create these devices with any number of containers.

Start by pouring a small amount of clean brake fluid into the bottle, then insert a hose, making sure the end will stay submerged in the clean fluid. Then connect the loose end of the hose to the bleeder screw. Open the bleeder screw and pump the pedal slowly to push the fluid and those pesky air bubbles through the system. The bottle will slowly fill as the fluid is pushed out, and since the end of the hose is submerged, it will prevent any air from being pulled back into the brake system.

To make the process even easier, add a zip tie or piece of string to hold your new bleeding apparatus above the brake caliper or wheel cylinder, an orientation which encourages the trapped air to rise up the hose. Cut a hole in the upper part of the bottle so that air you’ve expelled from the system can also escape the bottle and not cause unwanted pressure inside that as well.

Pressure

Sure, the options above are various ways to apply pressure, but they all use the brake system to create the fluid’s push. Another method uses an external tool to place pressure on the brake master cylinder without someone operating the pedal.

The system of tools pictured above creates a steady pressure that keeps air bubbles moving, preventing them from getting stuck in little pockets like proportioning valves or distribution blocks.

Using one of these makes the bleeding process easier, but it also requires extra care when setting up and when topping off the fluid during the bleeding process. Since the master-cylinder reservoir is under pressure while this system is in use, there’s a risk that the outer gasket of the tool leaks while you’re forcing pressure through the brake lines or when you take the tool off to top up the reservoir. Since most brake fluids easily strip paint, don’t take this risk lightly.

Vacuum

Maybe those methods are too pressurizing for you. Luckily, this option is the opposite. We are talking about negative pressure—vacuum, to be precise.

Rather than using the master cylinder to push fluid through, this vacuum tool pulls fluid through the system from the bleeder screw. Vacuum tools make quick work of bleeding a brake system that is dry, or one in which many parts have been replaced (in such a situation, you’ll need to draw fluid over a larger distance).

Products like the MityVac use a hand pump to create the vacuum, but other options are connected to a compressed-air source to pull a vacuum without the need for manual labor.

These tools can be a decent investment if you are bleeding brakes regularly, but if you’re only doing this once or twice a year, the extra effort needed for the other tool-less methods might be worth the savings.

No matter how you decide to bleed your brakes, use the proper fluid and follow the process to ensure you have safe and predictable stoppers. Have a tip? Leave a comment below.

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Terry Krausz writes: I have a 1969 Plymouth Satellite protected by Hagerty. During restoration, a new gas tank, sending unit, and fuel line were installed. When the tank was filled, the in-dash gauge showed a little over half full, with a slow response time when the ignition was on. Thinking the sender was faulty, I bought a new one. The new sender was connected through the car’s original wiring but not installed in the tank. When tested, the in-dash gauge responded quickly, showing half, three-quarters, and full. I reinstalled the new sending unit and filled the tank again, but I still had the same slow response, with the gauge showing a little over half. Grounding seems good. How do I correct this issue?

Terry, I’m slightly puzzled over the slow response time, but regarding the fill level, if it reads correctly when you manually put it through its paces outside the tank, the sender, gauge, and wiring are fine. I think it’s likely you need to bend the float arm of the sensor down to get it to read full. I’d also recommend checking that the float isn’t filling up with gas, as that will certainly affect the level.

Tim Doyle writes: I own a 1973 BMW Bavaria and have an issue with my gauge cluster: I cannot unplug the round harness connectors from the back of the cluster. They are stuck, and I am afraid of breaking them if I force them too hard. I tried to carefully pry them off with a small screwdriver, but they wouldn’t budge. Any thoughts?

Tim, the round connectors should simply slide off the pins on the back of the cluster. Corrosion may be holding them in place. Try delivering some penetrating oil via a spray straw, then gently pry.

Franklin Henley writes: I recently added a Chevrolet performance serpentine kit to the engine in my ’67 Camaro 327. The kit is for use with reverse-rotation water pumps. As I understand it, the water flow is still the same, just the rotation is different. I also installed a reverse-rotation fan and a Holley Sniper EFI. When I started the car, I noticed that the engine got extremely hot within a matter of minutes—so hot you couldn’t touch the valve covers or any other part. The new radiator was also too hot to touch. I did not replace the 160-degree thermostat, but I did test it, and it was working properly. Any thoughts on what to look for on the overheating issue? I was trying to set the timing when I noticed the heat, so I shut the engine off. I’m not sure what the distributor was set at, and it had not been moved during the installation.

Franklin, I suppose it’s possible that the ignition timing is way too retarded (try setting it to 12–14 degrees of initial advance), but it sounds to me as if the coolant isn’t moving. The question is whether it’s not moving at all or just not flowing through the radiator. If you’re certain that the thermostat is good and the system doesn’t have an air pocket in it, you may need to pull off the water pump and verify that the reverse-rotation impeller on the back spins with the pulley.

***

Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

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Sometimes working on our beloved project cars and motorcycles is a more regular occurrence than we wish. These impromptu fixes and repairs that just pop up can be dealt with quickly—provided you have the right supplies on hand.

The list of needed hard parts or spare pieces varies, depending on what you own and the level of DIY-ing you are comfortable engaging in. On the other hand, there are plenty of generic, consumable items that any garage needs. These items can make routine tasks easier, so ensuring they are readily available gives confidence when diving into any project or repair. Here are the nine must-have consumables we think you need in your garage.

Rags/box o’ towels

Spills happen, and there is always some grimy part that needs a good cleaning. While you can use reusable rags, you’re likely to anger your significant other when you grease up the washing machine with them. So instead have a collection of disposable towels, but be sure to contain any oily rags in a metal can with a lid. Not doing so means you could set your garage on fire when you move on to the next project and accidentally throw a spark into the garbage can!

Microfiber cloths

While there are rags for cleaning, let’s not forget the materials designed for delicate surfaces. Think of the times you need to clean glass or wipe down painted surfaces with quick detailer: microfibers are great for this. They even work great for cleaning tools as they are put away at the end of a job. These will also get dirty enough eventually that they need a trip to the washing machine, but be careful about the detergent you use, along with what gets washed with them. These fluffy towels pick up rocks or chips from other garments, so re-using them risks the addition of scratches to whatever finish they next encounter.

Oil and Grease

So many DIY projects involve assembly and disassembly, to the point you might lose some oil while taking something apart. The same happens with grease. Both will need replenishment after assembly, so keep a few bottles of your oil of choice and a tub/tube of grease handy in your garage. For extra points, zip-tie a scrap chunk of hose to the side of the canister: that way you can hold an acid brush to make applying that grease a no-mess affair.

Razorblades

It’s counterintuitive at times, but being sharp is actually safe. If you need to cut something like a rubber hose, zip tie, or stiff plastic packaging, the safest way is with a blade that isn’t dull. A dull blade moves unpredictably and requires more force to do the job. That’s a recipe for injury, so instead keep a pack of razorblades so you always have a replacement for that dull blade in your knife. Razorblades also make great gasket scrapers (when used carefully) to prevent gouging soft surfaces.

Brake and/or carb cleaner

Once comfortable with a project or task—like a brake job—we tend to jump into the job instead of preparing the shop for the work ahead. So instead keep the needed chemicals on hand, ensuring you don’t put yourself in the frustrating situation of driving (or walking!) to the parts store to finish a project.

Roll-up earplugs

Hearing damage is no joke. Even if you have a favorite pair of over-the-ear muffs to keep your eardrums safe, having disposable foam earplugs is easy. If you have a guest in the shop who needs to hammer that ball joint out for you, they will absolutely appreciate your wish to prevent tinnitus in their earholes. Cheap and safe rarely go together, but in this case, they do. It’s a no-brainer to pick up a case of these for a couple bucks.

Gasket maker

Silicone gasket makers have limits, but when used properly, the tubes of various colored schmoo can be life savers. Having some around never hurts if you are routinely getting into projects that involve sealing two surfaces that may not have aged gracefully. Damage from corrosion or just distortion from age might leave more separation than the gasket can handle. In these cases, having gasket maker on hand to give a quick wipe rather than having to leave the shop to get some is a real timesaver.

Zip ties

I’m not going to wax poetic about how anything can be fixed with zip ties, but they do come in handy for a multitude of tasks. Black zip ties are often more durable to UV light exposure, so that’s the one to stock in your garage. There’s nothing like knowing you can pull a zip tie tight with no fear of it shattering into a sun-brittled mess.

Beverages

This is the one you were here for, right? The literal consumables needed for your body?

Much of the country has reached “the porch is the fridge” levels of chill, so grab a six-pack of whatever you enjoy and set it by the door. Alcoholic drinks and wrenching is a bad combination, but having a cold one while admiring a job well done (or cleaning up the tools) is deserved. Well deserved, actually. So restock early and often in this case.

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If you’re like me—and let’s hope that you aren’t, but let’s admit that you probably are—few things feel as sweet as the kind of well-scored Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace deal that only you could find, bag, and fully appreciate.

If you’ll forgive me an opening digression, my wife tells me that I have this really annoying tendency to buy myself presents right around Christmas. She’ll say, “You should’ve left me a hint! I would’ve bought that for you!” So I tried that tack for two years. I literally left browser windows open on her computer for a Harmony programmable remote and a Warn PullzAll 120VAC winch. Then, when these items weren’t wrapped as presents on Christmas morning, her response for the winch was that she’d missed the clue, and for the remote was “I’m not going to buy you that!”

So that’s part of backdrop against which I tell you how delighted I was to score a Recaro rolling office chair right before Christmas—my present to myself in which I delighted at the search, the find, and eventually the physical acquisition.

And, of course, there’s a story in all of it.

I have to admit that I have something of a Recaro seat fetish. I’m not talking about the new Recaro racing buckets—I’m talking about the vintage Recaro LS, LE, SE, and LX models from the 1970s and ’80s. Back in the day, these were the shiznit. Bolstered and very supportive, these seats performed the miracle of both holding your butt in place while also being incredibly comfortable for long drives. If you track-drove your car and had the cash, you’d buy one Recaro to install as a driver’s seat. You only bought two if you had enough income to regard the form of the matching set over the function of you being the only one in the car the vast majority of the time. I still smile when I see old barn-find or ran-when-parked cars with one Recaro in them. You know, 1980s driver’s school car. Bam. I’ve got you nutshelled.

If you don’t know, Recaros—as well as their sport seat kissing cousins Konig and FloFit—have a standard 16-inch side-to-side bolt pattern for the rail spacing on the bottom. Recaros were factory standard or optional seats in a variety of cars, from a host of Volkswagens to Fox Body Mustangs. Any set I’ve ever bought, if you remove the model-specific seat rails—and this includes the big heavy electric seat bases on quasi-modern Volkswagens—what’s underneath is the same standard 16-inch rail spacing.

To mount Recaros in your car, you need to adapt that 16-inch rail spacing to whatever the side-to-side bolt pattern is for the rail spacing for your seat sliders. There are two different ways to do it. If Recaros were available as a factory option for your car—as was the case with the 1977–82 BMW 320i—then there was a set of factory adapters that bolted to the bottom of the seats. So, for a car like a BMW 2002, whose seats were the same size as those in a 320i, you order or scrounge or fabricate a set of these adapters, bolt them to the 16-inch rails on the bottoms of the Recaros, bolt the original seat sliders to the adapters, then bolt the sliders to the floor of the car where they always went. The other way to do it is that Recaro, or the aftermarket vendor selling the seats, typically offered mounting hardware that featured a standard set of very heavy-duty sliders that bolted directly to the bottoms of the seats. Then you needed to procure a car-specific adapter base plate that sat between the sliders and the floor.

While I absolutely love the look and feel of period-correct interiors in 1970s German cars, the big wide horsehair-stuffed seats are miserably uncomfortable for long drives, so I have Recaros (or Konigs or FloFits) in most of the vintage BMWs that I distance-drive. In my prized 3.0CSi, I have a set of beige cloth Recaro SE seats that I picked up 13 years ago on Craigslist whose color, by chance, is close enough to the beige leather rear seats and the vinyl door panels that the eye isn’t drawn to the difference.

In two of my 2002s, I’m currently splitting a set of Konig seats, allowing me to get the benefit of a firm supportive seat in each car. Although there’s no confusing either of these with a track-day car, the 40-year-old context of a lone Recaro-style seat makes me smile. I drive these cars, my back needs the support of the sport seat, I had a pair of Konigs sitting in the basement, and one went into each car. Boom, done. Cost: zero.

The point of all this is that what makes all this Recaro seat installation work is a uniform rail spacing on all Recaros (and Konigs and FloFits), and adapters that are specific to the make and model of your car.

With that, let me wind the tape back 40 years for a moment.

When Maire Anne and I returned to Boston in 1984 after our 2½-year stint in Austin, we brought with us a rust-free 1975 BMW 2002 (“Bertha”) that I’d bought that spring. I actually wanted a big-bumpered 2002 to withstand the demolition derby that is Boston parking and commuting. Over the next four years, I transformed the car into a cross between a daily driver and a weekend track rat, throwing in a goosed-up engine with a hot cam and dual Webers, a full Koni track suspension, and many other mods.

I was always buying, repairing, and selling whatever 2002s I could get my hands on, so when I found a 2002tii that had a full Recaro interior with the very zingy “orange spectrum” fabric—the car had two Recaro front seats and their adapters as well as a back seat reupholstered in the orange spectrum fabric—I bought the tii, swapped interiors with Bertha, and sold the tii.

In 1988, my close friend and fellow 2002 guy Alex got married. He and his wife were planning on taking his car on a big western road trip to do “the grand circle” of national parks. He couldn’t get the car ready in time, so as a wedding present, I loaned them Bertha (which, in addition to the comfortable Recaros, had working air conditioning). They loved the car, and when they returned, agreed to buy it.

That was, unfortunately, the beginning of a long and sad period for Bertha. Like me, they lived in Boston, and the car was often parked on the street. In 1990, Bertha was stolen and recovered. When it was stolen and recovered a second time, the recovered car was damaged—it ran horribly from what appeared to be a bent valve, and one of the windows had been smashed. Alex rolled it into a neighbor’s garage. He never expected it to sit there for nearly 30 years. I’d routinely ask him about Bertha, with my nods and winks about buying it back turning into outright pleading as the years went by.

Finally, in 2018, Alex relented and sold me the car back. The problem was, like an idiot, I hadn’t actually looked at it, and when I rolled open the door to the garage where the car had been sitting since 1990, my heart sank. The garage backed into a pond, and the humidity, combined with insulation batting that had been stored on the hood of the car, had nearly destroyed the once-proud car.

The interior was an absolute disaster as well. Prior to the thefts, Alex had already worn the fabric on the bottom cushion of the driver’s seat, and swapped it with the passenger seat. This was now augmented with the shattered glass from the theft, spider webs, mildew, and rodent damage. The orange spectrum Recaros were now a sad worn memory of their former eye-popping glory. To see them in shambles was heartbreaking.

But if you’ve already decided to jump in, it really doesn’t matter how disgusting the water is. And jump in I did. Due to the pricey real estate and the nice lawn on his neighbor’s pond-facing garage where the car had been stored, there was no easy way to get a ramp truck down there, so I spent a week in the garage reviving Bertha enough to drive the car out under its own power, the video of which can be seen here. I then worked on the car over the next year, eventually driving it to The Vintage in Asheville in 2019. The entire story is chronicled in my book Resurrecting Bertha.

But there was something about the exposure the seats had gotten to the humidity from the pond that gave the orange spectrum fabric all the strength of a used Kleenex, and by the time I got back from my 2,000-mile round trip to Asheville, the base of the driver’s seat was a shredded mess.

Now, with everything I’ve said above, it’s clear that I keep my eyes open for vintage Recaro / Konig / FloFit seats, and when I find a well-priced set, I snag them, even if I don’t have something to install them into at the moment.

So imagine my delight when, on December 23^rd—two days before Christmas—I saw an ad for this rolling office chair on Facebook Marketplace (FBM), clearly showing a Recaro seat in the same orange spectrum fabric as Bertha. The asking price: $250.

Recaro rolling office chairs were—and still are—sold directly by Recaro. They featured a standard commercially-available rolling swivel base, bolted to the bottom of the chair via (you guessed it) an adapter plate that mates to the seat’s standard 16-inch rail spacing. From everything I’ve written above, you now understand that, to put this in a car, all you need to do is unbolt the swivel base from the adapter plate, unbolt the adapter plate from the rails, bolt on the adapters and sliders for your car, and it’s in like Flynn. These Recaro office chairs do show up regularly on CL and FBM, although one in orange spectrum fabric is, as they say, hen’s-teeth rare. As a buyer, a big advantage is that the people who have them as office chairs usually don’t know that the seat is worth more as a car seat than as an office chair. Of course, it would be worth way more if it was part of a matched set, so it cuts both ways.

Still, I totally, immediately, and unambiguously wanted this one. The problem was that the seat was in southern Connecticut, not far from New Haven, plus it was the day before Christmas Eve, my wife had the flu, and there was no way I was going to drop everything and get down there that evening, or anytime in the next few days, for that matter.

I messaged the seller, explained all this, and said that I’d gladly meet his asking price and would Paypal him half the money immediately, but that I probably wouldn’t be able to get down there until after New Years Day. To his immense credit, he agreed.

You do know what I did next, right? (You probably do, since we’ve established that you are like me.) To make the road trip more worthwhile, I spent hours trying to find cars to look at and other things to buy between Boston and southern Connecticut.

About a week after New Years, I lined it all up. I have a 1999 BMW Z3 (“Zelda”) that I sold to a neighbor, then bought back a few years ago after her son drove it onto a median strip, damaging its front end enough that the car surely would’ve been totaled and parted out if I hadn’t. I repaired it (bent lower control arms and wheels and blown air bag) and have been driving it around since spring 2021, but its front bumper cover (what most folks would call the air dam) was shattered in the impact. I’ve kept it held together with packing tape and Gorilla Glue, but have always had an eye out for one that’s the same Boston Green color as Zelda so as to save me the cost and effort of painting it. There are plenty of used Z3 front bumper covers around, but not many in Boston Green. Plus, bumper covers are BIG, and thus expensive to ship.

So when I found a guy in Springfield, Massachusetts—not directly on the way to southern Connecticut, but squaring off a rounded corner was close enough to make it work—who was parting out a couple of BMW Z3s, and one of them was Boston Green, I was almost giddy. Unfortunately, when he sent me the photos, his bumper cover had some separations in the bottom portion. Still, it wasn’t cracked all the way through, it was much better than the one on Zelda, and Zelda is far from a perfect car, so I told him that I’d be in his area the coming Saturday and proposed giving him a hundred bucks for the bumper cover and both of the inner fender liners, which I also needed. To my delight, he agreed.

The morning that I left, I saw a well-priced 1987 BMW E30 325is on FBM only about eight miles west of the guy with the bumper cover. Odds were that it was going to be rusty, but hey, you never know unless you look, right?

Game day came, and I needed only to choose a car. My resurrected truck—the 2008 Chevy 3500HD Duramax dually, the one that had its catalytic converter was stolen—was the logical choice to swallow these large items, but the fuel cost for the 300-ish mile drive wouldn’t be trivial. So I took my 2003 BMW E39 530i stick sport instead, as its fold-down rear seats give it near-wagon-like flexibility. Things were a little tight, but it was well worth being able to cruise at traffic speed in a car I actually enjoyed driving, plus it would burn only about $50 in fuel instead of more than twice that in the truck.

First stop was the bumper cover and the fender liners. The nice young Russian man was great, even handing me a baggie of fasteners that held everything in place. The parts, though, occupied more space than I expected, especially considering how little the Z3 is.

Next was a quick jaunt to see the BMW 325is. As expected, it was rustier than I wanted to take on, but seeing it enabled me to stop thinking about it.

That left the leg down toward New Haven for the Recaro office chair. I gave the seller the remainder of the $250, we unbolted the rolling base, and I stuck the Recaro seat on top of the passenger seat of my E39.

When I got home, I realized that I had no space in the garage for the chair, and the cats would tear it up if I put it in the basement, so I brought the two sections of the chair into the living room, where there’s light and floor space, and a door to keep the cats out. (Yes, I have a saint-like wife.) I cleaned it up and photographed the adapter that held on the office chair base before I removed it.

And then, to my surprise, I stopped. Instead, I reinstalled the rolling base, and rolled the chair into the dining room, which doubles as an office. As soon as it was in there, juxtaposed against the room’s Mediterranean orange walls and the orange tablecloth left over from Thanksgiving, I realized it was far more likely that the chair’s fate would continue to be an office chair and not a replacement for Bertha’s driver’s seat, as I had envisioned. And I’m cool with that. I mean, Bertha is a car with the patina knob turned up pretty high. Having a cherry set of vintage Recaros in it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Of course, the joke is that while a single Recaro seat, particularly an orange gradient one in excellent condition, is a freaking steal for $250, I’d never pay $250 for an office chair.

***

Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

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For many classic car buyers, originality is of utmost importance.

Lots of the value of a rare muscle car, for example, comes from its just-right combination of options that sets it apart from its similar but less exciting brethren. There are dozens of ways to help determine if a car that appears to be a rare, potent version of a muscle car is what it claims to be, and the focus of many of those tests comes down to establishing whether or not the engine is the original one installed by the factory.

A rare car without its factory-installed engine can lose a significant chunk of its value, so plenty of collectors prefer that any factory evidence of the vehicle’s authenticity remains intact.

If you do have the correct, original engine in your car but mileage or a part failure means that a rebuild is necessary, keeping the original engine and its identifying marks are likely a big priority. Many manufacturers stamped identification numbers on the oil pan rail, or on a separate boss machined specifically for the purpose, but Chevrolet often used the deck surface as it was readily available.

The problem with that is that besides boring the cylinders for new pistons and align-boring the crank journals, milling the deck surfaces to be parallel to the crankshaft centerline is one of the major processes a machine shop will take to prep for a rebuild.

Factory tolerances weren’t perfect in the ’60s and ’70s, and even when they were solid, decades of heat cycling can cause blocks to get a little wonky. Milling the deck ensures the heads have a flat surface to mount to and helps ensure every cylinder operates with the same compression ratio and valvetrain clearance. However, removing even a few thousandths of an inch off the deck surface could mean erasing any evidence of those valuable identifying marks.

This video from Jim’s Automotive Machine Shop Inc. goes over the intricacies of decking a numbers-matching block to preserve the stampings, starting by cutting the shorter of the two decks as little as possible to achieve a flat and true surface and then cutting the other deck to match. When machining a deck without stampings, the mill can be left to feed across the entire surface, but to preserve the numbers, the process is stopped short and the block is traversed so that the large cutting head passes over the entire gasket surface. That ensures an even clamping surface for the gasket while leaving the numbers intact.

“This is a process that not everyone needs to worry about, but when it matters, it matters,” said Hagerty’s master engine builder Davin Reckow. “Since keeping that stamping is extra work, be sure to discuss this with your machine shop before handing over the block for machining to ensure that it doesn’t accidentally get cut off before you can say something.”

So, as Davin noted, before you have any machine work done, know where the important stampings are on your engine and make sure your machine shop does too. Odds are your machinist can keep everything intact with just a bit of extra care and effort.

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Cars are utility objects first. They serve to allow us easier movement over great distances. The inherent mechanical intricacy and unique experience of driving caused users to morph into enthusiasts. Those folks dedicated to the joy of driving and maintaining these automobiles can obsess over so many small parts and details of their machines. Even the casual enthusiast knows a few little details of their car that they enjoy conversing about.

Those details can be quite banal, or very much intriguing. It really depends on how deep your knowledge of the automobile and its history is. To cover the basics:

Minimum octane rating

Engines are surprisingly durable, but also require particular care and feeding. The minimum octane rating refers to the proper fuel that the engine is tuned to run on. Most fuel stations have options for 87, 89, 91, or 93 octane, with each number referring to the fuel blends resistance to detonation as it is compressed in the combustion chamber of an engine. The higher the better right?

Wrong. Engines are tuned for certain octane ratings and putting high octane in something that does not need it will not give you more power or a cleaner engine. In fact, it’s possible the engine will run worse, and it will certainly cost you more at the pump. There is a balance though. If you put lower octane fuel than required it will certainly yield less power and can even lead to damage as the fuel can ignite before the spark plug fires, which can damage the piston, connecting rod, or cylinder head as the still-rising piston attempts to compress the expanding fuel and air mixture. Not good. We go through the effort to use the proper oil for the engine, so make sure you are using the proper fuel too.

Fuel range (ballpark)

On a long enough timeline everything fails, including your gas gauge or sending unit. When the needle stays at full or just drops like a stone to zero, do you know you can make it home? Knowing the ballpark range your car can travel on a full tank of gas is a good thing to know if you drive your vintage car regularly. Having non-working gauges is embarrassing, but running out of gas is even more so.

Start by doing a quick miles-per-gallon calculation by filling your fuel tank, driving for a weekend, then topping off and dividing the miles you covered by the number of gallons required to re-fill the tank. That can be the basis of calculating range using the fuel tank size and ballpark MPG. Be sure to leave some wiggle room in the final fuel range for conditions to change.

Horsepower

Opening the hood of a car is often like rubbing a genie lamp: Someone will always appear, but instead of giving you wishes they will pepper you with questions. The most popular one you should expect to hear? “How much power does this thing make?”

It can be both an easy and a hard question to answer. You could go by the original rating from promotional materials, or look for similar builds that have been tested on a dynamometer, or if your engine is unique enough it would probably be fun to strap it down on the rollers and find out the exact power, along with just how well tuned the package is.

Ballpark value

We know you aren’t planning on selling your car. Money talks sometimes though, and your author has experienced at least one situation where a person approached while out and about and made an offer to buy the motorcycle that got me there. It was a real offer and if I hadn’t known what the bike was actually worth I probably would have taken it. Values change over time and can sometimes move quite quickly. Be sure to know what you are driving and treat it appropriately. You might have bought it for $1500, but that was 1988 and things are different now. Luckily, finding your car’s value has never been easier.

Vehicle identification number

It sounds funny, but having the main identifying information for your car is important. Not only in case of theft, but also in case you need to find information about the history of your baby. This one doesn’t need to live in your head, but keep an old insurance ID card in a file at home even if you sell the car. People go looking for the car from their past all the time and with the VIN you stand a chance, without that bit of information it can be close to impossible to find a car from 20 years ago.

Generation years of your model

The total production run is a fun fact that is easy to pepper into a conversation about a car that can often elevate someone’s perception of you nearly instantly. People will often walk up and make a guess as to the year of a car and in our experience, it can sometimes be a little rough. “Is that a ’64?” “No, it’s a 1960, but the body is the same so it’s tough to tell” is a lot nicer way to tell someone they are wrong and start a conversation on the right foot than just saying “no.” Total production is a fun one to add to this conversation if you happen to have a steel trap memory and can keep track of something like that.

Normal oil pressure

Just like people, every engine is unique and that includes how much oil pressure it makes while running. Oil is the lifeblood of an engine and knowing that there is the proper amount circulating is peace of mind worth having. We admit most cars don’t have an oil pressure gauge with hard and fast numbers, but installing one is never a bad idea as it can alert you to something being wrong in your engine before it turns into catastrophe. Keep an eye on those gauges and shut the engine down quickly if something looks wrong. Better safe than sorry.

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It’s a small job that somehow became a rite of passage for gearheads: Oil changes. The draining and refilling of engine oil is the first task that many budding wrench-turners undertake, and its certainly an important one. Like any other task in the automotive world, there are some pieces of institutional knowledge that comprise the key dos and don’ts for a smooth oil change. So let’s put these lessons learned out in the open, with the mission of shortening the process for newbies. And perhaps to reinforce some best practices for you veteran mechanics?

Don’t go crazy with warm-up

Modern oils are pretty amazing at suspending particles and contaminants, but there is still some junk that sinks down to the bottom of the pan. It needs to be stirred up to ensure it escapes when you pull the drain plug. Starting the engine and letting it idle for a minute or two is perfect for that final circulation. Run it any longer and you’re rewarded with nothing more than scalding hot oil that does nothing more than burn you. Before you pull that (drain) plug, give the engine a minute after shutting down, allowing the oil to drain to the pan from the nooks and crannies higher in the engine. But before you get underneath the vehicle to do the deed, remember you must…

Wear disposable gloves

Nitrile gloves keep you from soaking up solvents and oils into your skin. I’ve found 7mil thick to be a nice sweet spot of durable and affordable.

We all know the guy at the auto parts counter who has seriously gnarly hands from all the years being soaked in oil over decades of engine builds. That’s the visible damage. The invisible damage is sitting in your internal organs. All the hydrocarbons that get absorbed through the skin and are processed in our gut where they can’t be broken down. They end up accumulating in our body, which can cause serious health complications after years and years of chemical exposure. Preventing those issues is easy as putting on a pair of nitrile gloves. Use them even if it’s only for pulling the filter and drain plug, which you can do efficiently with…

The drain plug trick

It’s not groundbreaking, but nothing feels better than the perfect pull on a drain plug to ensure you don’t get any oil on your hand. The trick is pressure, not pulling. As you unthread the plug by hand, push in–against the bolt as in comes out–so the threads act as a seal with the outer edge. With a little practice you can get the pressure right (while not rocking the plug in the threads) and can spin the plug a full turn to feel for the “click.” That click means the bolt overlapped the last thread. With a swift motion away from the direction of oil flow, remove that now-loose plug. Presto! This can make thin viscosity oil changes much cleaner, and thick stuff like 20-50 can sometimes be spotless. In your excitement of not having a mess to clean up after draining, make sure you…

Don’t over tighten the drain plug or filter

It’s come to the point where stuck filters and stripped drain plugs are no longer a joke. Neither the filter nor plug require any real torque when installed properly. Use a small amount of oil to lube the filter’s rubber seal, then spin it into place. After the gasket seats on the housing, turn it only about three-quarter of an additional turn. Some applications might call for a full turn, but that is usually reserved for heavy duty equipment. Any tighter than what the filter manufacturers call for and you run the risk of deforming that rubber seal, which could cause oil to leak past the seal. That’s bad news. Any oil spillage is bad, so when you are filling…

Just use a funnel

The oil fill port on most engines is in that perfect spot where it looks like you could pour directly into it, except that’s a lie. They seem to be ideally located, but cleaning up if you miss (by even the smallest margin) can be a major pain. Are we really going to work so hard to spot and address leaks, to keep our engines clean, and just ruin it while doing routine maintenance?

I’m not. A funnel all but guarantees I won’t have to do any clean up after filling, even if I’m distracted or letting my 7 year-old niece do the filling. Putting in that fresh oil feels good, but be careful and…

Don’t overfill

This shows the rotating assembly without the oil pan and it’s easy to tell how oil at too high of a level would be bad.

Too much oil is just as bad as not enough. Seriously. The oil level in a wet-sump engine is carefully calculated to keep the rotating assembly from whipping through the oil. That action causes foaming, and oil foam pushed through the oiling system is the same as not having oil at all. I don’t need to tell you how bad that can be, so check the service or owners manual for the proper fill level. When done, look at the dipstick as a double check. Luckily, the empty oil containers you now have at this point are are perfect to…

Recycle your used oil

It’s never been easier to properly recycle used oil, so there is no excuse to do otherwise. Just about any auto parts store takes it, so they should be your first trip in your freshly serviced vehicle to “return” your oil. Be sure to capture oil in a non-contaminated pan so that the oil can actually be recycled. Coolant is the main enemy here, so be sure to flush your drain pan before the oil change. Luckily you don’t have to worry about how dusty or dirty the pan is, but other fluids can defeat the purpose of recycling. But before you make the trip to recycle the oil, be sure to…

Reset the computer (or write down your service date)

Modern cars have an oil life monitoring system. Whether you trust it is a personal preference, but for the sake of eliminating confusion, go ahead and reset it now. Most reset procedures involves cycling the ignition key and pressing the throttle pedal a certain number of times. The service manual will outline it, or a quick search to an online make/model specific forum will have the instructions. If your vehicles are of the manual variety, write down the oil change date in a log book. Or consider service tracker kept in the car or garage, as it keeps you from forgetting what’s been done. Not to mention thisa paper trail shows good stewardship to a potential next owner, which can mean an easier sale for more money.

In all, oil changes can be simple and rewarding for newbies and DIY enthusiasts alike. Following these best practices will not only keep your vehicle happy, but also make the experience better for you each time. Do you have something specific you add to this process? Let us know about it in the comments below.

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It’s that time of year when we all get a little misty-eyed—trapped between reflections on the year past and the imposing future represented by that fresh calendar hung on the wall.

I used to view New Year’s resolutions as something of a joke, but as the years march onward, it’s become clear that laying out a few ground rules at tidy one-year intervals might not be the worst idea. So for the last few weeks, I’ve been pontificating on the changes needed in my garage life.

I’ve arrived at three resolutions. Their absurdity didn’t sink in until I wrote them down. How did I get here, and why do I want out?

1. No more motorcycles! (Kind of.)

It’s impossible to promise anyone—especially myself—that I won’t buy another motorcycle this year. The arrival of more bikes is a natural fact. Some two-wheeled machine will inevitably find itself into my big red van for a one-way shuttle ride to the three-door garage in Michigan.

In fact, I’ve already paid for one machine—a bike I haven’t picked up yet. We’ll discuss it here at a later date.

Of course, rideable bikes have never really been the problem. The real issue is how I tend to stockpile parts. And then decide that it only makes sense to build something out of those parts. My garage now holds two “spare” Honda XR250R frames and enough parts to build at least one of those frames into a full running motorcycle. There is no reason for me to bring home another parts bike . . . yet I scroll classifieds and Facebook Marketplace, multiple times a week, in search of the perfect parts bike. A machine that could donate another set of wheels, or a good spare cylinder head, or more NLA engine-mount hardware.

Do I need this stuff? No. Will I one day? Probably? And yet, that’s not really a good reason to sink the money.

So with that this resolution already out the window, I’ll scale back: Let’s just say no more parts bikes.

2. Make everything run—if only for a day.

This one is actually fairly easy on paper. Only time will tell if it is actually something like reasonable.

The manufacturing dates for my eight-vehicle “collection”—and I use that term loosely—span 85 years. Getting everything running is not a monumental task. But with such a wide range of technology—a Ford Model A, Honda singles, a Honda flat-four, a Corvair—that ask is more than a little time-consuming. There’s always something on the back burner, awaiting parts, research, or a cash infusion.

A smarter person would cull the fleet to a manageable level, the point where time matches needs, no vehicle ever left in the corner to languish. But we all know that’s not going to happen. Instead, I think it’s worth striving to make everything functional.

After that, the real goal is to take one day and drive everything. Is that possible? Not sure. I’ll update you with the attempt when the weather shifts and our local roads no longer have the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean. At least four carburetors need to be rebuilt between now and then, along with a handful of smaller projects that center on the theme of keeping fluids inside the engine.

3. Stop farting around with subpar tools.

There is only one quarter-inch-drive ratchet in my toolbox. It’s missing a couple teeth after an incident years ago that everyone involved would rather not discuss. The ratchet still works, but from time to time, it hits a dead spot, those missing teeth, and won’t ratchet.

It’s frustrating. Borderline infuriating. It’s also sad, how it takes a New Year’s resolution to get me to focus funds on the implements that enable me to pursue the things I enjoy, but here we are. There’s always something else to spend money on, right? Still, the fact that a few of my tools are a little janky . . . it’s grown from an occasional annoyance to a solid inconvenience that can take a project’s motivational wind from my sails.

Rarely are resolutions hung on spending more money. In this case, though, it’s a matter of spending a little now to reap rewards forever. A set of quality ratchets stands a chance of making the significant amount of time I spend in the garage more enjoyable.

To make a long story short, I’m more “buy once, cry once” about tools than I ever have been. I have a sneaking suspicion this resolution will not be kind to my bank account, but good tools are easy to properly maintain, and to make last. My current set didn’t live a long, healthy life only because it entered my life with unfortunate timing. (Teenage idiocy is tough on a lot of things.)

**

As car enthusiasts, we’re all a little off from the start. There are weirder hobbies, but in the grand scheme, if you know the secret car-guy handshake, a goal like “make all of my vehicles function” sounds entirely normal. Most of us tend to enjoy the challenge of a project as much as the result, which primes us for making and keeping resolutions—at least, the reasonable ones.

None of these “resolutions” are earth-shattering or ambitious, you say? That’s on purpose. Change is best done incrementally, in steps. These resolutions aren’t changing who I am. They’re attempting to slightly alter that person into a more tolerable and more focused version.

You can’t fight who you are. Trying usually just means you slide even further toward what you don’t want to be. In this case, that would be a hoarder of esoteric machines destined to never run again. So I’m going to resist that slide for another year.

I hope your resolutions—whether you call them that or not—are so focused that you can stick to them like a slick on an NHRA starting line. And if you have any motivation left over, send it my way. I’ve already got a listing for another parts bike bookmarked.

The post The automotive resolutions only an idiot (like me) would need appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Of all the unsexy projects and tasks that comprise the step-by-step of any project or restoration, cleaning the parts and pieces while everything is apart tops the list of most un-fun. It’s a necessary evil though and a little attention to detail at this point goes a very long way in the final product. There is no sense in “saving time” by leaving everything dirty and dealing with grease and grime working its way back into places it shouldn’t be and causing you to do the task twice.

Cleaning can be simple as wiping off some schmutz and as involved as soaking a bunch of little parts in a solution overnight before a thorough scrubbing. Regardless of how deep you need to clean, here are seven tips that will make sure your final product is one to be proud of.

Start soft

Start with the easiest and safest form of cleaning first. This often means a wipe with a clean towel or rag to see just how bad the situation really is. Sometimes just a clean rag is a enough to remove everything that needs to go and leave the surface in acceptable condition. Otherwise it will tell you just how bad it is and what the right course of action might be.

Glove up

This isn’t an article about safety, but it bears a mention here. So many chemicals used in automotive processes are quite hazardous or damaging to the human body–and it might not be immediately evident. For example, brake cleaner is very common to use to remove oily residue, but it is also very rapidly absorbed by the skin and carried in the bloodstream to the liver where it sits, and sits, and sits. Our organs cannot process chemicals like carb or brake cleaner and therefore it just accumulates and can cause long-term health issues. Disposable nitrile gloves keep fluids and chemicals from being absorbed and while they can be inconvenient at times, but then again so is having to show up to dialysis on a regular basis.

Use the right stuff

There is a huge array of chemicals on the shelves of your local parts store or grocery market that claim to remove the nasty grime with a spray and rinse process. Sometimes those work easily, other times it causes chaos. One such example is a product like Simple Green, which is very useful to cut grease, but can leave residue on aluminum surfaces and cause corrosion if not rinsed thoroughly.

The same goes for rubber pieces. Warm water and a light detergent is often the best solution to prevent rubber from distorting, discoloring, or getting eaten up by aggressive solvents. On the other side oven cleaner can work miracles on cast iron pieces that have tons of baked-on grease and can only be chipped away with aggressive wire brushes before a water rinse. Match the product and process to your material for best results.

Be careful with your finish

A key thing to remember when cleaning is what the final surface finish will be. If you are painting or otherwise covering the part it might not be a big deal that there are some scrub marks or a less than perfect surface finish. If you are painting or polishing the piece though, suddenly you want to exercise a lot of caution while cleaning so that any marks that happen during cleaning don’t pop through or create more work to remove later.

A steel wire brush on soft aluminum is a prime example of something that can wreak havoc quickly. Plastic or brass bristles are much softer and will prevent scoring or damaging the finish and save you work in the end despite taking a little longer to actually remove grease and grime. Even a green Scotch-Brite pad can be too much for some rubber pieces, so be sure to check in an inconspicuous area to see if your plan will leave marks of damage before going to town scrubbing.

Hide the evidence

Dry or wet blasting are easier than ever with home kits available and cheap enough that its not out of the ordinary for someone doing enough restoration work to make the investment to having a cabinet. The key to remember if you are so lucky is to make sure to blow out or rinse out all the blasting media from the nooks and crannies of whatever gets cleaned up. Having that sand, walnut shell, aluminum oxide, or glass bead pop out while painting or assembling is frustrating at best and downright damaging at worst.

Careful with the tags

It’s important to not ruin the proper bagging and tagging of all the parts and pieces you did during disassembly when you go to clean everything up. If you have tags be sure they stay legible or be sure to transfer them after the cleaning is completed doing it piece by piece. If there are adjustments that you have to remove to fully get something clean–think carburetor adjustment screws or adjustable suspension components–be sure to document the adjustment so you can use it as a ballpark during reassembly.

Under pressure leads to failure

It’s really tempting to toss that working transmission or rear axle in the truck and take it to a car wash and use the high pressure nozzle to blast away the grease and grime quarter-by-quarter. Be careful though. Many of the gaskets are not made to withstand the high pressure pinpointed in one little area and can quickly fail and allow water and soap to flood inside and cause rust, corrosion, or leaks from the damaged gasket.

If a soap-and-water wash is required often times the best course of action is to use nothing more than household hose water pressure. That pressure is low enough that it is safe for gaskets and seals while still getting things clean. It does mean you will spend more time scrubbing, but would you rather scrub or replace gaskets due to damage?

While tedious and oft annoying, cleaning your project will make for a much more satisfying assembly. Take the time to make every project something worth showing off and being proud of and it will elevate your DIY confidence far more than you might realize. Have a tip not on this list? Leave it in a comment below.

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Book-smart is one thing. We can all sit in a warm spot and read any of the innumerable books that outline theory on automotive repair, including every service manual ever printed, and still not be very helpful when it comes time to pick up the tools and get work done.

Most engine tune-up items are easy targets for this kind of armchair diagnosis. It’s easy to say “just replace the points” or “give the carb a good cleaning” from the comfort of your La-Z-Boy, but in reality, those tasks are only simple if you have at least some practical experience. That experience is also called institutional knowledge and it can sometimes create an overconfidence that needs to be checked.

This realization came across my mind recently when a “carburetor” project entered my garage that I was confident I could address quickly and easily, until the part was staring back at me from a perch on my motorcycle lift.

After rebuilding seemingly innumerable numbers of the small carburetors found on mopeds, scooters, motorcycles, and any manner of yard implements, I rarely do any research before diving into a carburetor rebuild job these days. The real-world experience of having done it so many times outweighs the time I could spend reading a manual on the specific job at hand. Only rarely does this confidence bite me.

When I went to work on this Chrysler Sno-Runner, it did.

The Sno-Runner is an odd machine for a variety of reasons, with the main one being its origins. The late 1970s was not a pretty time for Chrysler, which desperately attempted to produce any product that could make it money. Someone in a boardroom saw all kinds of pitches and at the end of the day, with an exasperated sigh, declared: “The snow-bike thing. Build that.”

The result was the Sno-Runner. A one-person snow machine that packs a single-cylinder engine yoinked from the chainsaw assembly line of West Bend, which Chrysler had purchased in the 1960s.

Originally destined for saw use, the 134-cc, two-stroke engine put out 8 horsepower. Later in the production run, changes boosted the power output closer to 11 hp.

The second was the version that landed in the back of my van after a friend called me saying he bought the Sno-Runner off Facebook Marketplace because he thought it was cool. Of course, it started right up for the seller, but once the friend got it home, it wouldn’t run. He put in a new spark plug and tried starting fluid once or twice before deciding he was in over his head and that help needed to be called. Of course, I answered.

Confidently, at that. I brought the orange tube-framed machine back to my shop to make the work a little easier, but I told the friend the job wasn’t a big deal. Probably just some dried-up gunk in the carburetor after the machine had been left to sit for the summer. Take the engine apart, clean a few things, put it back together, maybe 45 minutes of work. The friend had the Sno-Runner’s service manual, but I wasn’t any too worried about needing it. A small engine with a carb—how hard could any fix be?

That’s when I noticed the fact that the sloping tube frame was also the gas tank.

That seemingly random observation lit off alarm bells in my head. That meant fuel wasn’t gravity-fed. This little engine had a fuel pump? That seemed absurd. But it had to.

Where would the pump go? How would it work?

The answer is that a Sno-Runner has a fuel pump and a carb—combined. The fuel pump is part of the carb. Or the carb is part of the fuel pump? Whichever way you want to say it, the Tillotson 820A serves as both but I didn’t find that out until I stared at the “bike” for a while before retreating to the safety of the service manual to do some book learning.

The Tillotson name meant something to me, but only from the Model A Ford community. Many Model A owners happily ditch Tillotson carburetors in favor of the often better Zenith ones. Maybe this little engine was suffering the terrible Tillotson clog that affects Model As. The issue stems from the small horizontal passage in the bottom of the carb, which can get clogged so badly that it has to be drilled out.

The diagrams told me that wasn’t the case. The “carburetor” is mounted on the engine case and lacks a float bowl and the myriad of passageways typical to an apparatus tasked with metering and mixing air and fuel as they enter the intake of an engine. Instead, there was a pancake clamped to the bottom of the intake throat, which was throttled only by a single brass plate.  The arrangement really didn’t make much sense—until I read the manual’s description of the carb’s vacuum ports.

This is a vacuum-operated fuel pump that pushes fuel directly into the engine.

What a wild thing. The reciprocating motion of the piston causes the crankcase volume to expand and contract, creating a pressure swing that can be leveraged to do work for the engine. In the same way that a turbocharger uses the pressure pulses of exhaust gasses leaving the cylinder heads to spool its turbine, this Tillotson uses the cycling of vacuum and pressure in the two-stroke engine to operate a diaphragm in that bolted-on pancake, which pumps pre-mix up from the sloping tank.

It was all so clear once I realized this engine was designed for saw usage, which all but guaranteed it had to run in off-camber situations or, generally, when the gas tank was not located directly above the intake.

The diaphragm pulls fuel from the lowest point of the tank thanks to a hose, which is capped with a screened pickup, to make sure it stays submerged in any sloshing fuel. The hose exits the tank with a dry-break fitting that looks a lot like a basic air-line disconnect.

From that connection, the hose runs straight to the fuel side of that vacuum diaphragm before pushing fuel past a simple needle and seat and, as fuel enters the crankcase, into the airflow. A small bit of schmoo had trapped the needle in place and was preventing the fuel from pumping into the engine. A little spritz of aerosol carb cleaner and careful reassembly led to the engine springing right to life after a few pulls on the starting cord primed the pump and got the fuel flowing.

Could I have figured out this “carburetor” based on instinct from previous experience? Probably, but fixing it would have taken a lot longer and likely led to me doing at least one thing wrong and having to deal with the repercussions. That confidence, which usually allows us to dig into projects in a fun and effective way, stopped being a safety blanket and instead became a trap of my own making. Who would have thought that experience and confidence could be dangerous things?

I fall into ruts all the time with my garage projects. The rut comes from a desire to feel productive, successful. There are many parts of life where getting anything done requires real work and time investment. In the garage, the institutional knowledge I carry becomes my safety blanket and often keeps me doing the same handful of projects time and time again. The fact I have a veritable fleet of the same generation of Honda XR250R motorcycles built up in different forms should tell you something. It’s a shortcut to being able to pop out into the garage and take on a project with which I know I will be successful. That search for comfort projects stunts growth.

It was blind confidence that brought the Sno-Runner into my shop, but dropping that pride allowed me to leave in better shape than when I received it. That institutional knowledge might not be so dangerous after all—at least, so long as we don’t blindly follow it into ignorance.

I would have never learned about this odd mixture of fuel pump and carburetor if I didn’t step back and put the tools down to pick up the shop manual. Humility is as important as confidence in the garage. Of all the knowledge to be gleaned from a 1970s Chrysler product, I sure didn’t think it would be that.

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Of all the things that appear universal in the car world, tires top the list. They are rubber, round, and more often than not have tread on their outside surface. They may vary according to weight capacity and seasonal appropriateness, but, in the grand scheme a tire is a tire, right?

Wrong.

We wish tires were that simple, too, but they’re just not. The latest reminder of their complexities comes from Jason Fenske and his YouTube channel Engineering Explained. Fenske dives into how tires produced for electric vehicles (EVs) differ from the tires that get mounted to internal-combustion-powered cars.

Yes, it sounds a little absurd, but with more information, you’ll see why EVs need tailor-made shoes.

Vehicle weight

The first factor is vehicle weight. The carcass and material of an EV-specific tire are markedly different than those of a “regular” tire. Comparing the two will show that the EV tire has a stiffer sidewall to help control the extra heft of the vehicle to which it is attached.

It may seem that additional stiffness serves to maintain the proper contact patch (the portion of the tire that is touching the road) while rolling forward, thus preventing the tire from collapsing onto the pavement. That’s true, but a sidewall is just as vital to controlling the deformation of a tire under direction changes.

When you turn a vehicle’s front wheels, you’re asking the tire to hold its shape while weight of the car fights to keep the vehicle—and thus, the wheel and tire—traveling straight. (Mean ol’ Mr. Momentum. —Ed.) That contact patch is under high stress during direction changes, which may be why most EV tires have a larger one. The increased surface area distributes the load across more of the tire. A bigger contact patch also keep tire temperatures in check, because the road acts as a heat sink, and more contact with the ground pulls more heat out of the tire carcass.

Aerodynamic efficiency

The second differentiating factor is aerodynamic efficiency. This concern isn’t unique to makers of EV-specific tires, but minimizing rolling resistance is extra important when designing a tire for an electric vehicle because the EV market is hyper-focused on maximizing driving distance per charge. Generally, that means a narrower tire is better.

Fenske does the math to show that tire selection can increase or decrease range by 30 miles per charge fairly easily, and that’s before you factor in driving style or conditions. Pennies make dollars.

Noise

This is a very interesting one, because cars have been getting quieter for decades. However, when you remove the noise of the internal combustion engine and ancillary drivetrain components, suddenly tire noise is one of the loudest things your ears pick up.

To fight this, many manufacturers will use a polyurethane foam liner inside the tire that helps prevent resonance in the carcass. There is also a pattern molded into the tread which does the same thing. Combined, the liner and the tread pattern can lower tire noise to a level at which you’ll barely notice it when inside the car. Really, though, minimizing tire noise leaves you with wind noise, which is not nearly as easily solved.

Grip

The last is grip. Funny that it’s the final factor mentioned, since grip is likely the first thing that comes to your mind when tires are brought up in conversation. EVs make crazy torque numbers, and therefore may encounter traction issues at speeds at which an ICE-powered car usually wouldn’t. Creating a tire that has enough traction to translate the immediate punch of an electric motor into motion is tough, especially when you’re also trying to make the tire strong, skinny, and quiet.

Hopefully now you better understand why electric vehicles get their own tires, just like semi trucks, trailers, and passenger cars. As the automotive market has continued to expand and grow ever more specialized at the same time, it only makes sense that the industry also produces tires to fit more and more specific situations.

Getting a look inside these EV tires helps us understand just how interconnected all the parts of a car are—and what could happen when those of us without engineering degrees go about “improving” our cars.

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Our lives are tied more and more tightly to battery-powered objects. When we think about improving these devices, efficiency tends to be our chief concern, but safety improvements are finally catching up, thanks to a very familiar chemical compound: Salt.

Batteries are all about chemistry, so first we need to mention how conventional, lithium-ion (Li-ion, for short) batteries work.

Inside the battery case are plates. The spaces in between are flooded with an electrolyte made of a lithium salt dissolved in a liquid organic solvent, such as ether or carbonate. Both ether and carbonate are flammable; should the battery case rupture or become punctured, you could easily have a serious fire on your hands (or, if you’re riding a motorcycle, under your butt).

We have known for some time that Li-ion batteries are vulnerable to fire. Thanks to a U.S. Department of Energy Lab operated by Stanford University, which boasts no fewer than three Nobel Prizes in Physics, we may have a practical way to flameproof them.

SLAC (originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) National Accelerator Lab in Menlo Park, California, has developed a new electrolyte with higher salinity that significantly lowers a Li-ion battery’s flammability. Naturally, the lab dubbed it SAFE, an acronym for Solvent-Anchored non-Flammable Electrolyte.

To be fair, SAFE is not the first non-flammable electrolyte available to battery producers. This is just the first that is viable. Previous concoctions required re-tooling the design of the battery, a process that, for most manufacturers, would be wildly costly and impractical. This new SAFE formula congeals into a gooey substance that can work its way in-between the battery plates of the current case configurations. Per SLAC, switching to the SAFE electrolyte requires no changes to the current manufacturing process at all.

Another big plus to using this salt-heavy cocktail: The batteries can safely operate at a slightly higher temperature without worrying about thermal runaway or the case bulging and bursting into flames as the cell temperatures rise. With less need for cooling, the same-sized battery pack can now pack more energy. In the automotive world, that could mean cars with longer range but no added weight.

While cars have been the latest high-profile instance of lithium-ion batteries posing a fire risk, you don’t have to go far into the past to find smaller handheld electronics overheating and exploding in balls of fire. SLAC’s new electrolyte can be used far beyond the transportation sector, so it will likely make so many devices that we interact with daily a little safer.

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Not all car lovers are lucky enough to have an endless driving season. Most of us are stuck with at least a few weeks, or months, where our beloved rides are parked and waiting for the snow, or more importantly the salt, to clear from the roads so we can resume enjoying our cars the way they were meant to be enjoyed. The down time can be tough, but those winter months are a great time to seek out less time-sensitive projects. While we often think of “winter projects” as items that require high degrees of skill, not everything worth doing in the off season needs to be that intense. In the interest of being inclusive, we decided to put together a list of ideas for all skill levels to take some pride in their car and complete some DIY tasks during the colder weather.

Paint correction

The first thing that most notice about a car is its form, but the second is the paint. Long periods of storage are the perfect time to give aging paint the attention it deserves. If if you wash and wax your car religiously, there will inevitably be small scratches that build up and cause a light haze in the paint. A light hand polish is a good starting point and you have all season so don’t be afraid to take breaks and stop to admire your work. Heavier scratches might require the use of power tools; if that’s the case, be sure to get comfortable with how the tool and compound works on a test piece before tackling your hood. A full paint-strip and respray is a large task for one winter—caring for the paint you already have is not.

Wheel refinishing

You aren’t going to miss out on a drive or a gathering this time of year, so might as well put the car up on jack stands and pull the wheels. A fresh coat of paint or even just a deep cleaning can dress up your ride more than most realize. For example, there are masking kits and rattle-can paint kits that can be purchased for Pontiac wheels that make refreshing your wheels easier than ever. You can even leave the tires on to do the work.

Wiring inspection

Yes, we know you hate wiring. That’s part of why this suggestion is involves inspecting the wire, and nothing more. A loose ground, worn-through insulation, or a weak connection can all conspire to leave you stranded on the side of the road or spending hours searching for the issue when your car is acting up. Take the time now to pour over the wiring harness and make sure it’s in tip top condition. This can often can be done with just a decent pair of eyes, but if something looks out of place or wrong, you might need a multimeter—which we suggest having around your garage anyway.

Fluid flushes

When is the last time you changed your coolant? Brake fluid? If you don’t know or the date is beyond a few years, you should ring up a few bottles at the auto parts store and get out your drain pan. Even with sparing use, fluids age. Flushing is cheap insurance against corrosion and unplanned failure. This can be as simple as a drain and fill, and get as complicated as pushing fresh fluid through the brakes without introducing air. Take the time to get this right, and you can be confident that overheating or a soft brake pedal won’t plague your drive come spring.

A chassis lube

It used to be a part of regular service, but now is rarely talked about since these cars rarely rack up miles like they did when new. Grab a grease gun and push in fresh grease to any chassis fittings outlined in your service manual. Don’t forget the window regulators, heater blend door adjusters, door latch mechanisms, and all the hood or trunk hinges for extra credit.

Steering box adjustment and steering system inspection

Most folks think slightly wandering steering in an old car simply comes with the territory—but it might not have to be. Most steering boxes have a point of adjustment that can remove some slop and play from the system. Combine this with a check of the rest of the steering components (tie rod ends, pitman arms, ball joints, etc.), and you will turn into your spring cruise in with a little extra confidence.

LED bulbs

It only takes a few minutes driving among today’s vehicles to realize that modern headlights and taillights have gotten bright. Vintage car lamps are, well, not. Incandescent bulbs were pretty good for a long time but it is easier than ever to retrofit your vintage ride with light emitting diode (LED) bulbs that put out more light while drawing less power. Win/win, especially when you add in that LEDs also last longer and fit into factory sockets in most applications.

Research

This one is for those of you who don’t want to pick up tools or have cars that need to be stored away from home. Find a book that documents the history of your car or its manufacturer and get to reading. Learn at least one new thing and be sure to share it next time someone strikes up conversation while you are out and about.

Leather cleaning and conditioning

Your interior ages slowly enough that you might not even realize how dirty it is. Reach into the cleaning solutions drawer and get your leather or cloth seats cleaned up. Bonus points if you deep clean your carpet while you’re in there. These chemicals often need a little time to dry, making winter storage the perfect time to ensure that everything gets clean and dry before you are sitting in the seat again.

Spare-tire inflation check

We hope you don’t need it either, but you certainly want your spare tire to be ready if you do. Roll under the car or pull off the cover and inspect that spare tire. You might need to replace it completely, or just add some air to make sure it’ll be ready to roll in a sticky situation.

Under-hood rubber inspection

Similar to inspecting your wiring, grab a flashlight and get under the hood to check on your rubber hoses and lines. Engine compartments get hot, and that takes its toll on rubber pieces. If the hoses are getting stiff or showing any signs of cracking, it’s time to go ahead and replace them. Yes, we saw The World’s Fastest Indian too, but filling those cracks with shoe polish is a cosmetic bandaid, not a savvy fix. If you want to prevent an exploding hose from leaving you stranded waiting for a tow truck, skip the polish and head to the parts store.

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One of the hardest parts of owning a vintage car is finding parts. Many owners realize too late that the next piece needed for their rebuild was produced decades ago, and the only reason it exists is because someone saw its value and kept it from the scrap pile. Sometimes, finding that person and that part on eBay is not even an option. Case in point is the engine block for a Jaguar straight-six.

Jaguar did announce it would cast you a new engine block in exchange for $18,000, but not all Jag enthusiasts have that kind of coin, and not all manufacturers provide that kind of support. For most of us, there aren’t any new castings coming off the line. Our only option is to find a machine shop that can revive what was written off.

The machining process can feel like sorcery sometimes, so it’s always great to see a well-presented explanation of exactly what is being done. When the tools involved are giant machines that have the power to de-limb a human, the spectacle is even more fascinating. Let’s watch Jim’s Auto Machine Shop, Inc handle a warped Jaguar E-Type engine block.

The first step is all about measurement. Using an indicator, the block is leveled relative to the fly cutter (below), so that the new deck surface is flat and square. Once the block’s mounting position is finalized, it is time for a zero cut. This is a very light cut, often equivalent to one thousandth of an inch (or less), which ensures that no portions of the surface are extremely out of level. In the case of this Jag block, the zero cut also levels the newly installed cylinder sleeves with the deck.

Now, the cut that matters: Two thousandths of an inch. The name of the game is accuracy; you should never remove any more material than necessary. Machinist dye turns the surface of the block blue and allows even the naked eye to see identify divots or a protrusions that are left after the cut.

Due to the design of the Jaguar engine, the timing cover must also be installed to ensure proper mating surfaces for the cylinder head upon final assembly.

With the deck surface sorted, attention shifts to the six bores. Each must be the perfect diameter to fit its new piston. Centering the tooling in the bore requires more careful measurement before a tape measurer—the most inaccurate measuring tool in the shop—is used to set the depth stop, which prevents the tooling from dropping out the bottom of the bore. Only then can the final cutter be measured and installed, and its speed and and feed set to produce a cylinder diameter that’s near-perfect.

We say “near perfect” because there is still one more step before anyone can think about assembling this engine. The final block sizing is done with a hone, which removes material much less aggressively than any other tool in the process. Honing also sets a crosshatch pattern: If you’ve ever torn down an engine, you’ve probably looked for this pattern to determine just how tired the engine is.

After all the machine work, the block gets a final cleaning before the machine shop calls the owner and tells them it’s time for assembly.

It’s easy to see why so many of the highly recommended machine shops are run by people with decades of experience. Machines, however capable, aren’t all that matter. Judgement calls must be made—about the final surface finish, or about adjustments to steps in the process. An experienced hand can feel what an inexperienced one must measure. Shops like Jim’s keep our cars on the road, and seeing how their work is done only reminds us just how necessary these craftsman are.

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Owning and maintaining a hobby car is full of ups and downs. With any luck the highs appear more often than the lows, but there is no way to guarantee their appearance. What we can do is focus on the moments that make the thin wallets and late nights and headaches worth it.

To bring some light into what may be a dark tunnel, we pulled out six of the moments in car ownership that we’ve found most rewarding. Whether you own a classic now or are thinking about jumping in with both feet, here is what you have to look forward to.

First show/event

Getting your new purchase home is a big moment; taking it out for its first show or event is even bigger. A car can be an extension of your personality and going out to your first car show with this new form of expression is a powerful moment.

Sharing your car and its story can be as easy as joining a gathering of likeminded individuals in a parking lot—or, if you thrive on more challenging goals, as complicated as earning a spot on a concours lawn. You don’t have to walk away with an award, but we’ll bet you’ll carry a memory when you go.

First startup

We aren’t going to equate hearing the engine you built run for the first time to hearing your child cry for the first time, but we have to admit it can be powerful.

The mental and physical investment in doing a major repair to the heart of your car culminates in turning the key and hearing the noise through the tailpipes as it stumbles to life. The mechanical symphony of lifters pumping while the cooling fan whirrs and the fuel pump comes up to pressure is a delight in itself, but when the sound is the long-awaited result of your own labor? It’s truly worth savoring.

Catching a problem before it’s a problem

Classic vehicles require a certain understanding. Once you learn your car’s language, you will know when something is not right.

Whether you do your own diagnosis or call in the professionals, having your hunch justified is an awesome feeling. It’s more than just keeping up on maintenance. This is knowing your car well enough that, when you detect a disturbance in the force, you act on it with confidence.

First difficult DIY repair

Not everyone is cut out for DIY repair. We recognize that. However, there is something about breaking out the tools and successfully tackling a job yourself that is just so rewarding—and the first time is just that much more special.

The task could be anything from swapping out a headlight and properly adjusting it to overhauling an automatic transmission—or anything in between. Never feel bad about taking pride in knocking out even the smallest jobs yourself.

First time you chauffeur an (appreciative) friend

While a solo drive can be restorative, there is really nothing quite like sharing the experience of your beloved car with an appreciative friend.

Putting someone in the passenger seat—or, better yet, behind the wheel—can be a wonderful experience that will give them an inside look at your passion. Explaining the joys of driving a classic is tough; seeing the look on someone’s face as they experience it for the first time is will recharge the enthusiast batteries inside you rapidly. Who doesn’t want to be a disciple of the old-car hobby?

Road trip or cruise

A long trip with your vintage car can be just short of a spiritual. The sounds, smells, and feeling of taking your beloved car on an adventure is intoxicating—if all goes according to plan, that is.

It can be stressful, but with proper preparation, you’ll be out enjoying the open road in the closest thing to a time machine most of us can afford. One day on the blue highways in a vintage car can change your outlook on cars—and life. Don’t deny yourself.

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Over the years we tackle increasingly complex projects and tasks. That escalation builds a catalog of understanding about how things work and what the best practices are—or aren’t. In short: Experience.

If you look at those you admire, this is often the common thread. In the car world, it means those with the touch and feel to know the perfect time to switch their grip on the ratchet to remove a bolt faster. Those who can seemingly do double the work in half the time.

Gary Swan is one such guy. He’s a veteran of the motorcycle road-racing paddock and decided in 2022 to offer spark-plug reading and tuning tips during Barber Vintage Festival. A small group gathered to try and glean something from his decades of interpreting electrodes and deposits on porcelain.

Watching him read a plug was humbling. His eye picked out so many faint points of information nearly instantly. He spent most of the afternoon holding plugs and spinning in circles: Modern LED flashlights, he said, “just don’t work as good as the sun coming over your shoulder.”

A glance at arm’s length for the timing line, then a look through a jeweler’s glass for the temp reading. “You’re on the edge with that tune-up, I’d back down if I were you.”

Gary can tell what kind of bike you’re racing just by the used plug you hand him. His catalog of experience took decades to accumulate, and he didn’t build it by repeated action alone. It took focused effort.

Watching Gary reinforced what I had learned earlier this year while doing my second motorcycle paint job. I might only be a few pages into my catalog at this point, but I know that every job in the garage can become another line on the page—if I invest care and attention in the work.

The first paint job was one of good intention and okay results. I vowed I would learn from my own mistakes. Those lessons could become experience when put into practice. That’s why, when I decided to do a restomod of my Honda XR100R pit bike so it would match the XR250Rs I race, I spent a whole day on setup. The garage door rails served as a hanging point for thin plastic sheeting, and a furnace filter on a box fan created negative pressure to keep all the overspray contained. I also added some spotlights pointed up from the floor to highlight areas I would likely miss because of shadows.

The finished product was better for my efforts—or so I thought before I noticing the dust in the color coat. Should have washed the floor and sprayed it with water to keep the dust down.

It often takes years, decades even, to gather knowledge. To write your own catalog. The key thing is to be mindful. It’s impossible to build your experience if you aren’t present and thinking about what it is you are doing. People will often talk about the time aspect of building experience, but that is only part of the story.

Doing things lazily or having no pride in your work will rarely turn you into an expert. More accurately, it will turn you into an expert on being lazy and cutting corners. Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent. Experience is valuable. Don’t waste the opportunity to gather it.

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If you are in one of those locales that gets tolerable weather year-round, go ahead and skip to the bottom now and make your snarky comment. Not even going to try and take that away from you. What I will say is that I need winter. You might need it too and not even realize it. Seriously.

The snow falling—or, more accurately, the salt truck driving by—signals the end of one season and entry into another. The race tracks are closed. The roads are covered in that nasty mix of sodium and chloride that conspires to oxidize nearly every surface of a car with ruthless abandon. Toss in the whole tilt-of-the-earth bit and how short the days get up here on the 45th parallel and it’s easy to see why seasonal affective disorder is a thing—especially for those of us who enjoy vintage cars.

For some of us, this season is not the sad one, though. These are the exciting times. Okay, maybe not exciting, but at least not the depths of boring. Not because I enjoy the snow or cold, but because it means no more driving. No more racing, except for a few crazies. Significantly less time and money spent traveling to events. Of course, that sounds like hell to most, but feeling truly stuck at home is impossible when you have a heated garage and a backlog of problems and projects awaiting attention.

More often than not, the hardest part of any project is finding the time to do it. During the warm months, it is easy to feel bad about holing up in the garage to work for an entire Saturday when the sun is begging you to swap safety glasses for Ray Bans. Given the opportunity to drive your car, you should. But the shift in seasons means that no one can tell you that your car should be on the road. You don’t have to justify staying inside to work on piddly tasks or spending a whole weekend in the shop just cleaning.

Now is the time to work on a project peacefully and without rush. The batteries in the one clock I have in my shop usually die about now each year. It’s magical timing for sure. A time for getting lost in a task and focusing on all the little details that you have no reason to ignore, since time is not a factor. Deadlines still exist, but they are far into the future at this point. You can take time to breathe and refocus.

There’s also that old part about distance making the heart grow fonder. Being separated from cars for the season only makes me enjoy the sliver of summer that much more. I’ll drive the fun cars at every opportunity, even if the choice is slightly inconvenient. If the weather was near-perfect every day, I would probably never drive my cars, because I would skip over good enough and wait for perfect.

A college roommate once told me about the house he grew up in, just half a mile from a California beach. Can you guess somewhere he had never been, when he moved to Kansas’ McPherson College at 18 years old? The beach. It was always there. They could always go tomorrow. The weather was two degrees less than ideal, so they stayed home. A whole 18 years passed before they knew it.

Everything has a deadline set by Mother Nature. Winter becomes the yin to summer’s yang, and months of driving become months of parking. For some of us the extremes are required. The seasons prevent me from getting lost and never finishing my project cars. Nothing makes driving season quite as sweet as enduring—nay, embracing—wrenching season.

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The line between novelty and true advancement in technology is very fine. Razor-thin, in fact. That’s why a lot of products that could make our lives easier or better often get scoffed at by those who don’t understand them completely. On the other end of the spectrum are items promising the world for $19.95.

Somewhere in between is the Frantz oil filter.

Haven’t heard of it? I hadn’t either, until a member of one of the Corvair forums I follow put out a for-sale ad that caught my eye. A silver canister with two hose-barb fittings and an angle mounting bracket, along with what looked like a little adapter. Anytime I’m unable to quickly identify a part, I spiral rapidly down a hole of research. A Corvair piece that I hadn’t seen? Gotta know about it. Luckily, the seller didn’t leave folks guessing. It was a Frantz oil filter, with the rare, Corvair-specific adapter for easy install.

Neat—but why did it exist? What problem does this fix? Was it a … snake-oil filter?

Part of what had caught my eye in the listing was a roll of toilet paper used to prop up the adapter for photos. Turns out, as odd as it looked, the roll was supposed to be there. The Frantz filter is marketed to either supplement or replace a factory-fit oil filtration system with toilet paper. As strange as the idea sounds, toilet paper as an oil filter is not crazy.

After all, the vast majority of oil filters are paper media, strands of fiber woven together create a perfect net to catch particulates. A pleated paper element comprises the core of most spin-on cartridges, and it makes sense to change out the paper rather than the whole element. The Frantz company decided to utilize something every car owner had on hand: toilet paper.

By sizing the canister just right, Frantz could direct oil through a core of “filter material” nearly 4.5 inches in diameter before allowing the oil to exit and return to the engine. The roll provides markedly more filtering material than a pleated-element insert does. Frantz also claims that the toilet paper is constructed with a finer mesh and thus can trap even smaller particulates than a traditional filter.

That isn’t hard to believe. Anyone who has taken apart an oil filter to see what nastiness it was catching from inside their engine can see the filter media is fairly thin. It feels a bit like loose cardboard. If you unwind a roll of toilet paper, you’ll get about 75 feet of filter material. Seventy-five feet. That should filter your oil well for a long time—and it can. Sort of.

The trouble relates to how oil degrades in your engine. Sure, debris and junk that finds its way past gaskets or piston rings needs to be trapped, but oil itself degrades at the chemical level. Heat and pressure conspire to reduce the effectiveness of the many additives in modern oil, regardless of the system’s physical filtration level.

Oil becomes acidic because of the byproducts of combustion that leak past piston rings and valve seals. Even if you removed all the debris floating in your oil, you would still need to change it on a regular basis. If your oil gets acidic enough, it can damage bearings and other surfaces just as badly as if it weren’t there or if it were contaminated with chunks of stuff. Only changing the oil can prevent the breakdown of those chemical compounds. If you are changing oil often enough to keep that degradation at bay, then do you really need a supplemental filter to remove every last floating piece of junk? That’s for you to decide.

I had to have the Frantz filter for my garage. I messaged the seller, then sent over some money and my shipping address. It won’t be installed on the Corvair, but I’m not going to call the Frantz a gimmick, either. It’s a fun conversation piece that I can mount behind the workbench and maybe even use as a storage canister for hardware or little bits that need to stay safe while I’m working on a project. After all, what gadget is more interesting than one meant to equip your vintage ride with a roll of toilet paper? I can’t think of much else.

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We all like to play pretend and be race-car drivers, even when we actually are race-car drivers. Adding a little more aggressive feel to your car’s handling can really enhance the experience of driving, whether you have a modern, four-cylinder boringmobile or a vintage car that you would like to elevate from stylish to focused.

Regardless of your candidate, here are six great places to start dialing up the fun factor of the driving experience. They range from pretty cheap to medium money plus large time investment. Give them a read, and you might just find your next winter project.

Alignment

Production cars balance efficiency with stability, but with a few turns of their tie rods, you can give one a more aggressive personality. Whether you’re looking for quicker turn-in or more stability at high speed, the vast majority of production cars have enough built-in adjustability to accomodate you.

Research how the three options for front-end alignment influence driving feel. (Brush up on the terminology here.) Then contact an alignment shop to get your car dialed-in to your custom specs. The nice thing about this option? The changes are easily reversed.

Ignition timing

Much of engine tuning is based on safety. Not preservation of the occupants’ lives, but the wellbeing of pistons and valves. Factory specs may be conservative, but know that if you push too far on timing it can be an expensive adventure. Proper timing can give you more power, so optimize the ignition timing for your engine modifications. This is especially easy for distributor-equipped engines, but learning to tune with a laptop is not nearly as scary as some would lead you to believe. Classes and tutorials are out there for various programs tailored to modern performance cars.

Suspension bushings

Eliminating play or slop in the pivot points of your suspension will really tighten up the feel of your car. It will also dial the noise, vibration, and harshness up significantly. Fresh rubber bushings go a long way into making a tired car fresh again, and stepping up to polyurethane bushings will produce an even stiffer ride. Be careful here: You may be tempting to put poly bushings everywhere, but those may be overkill for your project or simply ill-suited to your driving habits and local roads. Every type of modification is a compromise; this is one that can be a pain to undo.

Shocks and/or springs

Minimize the body roll of your car and suddenly your car feels ready to take on Le Mans. Well, almost. Many modern cars accomodate bolt-in coilovers that allow for heaps of adjustment and tuning after the fact. For classic rides, you may have to commission custom coil or leaf springs, but the good news is that the work is often more affordable than you might fear. Combine fresh springs with a good set of shocks, and you will find yourself seeking out on-ramps and curvy roads with more confidence than ever.

Gear Ratio

We all want more power—more faster is more better, obviously—but before you flash a moon tune onto your car’s ECU, consider the simpler principle of mechanical advantage. Unless you are at the track regularly, you likely could stand to sacrifice top speed in exchange for better acceleration. Changing the final drive ratio is a prime way to achieve that and is especially straightforward on vintage stick-axle cars. Go ahead and add Positraction while you are in there for extra traction when you need it most.

Weight

Last one, easiest one. A lot of folks will be familiar with the Colin Chapman quote about simplifying and adding lightness, but they may not think about applying it to a car that’s already assembled, and by someone else. If you can tolerate additional NVH (that’s noise, vibration, and harshness in engineer-speak) you can shave pounds by removing insulation or additional fluff from your car. I removed the back seat from my Chevrolet Corvair to shed a little weight. Ounces make pounds, and fewer pounds means faster cars. You can probably keep the Sawzall in the toolbox, though.

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Certain systems of our beloved old cars require faith to understand how they work. You can’t see electricity be generated. Physically impossible. If you know how and where to look though, there are signs. I know this because a stranger in a parking lot told me so. I have been using the trick he taught me for years now.

It all started after driving my 1964 Chevrolet Corvair to lunch at Stacy’s Restaurant in Grandview Plaza, Kansas. After lunch with the family it was time to leave. I turned the ignition key to start the engine … and nothing happened. Dead battery. We collectively stood and stared, wondering what was wrong, while Dad pulled the family car around to give me a jump start.

This was my first drive after I had switched out the factory-fit generator for an alternator. The conversation was easy and one of my first projects on the car as a 17-year-old, budding mechanic. With only two wires connecting to the back of the alternator, it was an easy swap. How could I have gotten it wrong?

While we blankly stared at the engine, one of the local farmers—a regular at the diner—walked over to glance down into the engine compartment.

“What’s wrong?”

The battery died.

“Well, is it charging?”

It should be. Don’t know how it couldn’t be, the alternator is brand new.

He gave me a look up and down and asked if my pocket knife was steel. It was. He then instructed me to jump-start the car, which it easily did. Then he took my pocket knife and held it to the back housing of the alternator, after which he confidently declared: “Nope, not charging. There’s your problem.”

The first-generation Chevrolet Corvair was like most early-’60s cars in that it had a generator rather than an alternator. There’s only a small difference between the two: A generator has a rotating armature whereas an alternator has a stationary one. Either works thanks to the Faraday law of electromagnetic induction that states “the magnitude of voltage is directly proportional to the rate of change of flux.” Sounds complicated, but it basically means that a magnetic field moving relative to the conductor creates current. This current can charge a battery or power an ignition system.

The exciting parts comes when you, well, have to excite the components so that they work. Without a starter current—whose job is to “excite” a system—an alternator is just a spinning magnet. An alternator or generator is unable to build voltage without that little kick to get things working. Once excited and spinning, the current will rise with engine revolutions. If an alternator is unexcited, it will do nothing but spin. No current. More or less, it becomes a fancy belt tensioner.

The small crowd that had gathered around the Corvair gazed back at our impromptu prophet blankly. It was simple, he said: The back of the alternator will be magnetic if it is excited and, therefore creating current. He wished us a good day, hopped in his flatbed pickup, and went off to tend to the fields. At least, that’s what I assume. For a person who can conduct diagnostic tests on electrical systems with a closed pocketknife, I’m sure the world is his oyster.

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Whether we like it or not, the changing of the seasons is upon us, and that means some of us are mentally preparing for the saddest day of the year—when we tuck our vintage toys into seasonal storage. It can be a rough day for a bunch of reasons, but a little stress and care right now can make for an extra delightful spring when you take your car out for that first drive.

Top up (two ways)

Storing with non-ethanol fuel is best, but not everyone has access to it, or it may come at enough of a premium that it’s not in the cards right now. Regardless of fuel type, fill the tank to the top and add an appropriate fuel stabilizer. Most vintage fuel tanks are steel and thus are very susceptible to rust, which can flake off and fill your fuel system with debris. Holy headache. With the tank topped off, there is no room for air and thus rust is kept at bay. Once you have some stabilizer in the tank, be sure to run the car for 10-15 minutes to make sure that it circulates through the entire fuel system.

The other “top” to think about is the convertible top. While you might never put the top for the summer, it is in your best interest to store a car with the top up so that it does not shrink or otherwise get damaged from long-term storage while being folded up. This is especially important for plastic rear windows that will lock into a shape when held in a particular way for too long. Replacing tops is not fun, and you aren’t driving anyway, so why not use it as the time to get your top back into shape?

Insulate your tires

Tires are made for driving, not for parking. That’s why long-term storage is likely to cause flat spots or dry-rotting of the rubber rings we need so dearly. There are appropriate products on the market that can help, but it’s also just as easy to pick up some insulation foam board and cut a few squares that fit under your tires. This will form a cradle for the tire and also keep the dirt or concrete under the car from sucking the moisture out of the rubber, making them last longer. If you want to go an extra step in moisture management, lay down a tarp or painter’s plastic sheet under the car to prevent the cool chassis from condensing any moisture that might rise up from the ground.

Cover up

If your storage spot has windows or is open on one side, be sure to utilize a good quality car cover. UV degradation can happen fast when a car is parked in one spot and the sunlight only hits a specific spot day after day. Your seats, paint, and trim will thank you for covering up, as it will also keep scratches and dust off your precious vintage ride. Speaking of dust, be sure that the car is clean before you cover it. Really clean. A cover can grind any dirt and debris left on the car into your delicate paint. Also, remember that covers don’t do much to protect from dents, so make sure your car does not become a shelf or leaning place for other things in the garage.

Fresh fluids

At a minimum, your car should get fresh oil and a coolant check. Oil traps combustion byproducts, and if left in the crankcase to sit all winter you can end up with corrosion or deposits that require serious work to remove. An oil change right before storage is cheap insurance. Coolant needs to be properly mixed for the temperatures the car will see in storage so it doesn’t freeze. Freezing liquids can exert tons of force—enough to literally split your engine block in two. You can be sure with a simple $3 tester, or if you’re really unsure and the coolant looks or smells dirty, a flush and fill could be your best option.

While under the hood looking at fluids, take a moment to inspect your brake fluid, as it can absorb moisture too. Flush with fresh fluid if the reservoir is anything but a nice light amber color.

Good luck. Spring will be here before you know it. (We hope.)

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Subtle modifications are the best ones. Unfortunately, one such combination of old and new nearly cost me my butt and my friend a low-mileage, original Kawasaki motorcycle.

It all started when he offered to give me the afternoon to exercise his vintage bikes. It’s an opportunity one doesn’t turn down, especially when the friend’s the kind of guy who scolds you for not riding his bike hard enough: “I can hear you all the way to curves on the highway, and you need to let this bike get on the pipe!” Don’t have to tell me twice.

Negotiation was simple. In return for the ride experience, I agreed to provide riding notes for a book he is working on and bring a few of his bikes back up to running order. A little carb work here, unsticking clutch plates there, and putting new batteries in just about everything. Since some bikes were waking from years of storage, that meant a couple pairs of tires to install. No big deal, and it’s why I keep tools in my van.

The last bike to get attention was a 1973 Kawasaki Z1. Since it had run most recently, among the fleet of eight or so, it needed the least work. The gas in the tank wasn’t even sour, but the battery had been pilfered for some other project, so I was directed to a small stack of new batteries in the corner of the shop. The owner is not a penny pincher and had broken out the checkbook for a bunch of very nice, very lightweight, lithium-ion batteries. Replacing lead-acid batteries with these updated, chemical-charge cells is a common strategy to shed weight. One like this in the Z1 can take as much at six pounds off a bike. That’s meaningful change. Oh, and these batteries are often more resilient during long-term storage. Win/win for a guy who owns a bunch of motorcycle in northern Michigan, snow-bound for months of the year.

I threaded the bolts for the positive and ground leads and tucked the little, red and black battery into the factory battery box before padding it with a couple chunks of styrofoam so it wouldn’t shift and arc the terminals while I was riding it. After I snapped the seat down, it only took a slight tickle of the starter for the 900cc inline-four to sputter to life. 15 or 20 seconds later, it had cleaned up and was thrumming a smooth idle. I let the bike warm up a bit as I put on my leather jacket, helmet, and a pair of gloves. As I swung a leg over the bike and picked up the kickstand, the owner popped over to point at the tachometer. “The bike only really comes alive over here,” he said, index finger circling 8,9, and 10 on the gauge.

Now I was conflicted. This was not my motorcycle, and it is both very original and quite low-mileage. Last thing anyone wants to do is blow up a bike they don’t own and can’t afford. Before I could even start my protest, my friend shut me down.

“Seriously, you have to wring it to make this bike work.”

Headed for the curves in the highway, I gave it the beans. I’ve ridden a handful of other inline-fours of this era and had made sure to read the early reviews of the Z1 before the ride, which meant my expectations were realistic. The chassis was as noodly as one would expect a bike of the era to be, yet it also was sharp, making me feel right at home turning in and apexing corners—as best I could, while staying in my lane.

A big, fast left opened up to a nice, half-mile straight run between two open fields. The tach was at 7000 right at the apex and, as I rolled on the power, the bike picked up and felt like a needle in the groove of a record.

The record scratched.

A slight loss of power, a cough through the carbs, then a puff of smoke and total engine shutdown. I had the clutch covered in less than a moment and smoothly braked into a convenient driveway to face what could only be bad news. No oil on the ground or new holes in the cases—in fact, no fluids spilled at all. Smoke was still tracing from under the seat in long whispers. Had the air filter caught fire? I didn’t know. 

This was not when I wanted to learn how to open a Z1 seat latch. Where was the seat latch? That’s a concerning amount of smoke. I had installed the battery in the bike under the seat and closed it, but it was open when I started working on it, so now I didn’t know exactly where the latch was or if I needed the key to operate it.

Sheer panic.

When I finally got the seat flipped up, I was met with a cloud of fumes that probably took three years off my life. That brand-new battery was so hot it had melted off its stickers and was cooking the plastic case. Everything near it was hot. After an unsuccessful attempt to undo the battery connection with my pocket knife, I discovered this bike still had its original toolkit. Lucky me. The factory-packed slip-joint pliers made quick work of disconnecting the terminals, allowing me to reach in a gloved hand and yank out the battery so both it and I could cool for a minute.

I took a deep breath, for clean air reasons and clear head reasons.

After some mental regrouping, and after failing to get the bike’s owner on the phone, I took a chance. I’d try to bump-start the Z1 so I could get the three or so miles back to the garage. Not all electrical systems will function without a battery installed, but I was not about to put that overcooked chunk back in the bike. Luckily, the Z1 fired right off in second gear, idling happily while I put on my helmet and balanced the battery on my right leg. I wasn’t about to abandon a potential fire hazard in some stranger’s driveway.

Back at my friend’s garage, the diagnostics began nearly instantly after I told my story: “Oh, that means the regulator failed. It’s a common issue on these.” It took me a second to understand the timeline of events that lead to that battery popping. Essentially, it looks like this:

The engine’s high-rpm run led to the charging system producing a little extra current. The regulator would typically dump this to ground, but the excess current came fast enough that the regulator either was overwhelmed or failed independently, in a way that it stopped bleeding that excess to ground and instead overcharged the battery. (This is where it gets a little nerdy, so fair warning.) Now the situation became a chemical problem rather than an electrical one. When a traditional, lead-acid battery receives extra current, it will boil off the acid and display sulfation, in which part of the acid is deposited on the plates of the battery, thus diminishing the battery’s ability to accept a charge. Lithium-ion batteries are much less forgiving. They simple cannot absorb overcharge that way. Once plating of the metallic lithium occurs, it compromises the safety of the battery. Thermal runaway is far more likely in a li-ion battery than in a lead-acid one.

Thermal runaway. Awful scary term for something that happened about two inches underneath my precious parts while traveling at highway speeds. Luckily, the Kawasaki is not damaged and its charging system can be easily repaired. More importantly, I am unscathed—and more wary than ever of mixing old and new technologies.

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Ring, Ring. 

“Hey Friend #1. How’s it going?”

“Honestly Friend #2, not great. Remember that wheel bearing I started replacing yesterday? Well, I’m stuck. Can you give me a hand?”

I’ve taken that phone call. You’ve probably taken that phone call. We’ve all made that phone call. It feels like a reward to receive that call sometimes.

Helping others with their automotive projects is a rite of passage for lots of enthusiasts. It means you have transitioned—even if only temporarily—from student to teacher. Even if it is only due to your possession of special tools or space rather than knowledge, it’s still a little nod of respect to another person to acknowledge when someone else is more prepared for the task at hand than you are. The old saying that “Every smooth-running project is one broken bolt or dropped piece from being a three-day ordeal” is a long-running bit of humor for those of us with grease under our nails, and for good reason. Helping someone through that ordeal is awesome, but whether you’ve never done it before or have done it a thousand times, here are five things to think about before you start turning wrenches on a friend’s car.

Light touch

Your friend called you to help install a new distributor, and while under the hood you notice the valve cover gaskets are pretty leaky, so you go ahead and pull the valve covers off to reseal them while you have the engine apart. Bad idea. Don’t do what they don’t ask you to do. They likely have a plan for the car, no matter how informal, and you might put things out of order by diving into something they were OK with letting be for awhile.

Work as if you are them

Your tolerance for misfit might be lower than theirs. Or maybe you don’t care about your paint, but they very much care about it and use a fender cover religiously. Whatever little things like that you can do to treat their car the same as they would is the key to keeping a friend. Sometimes that might mean leaving things a little scruffier than you typically do if you are the perfectionist. Remember, it’s not your project. Heck, it’s not your car. 

Keep an eye on the clock

It’s easy to get carried away when you have a helping hand, and suddenly it’s midnight and the missus is pissed. Consider it your job to keep things focused and on track even though you are the help. Have a brief conversation before you arrive or when you get there to level set what the evening is going to entail. That might include some hanging out mixed in with work, but make sure that’s mutually enjoyed. No one wants to have to kick a friend out to keep others in the house happy.

Don’t be a distraction, help

Maybe your buddy is pretty skilled and really only needs a careful eye to check work along the way. Don’t try to have deep conversations or walk off to tinker with something else in the garage. If you are there to help, help. No one likes someone showing up in the garage and slowing their progress to a crawl when the plan was to knock out a project. It’s no different than your barber. Sometimes the conversation breaks when they need to focus, and you just let it happen because you know the results can depend on it.

If they ask for tools, they get you along with them

Loaning out tools is like gambling, and you are not the house. Sometimes you get your stuff back. Sometimes it’s gone forever. Worst case it’s returned in a condition that the borrower didn’t realize is unacceptable. That’s why I’ve implemented a rule that if you need some specialty tool I own for your project, then me and my experience with that tool come with it. When I leave, so does the tool. It ensures my stuff doesn’t disappear or get damaged, plus I know you’re using it correctly. Overkill? Maybe. I hate being the guy who says no though, and this allows me to say yes more.

Have a rule of your own for helping or asking for help? Leave us a comment below. You might just end up helping someone you’ve never met.

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Hey there. I’m Kyle. My presence on these digital pages is not new, but this column is. Beginning this week, Mechanical Sympathy will explore the ways we interact with machines, both in upkeep and use, and how those stir the soul. Read my introduction to the column here.

A soft touch can be incredibly powerful. Now that you are thinking about that, let me reel you back. This is a family-friendly automotive website and you thought that was where I was going? Shame on you.

No, this is about the key to my 1965 Chevrolet Corvair, and how it became the test for how much respect and space you are going to get when you drive it. My beloved coupe is nothing special. The data plate shows no rare options, the rear quarter-panels have some rust, and the interior is nice but not so much that you’d hesitate to hop in with wet shoes after a nice fall drive. This car is the picture of a “driver” that is meant to be enjoyed.

Keeping ropes around a car is an excellent way to make sure no one cares about it. That’s why I hold myself to a rule that came from someone I’ve never met. While at an event, sometime around 2011, I overheard one person yell, “If you can start it, you can drive it!” to someone peeking in the window of a cherry red Pontiac. This same offer had been a joke with a few of my college friends when I built up a Honda XR650R motard, which required a very particular song and dance to fire up. Not a lot of people got to ride that bike, but there was no shortage of tired legs from kicking it over.

This Corvair starts a whole lot easier than that motorcycle did. Wherever it goes, which is a lot of places, I will toss the keys to anyone who shows interest in driving it. After they slide behind the seat and get a quick rundown of the controls comes the test: Do they know how to turn a key?

It’s so simple. And yet my Corvair key is mangled and bent three different ways.

To be fair, most cars have not used turn keys in years. Even if one does, the system doesn’t require the operator to hold the switch to keep the engine cranking. A flick of the key, and the engine will crank until it starts, at which point the computer takes over, because it knows better. This digital intervention used to annoy me greatly, but after hearing my Corvair starter grind after the engine caught, and after clamping the key in a vise to straighten it for the third time, I am reminded that modern cars are built to preserve themselves from the lowest common denominator. This approach insulates the curious from learning how the machine works because it just works. If you do something wrong, which you really can’t on a modern car, there is no auditory or haptic feedback. You can ham-fist the starting procedure for years and never know it.

Maybe part of the problem is that my car’s key is quite ornate. The head bears a nice Corvair script inset with decorative colors that have aged to a delightful patina. That detailing means the head is wide and give users an unexpected amount of leverage compared to the rounded plastic fob of any key from the last 25 years. Between robust, anti-theft lock cylinders and the smooth keys, it is almost difficult to put too much torque into a modern ignition. Most likely, people don’t realize the force they are putting on an old system—most people haven’t even unlocked a car door with a key for years.

These bad habits set in because drivers literally did not know better and no one said anything to them. Then they get the chance to drive my Corvair and the first bit of feedback is pursed lips and a through-the-nose exhale as the start grinds and the key bends. As much as the mechanical abuse hurts my soul—and the car—it is a necessary evil. Watching how these drivers start the Corvair tells me how the drive will go, and how much coaching I will be doing from the right seat. If you He-Man twist that delicate little key, you will hear the script that is burned into my brain about how a clutch works, followed by a reminder that old brakes are old brakes and you need to treat them as such. A bent key may be an easy repair, but I’m not going to let ignorance cost me a clutch.

Yet I continue to offer this key to strangers. I have to. We have to. Each of us had to start (see what I did there?) somewhere on the journey of learning how mechanical things work. It takes a tender touch to keep the key from twisting off in the dashboard’s cylinder these days, reminding me that the Corvair, like any other machine, is a living thing. It will only last as long as someone takes care of it and wants it around.

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One of the interesting commonalities among driving enthusiasts is that we all think we are the second coming of Senna and thus believe we have both legendary reaction times and fine motor skills. After all, how many folks have you heard over the years talk of pulling ABS fuses or disabling the system because they claim they can stop a car faster if ABS is not “interfering,” and they can truly threshold brake? Those people are wrong, and Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained just did the math to prove it.

There’s one thing to get out of the way right off the hop here: This is a discussion of modern ABS systems. First- and even second-generation systems likely were quite cumbersome and slow reacting. However, computer technology has come a very long ways in the last 40 years, and any judgements previously made against ABS should be re-evaluated against a current system.

I say that because Fenske does a good job of putting that into hard numbers. The first to know is slip, which is pretty self-explanatory when you think on it. Slip is the speed differential between tire and the vehicle. This is what determines if you have traction or not: 0 percent slip is traction, 100 percent slip is sliding.

The next important data point is processing speed and inputs. A modern ABS system is picking up wheel speed and slip from each individual tire and can modulate at each tire. You only get the joined feedback at the brake pedal, along with your internal accelerometer. The ABS system can cycle and analyze data between 15 and 100 times per second. Your human brain has a whole lot of processing power, but the average human has a reaction time of 120ms, meaning that by the time you even understand you’re sliding, the ABS system has cycled at least twice.

That’s in ideal conditions, too. Add in changes in surface that affect coefficient of friction. A small patch of dirt or sand, or maybe a little oil or water, and suddenly you need to react to that and you won’t be able to predict that change in braking capacity—neither can the ABS, to be fair—but your reaction will likely require some amount of give and take fluctuation before you zero back in on perfect threshold, and by that time the surface could change again. A human simply cannot act fast enough to keep brake pressure in the sweet spot. We can do really well in some situations, but considering the depth and breadth of variables when driving on public roads, there’s no way even the best can beat ABS consistently. It’s statistically impossible.

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The world is ruled by the laws of physics. Because of that, seemingly unrelated actions can sometimes be a lot closer related than we sometimes realize. Still, when I learned that the same physics principle that makes carburetors work is also what makes the gas pump shut off automatically when your tank is full, I was a little surprised. Maybe the Venturi effect will surprise you, too.

This video comes from British YouTube personality Steve Mould, but luckily the pump handle and function are the same here in the states. At the start of the video he lays out the same thought I have always had about how one of these automatic shutoff pump handles works; there is some type of electronic sensor that can tell when fuel splashes against it and trips the pump to stop. Now, I have to admit that in the back of my mind I knew it could never be that, because fuel vapors and electronics—especially electronics used by the general public—could never get along without significantly more gas station explosions than history has shown us. That was true, but the actual correct answer was way more complicated than I expected.

In the simplest terms, the handle creates a slight vacuum at the tip of the filler nozzle and if that vacuum port is plugged a mechanism shuts a valve and stops fuel flow. Super simple, right? Sort of.

The most interesting part is that the nozzle uses the fuel being pumped to create the Venturi that activates the shutoff. To do that it has a small restriction that creates a low-pressure zone just before the nozzle in the handle. This slight vacuum spikes if the tip of the nozzle is no longer in air, but instead in fuel. That spike in vacuum moves a diaphragm which changes the pivot point of the trigger and stops fuel flow.

It is both complicated and simple. The fact that there is very little to wear out or require service makes it the perfect piece that can be in use at a fuel station basically all day. Seeing inside regular objects like this to peek at the hidden engineering is always fascinating. Now that my brain knows this it can move on to wondering exactly how those oil life indicators work on modern cars. It is an algorithm of engine use or really sensing a change within the oil? Maybe we’ll dig into that ourselves.

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The correct number of leaks is zero. This is inarguable. Leaks do happen, though, whether due to failure of a gasket or assembly error. Sometimes it’s the smallest little weep of oil—quite tolerable, though it requires a wipe from time to time, since you don’t want buildup of oil schmutz. It can be hard to tell exactly where a leak begins, and that is why you should keep some baby powder among your garage chemicals. Here’s how to make this superfine clay mineral work for you.

An example of a confounding leak, I present this little section on the sidecover of my freshly-built Honda XR250R. There are multiple oil line connections and opportunities for leaks: the oil filter cover, the pair of oil cooler lines, and the banjo bolt that feeds oil to the cylinder head. Whenever I pulled off track this past week, I noticed a thin film of oil covering this area, though there was no obvious source. It was not enough oil to keep the bike off track, but it needs to be fixed properly before it becomes something worse or causes problems.

How do I narrow down the exact location of the leak? With baby powder.

Start by cleaning everything. In this case, a spotless clean required a small amount of chain cleaner to remove all the leftover oil and uncover a perfectly clean surface.

Then, lightly powder the area. Remove any excess before attempting to provoke the leak. For me, that meant a few runs up and down the street to reproduce the situation in which I had originally observed the seepage. Even at the worst, there was only a thin layer of oil and only high-rpm operation seemed to trigger it.

That’s why I shook on that little bit of baby powder: Even the slightest dampness will disrupt it. In the past I’ve used this trick to highlight porosity in a casting. Luckily, in this case, the culprit was a faulty copper washing in the banjo oil line. The fix will be to anneal the washers and re-tighten the bolt so that it seals properly. Not a big deal—but diagnosing it would have been tough without a little help, since it’s so close to the exhaust that I can’t use my fingers to detect any excess fluid.

Use this trick for any situation in which you are unable to watch the area while safely operating the engine or vehicle. Baby powder cleans up easily and is safe for pretty much any material you would find on a car or motorcycle. A quick wipe down or wash will remove it. Don’t tolerate leaks—solve them!

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The Swedes are a curious bunch. They build the world’s safest cars but from little more than walking age they’ll teach their children how to fell a tree with an axe, catch fish from the surface of a (hopefully) frozen lake, and make a warming fire outdoors— using a tree trunk, a chainsaw, and a can of gasoline.

They are sensible and considerate in working hours, but can be wild and uninhibited when night falls and the drinks flow. Obeying speed limits comes naturally, yet few nations’ drivers are better at drifting a car sideways through a snow-covered pine forest.

In some small way, this explains why, when Sweden’s car journalists gets their hands on a new vehicle, they don’t do what Americans, Brits, and Germans do, which is skid it around a test track or racing circuit until its tires resemble balls of wire wool and the brakes appear to have erupted into a small bonfire. Oh no. The Swedes turn all serious, devising tests for real-world driving scenarios which you or I are unlikely to encounter in our lifetime but the likes of which keep Sweden’s reviewers awake at night.

Remember the moose test? In 1997, a simple, standard testing procedure caused the board of Mercedes-Benz to drop everything they were doing—namely, launching the new Maybach Concept to the world’s media, at the Tokyo Motor Show—and fly back to Stuttgart, making damage-mitigation plans as they went which would have to be presented to Jüergen Schrempp, Mercedes’ CEO, the moment they touched down.

The moose test was the work of Teknikens Värld, a Swedish car magazine. It was designed to probe at a car’s handling characteristics during a sudden, emergency lane change … such as when a 1300-pound moose stepped out in front of your Saab or Volvo.

That simple test—to which Mercedes had not subjected it’s new, mass-market A-Class—literally tripped up the company’s most significant car of the moment. It’s estimated that a recall of the first 17,000 cars on the road, and subsequent fitment of an Electronic Stability Program (ESP) as standard cost the company more than €2.5 billion more than it had intended to invest in the project.

So you can understand that when Sweden’s car reviewers are presented with modern cars with functions mostly operated through touchscreen systems, they don’t reach for their iPhone to stream their favorite podcast, or ask the car to order them a Foodora meal (their DoorDash equivalent). They search for flaws.

How, they ask, is scrolling, swiping and jabbing your way through numerous menus safer than using conventional buttons or stalks on the steering column?

And, of course, they don’t just pose the question, they go in search of the answer. “They” in this case is Vi Bilägare, a consumer magazine that has been doing sensible things with cars since 1930.

The answer doesn’t make for comfortable reading, at least, it doesn’t if you’re a car manufacturer that claims touchscreens offer progress through convenience, extra features, upgrades over time and, er, a virtual whoopee cushion. Using a 2005-era Volvo V70 as a benchmark, Vi Bilägare magazine established how long it takes the average driver to perform common tasks when at the wheel. Operations were as follows:changing the temperature of the climate control, choosing a specific radio station, resetting the trip computer, and lowering the brightness of the instruments.

So far, so straightforward. The driver had to perform the tasks while traveling at motorway speeds, and had had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with all the cars being tested. So, let’s cut to the chase; if you performed the tasks in the Volvo V70 while driving, how long would it take and how far would you have gone? It took all of 10 seconds and the distance travelled was 306 meters (about 1000 feet).

The worst offender of the new cars was an MG Marvel R, an electric, family-sized SUV, which took 47 seconds and covered 1372 meters (4500 feet) in that time.

Ah, you may be scoffing at this point. That electric MG is merely badge-engineered Chinese car that can’t compete with the might of Europe’s prestigious carmakers. If only. The next worst offender was BMW’s new flagship, the iX. Its driver needed 30 seconds to perform the simple tasks, taking them 928 meters (3044 feet) down the path. The acclaimed Hyundai Ioniq 5 took 27 seconds and 815 meters (2673 feet). Pin-up for the Tesla fan club, the Model 3, needed 24 seconds and 717 meters (2352 feet), while Volkswagen’s post-Dieselgate rush job, the poorly received ID.3, clocked in at 26 seconds and 786 meters (2578 feet).

Cars, you may have noticed, have never been more expensive. And as automakers transition to electric power, that cost burden to the consumer is only going to increase, at least in the short term. Many manufacturers say they will phase out high-volume, low-margin cheap cars in favor of posh and pricey alternatives that come packed with profit.

That escalating cost is also partly because carmakers can’t justify fitting small cars with all the safety equipment that will be mandatory in the future. Yet the same safety bodies and rule makers, who are forcing expense upon consumers in the name of our well-being, have buried their heads in the sand over touchscreen tech in cars.

If I said to you, “I’m rubbish at using an iPad; would you send a message for me and then check the weather, please?” while you were driving, you’d tell me where to shove it. Yet these screens have proliferated for reasons of … you guessed it, cost.

Stuff you and I knew was flawed is being forced on us whether we like it or not.

As infotainment systems continue to develop, more independent testers should take a leaf out of Teknikens Värld’s and Vi Bilägare’s book and highlight the hidden dangers of “progress.”

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Via Hagerty UK

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Working on cars is inherently dangerous. Just like driving, spinning wrenches on a vehicle requires respect and undivided attention. We all accept a certain amount of risk when taking on DIY projects, and I’m willing to bet that the percentage of people who have left every single one of their projects without a scrape or bruise to be less than one. I won’t go so far as to say everything is dangerous, but here are a few repeat offenders that I think are the most dangerous tools in the average shade tree mechanic’s shop.

Drill press/drill

Even small drill presses are high-torque affairs thanks to speed reduction pulleys. Snag something on a drill bit and the machine will continue to wrap that material until you hit the stop switch. When drilling, remember that the most dangerous time is right before the bit breaks through the backside of the material. Should the tooling bite, rather than cut, it will take whatever you’re working on and whip it into oblivion. A vise will hold your workpiece in place, but used with a hand drill, you run the risk of twisting your wrist. Still, holding a piece in your hand and drilling on the drill press is asking for trouble. Get a drill vise or appropriate clamps and use them.

Remember, speeds and feeds are incredibly important when drilling. Make sure to adjust the speed at which the drill is spinning and monitor the feed, or the rate as which the drilling takes place.

Grinder

Handheld grinders can easily spin a 4.5″ disc to 8000 rpm and are used to remove material from your project. That material is coming off the wheel at Mach Jesus and bouncing about your shop. Without due care that material will bounce right back at you or damage delicate parts of your project, or worse, your eyes. Questionable quality discs can also break apart and become projectiles in every direction. Grinders are powerful tools to be used with respect and care as to where the material is going. It’s best practice to to use quality attachments, combined with good personal protective equipment: safety glasses, hearing protection, and gloves, at a minimum.

Spring compressor

Hell hath no fury like a compressed spring unintentionally released. Literally tons of force can be sprung loose in an instant. The suspension in our beloved car is sometimes one slip of a wrench from shooting out big parts at ballistic speeds. When working with spring compressors a big dose of extra caution is warranted.

Consider taking a “belt and suspenders” approach by not only carefully using the proper tool, but also using chain to retain the spring to a solid part of the vehicle like the frame, so that if energy is released it will still be contained to an area that you are choosing and can then stay out of. Spring compressors tend to be extra dangerous because often times they are rented tools rather than purchased, and come with few instruction on how to safely use. Do your research on the safe use of spring compressors, and know your limits on when it is time to call in the professionals.

Trash can

Seriously. Have you ever seen that video where a Christmas tree catches fire and it’s only seconds before the whole room is ablaze? That can happen with your shop trashcan too. More than a few projects involve any number of chemicals and it only takes two of the wrong ones to mix in you trash can before they spontaneously combust. We haven’t even talked about the danger of drying oils which can oxidize and create enough heat to self-ignite. Throwing rags in your trash can is asking for trouble. the better move is to get a fire-rated canister with a lid that serves to not only contain any fire, but also limit the access to oxygen that is required to stoke the fire in the first place.

Your ego

One of the most powerful and dangerous tools is your own brain. Confidence comes in one of two ways: experience or ignorance. Walk into a job with the latter and it’s only a matter of time before you are hurt and wondering what happened. Using tools improperly or taking shortcuts are surefire ways to end up damaging your project and/or your body. Check you ego at the garage door, and a safer—and more fun—time will be had by all.

Jack

Floor jacks are fascinating tools once you understand how leverage and hydraulic physics. The ability to easily lift thousands of pounds is a superpower possessed by anyone with a $100 bill. That is terrifying, if you consider the dangers involved. Lifting a car requires attention to proper jacking points and also proper support once up in the air. Again, the physics are amazing, but even more amazing is that all that hydraulic pressure often rests on just a few five-cent o-rings. Do you trust your life to an o-ring? I didn’t think so. Use jack stands. Every time.

Any knife

This is a strange one to explain to folks who haven’t experienced it before, but sharp knives are the safe ones. Dull cutting edges require additional force to push through material and thus have a tendency to slip or turn in a direction the user didn’t intend. Combine this with bad habits like cutting towards ourselves (I’m guilty of this more than I would care to admit) and you have a recipe for disaster. Grab a whetstone and put a fresh edge on your sharp things. I promise that is actually safer.

Punches

When using a punch or chisel you are likely scared of the hammer blows and the chance of hitting your holding hand. That’s a real fear, but the chisel itself may conspire to hurt you as well. The end of a punch that receives those carefully placed hammer strikes has a tendency to mushroom slightly and can reach a point where the edge becomes brittle. When struck, it becomes a sharp projectile. This is easily prevented by filing down any mushrooming edges on your punches.

In the wrong hands anything can be dangerous, just ask my friend who has a glass eye about how dangerous a screwdriver can be when used incorrectly. That doesn’t mean you should never go out and enjoy working on your car though. Everything in life comes with risk, but mitigating some of that by acting responsibly is never a bad idea. Think there is another tool in a common home shop that presents more risk? Leave us the details in the Hagerty Community below.

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Time set aside to work on projects is worthy relishing. The clicks of a ratchet or the light chunk of two machined surfaces fitting together perfectly is therapeutic. No diehard DIYer wants to sacrifice this sort of mechanical zen for efficiency, but we all want to remove the crummy processes of each job so that only the rewarding bits remain. In the hunt for the perfect blend of manual labor and mental enjoyment, I’ve found two tools that are now my favorites: A motorcycle lift and pair of paddock stands.

Recently I reached the point in my life where I have been working on cars and motorcycles longer than I haven’t. In the early years every job was done on the floor. I sat on the floor. Spread tools on the floor. Laid the project—you guessed it—on the floor. Maybe when we were 17 years old, we could tolerate sitting or kneeling on concrete for hours on end. (I remember falling asleep on a gravel driveway while working on the gas tank of a particular 1961 Chevrolet Corvair Greenbrier.) Now, barely past 30 years old, I need to wear the right shoes when I go out to the garage or my back will hurt all night.

Enter the motorcycle lift. What I initially deemed an indulgence has become a tool you will have to pry from my cold, dead hands. Found on Facebook Marketplace for half the price of new, this Harbor Freight manual motorcycle lift was the best couple hundred dollars I’ve spent this side of an electric impact. My garage only has 8-foot ceilings and is packed so full that I can’t bolt down a mid-rise lift. This platform is the perfect solution, because it lifts any one of my motorcycles to a nice 26-inch working height and, when folded, slides under any of my cars.

At first thought, 26 inches of extra height doesn’t sound like much, but for my six-foot frame, it puts engines and other mechanical bits of motorcycles right at chest level, making things easy to inspect and service. It’s been about two years since I bought this lift and in that time I’ve serviced probably 30 different bikes. I even use it for my lawn mower from time to time. Only during the busiest of days have I lusted after a more expensive, air-over-hydraulic model like those used in commercial shops that would lift the table without requiring me to pump the foot pedal a few dozen times. Retaining some manual labor keeps me from going soft, though—and I’m generally frugal when it comes to a purchase like this, so the thought of spending $1000 for additional convenience makes me cringe. Maybe one day.

Even I knew better than to pinch pennies on this second must-have tool, however. I first bought paddock stands out of necessity, but they’ve now become near-critical to keep my garage functioning normally. The function of a paddock stand is simple: Support the front and rear of a motorcycle so that it is straight up and down and the tires are off the ground. The name is derived from their typical use-case: Race machines usually need tire warmers or wheel-off service in the paddock between stints on the track. (It is also rare for a race machine to retain its side-stand; most require external support.)

Stands make chain maintenance super simple. Same with tire and oil changes. Most service manuals want the bike vertical when draining any fluids, and a rear stand is the easiest way to achieve that orientation with any bike that doesn’t carry its own center stand. Last summer, in the middle of the Six Ways to Sunday racing project, I bought a stand so I could take the ol’ XR250R road-racing. With a belly pan under the bike, I couldn’t flop the bike onto a motocross stand, as one would normally store a dirt bike. Much like the lift, paddock stands only revealed their usefulness after I began to use them. I now own four, mainly because storing motorcycles vertically rather than leaned over is a lot easier. Paddock stands also save me from muscling big bikes like my Triumph TR5T down from or up onto a stand if it’s the way of another project.

The value of these two tools lies in their ability to improve the quality of work done. Minimizing the amount of labor comes second. With a lift and paddock stands, I waste less time and energy working on the floor or devising ways to prop up a motorcycle safely, meaning that I can invest my time and focus into the actual project. That’s what tools are for. Whether or not I upgrade my lift or paddock stands, my shop will never be without them.

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Of all the DIY tasks undertaken by gearheads, none seems quite as loathed as wiring repairs. The colorful bundles and connectors snaking throughout our beloved vintage cars are inescapable: From brake lights to radios and ignition systems, so many functions of your car depend on the wiring harness. Repairing it yourself is not nearly as scary as you may imagine, either. Automotive electrical systems are very much like tires—ignorance is not bliss, and a lack of knowledge can actually be dangerous.

Routine checks of significant electrical components can make your car safer and more enjoyable to drive. The most common electrical problems—loose connections, corrosion, bad grounds, or plain ol’ deterioration—are simple to diagnose and fix, so there is no reason to wait until a faulty harness leaves you stranded. You don’t need to spend silly money, either.

Automotive electrical work does not require many specialized tools, and ones you must have are relatively inexpensive. A simple multimeter will quickly become your best friend when dealing with vintage cars. An automatic wire-stripper and crimper are nice, but a basic version of each is a great starting point. Add in an assortment of various colors and sizes of wire, connectors, and heat-shrink tubing, and you are well-equipped to tackle even the most complicated problems.

Most wiring problems fall into one of two categories: A given component or system is not getting the power it needs, or it is receiving power when it shouldn’t be. An incomplete circuit can be easy to diagnose by using your multimeter to test continuity; if it isn’t present, your next task is to find out why. The root cause could be simple as a blown fuse or as complicated as a work-hardened wire that’s broken inside the insulation. In the latter situation, the wire will appear fine even though it isn’t functioning correctly.

You can follow a similar diagnostic process to find bad grounds: Most electrical problems are traced to corrosion, which can be spotted by testing for extra resistance through a connection or circuit. Bad grounds will display as high resistance or no continuity at all. A squirt of electrical cleaner and scuffing with steel wool or a wire brush will likely get you back in business by restoring clean connections. A touch of dielectric grease will keep future corrosion at bay, too.

Vintage-car wiring diagrams and systems can be very simple. The best part is that, unlike 110V house wiring, the 12 volts of an automotive battery aren’t strong enough to put you in the hospital. At worst, they’ll give you a nasty shock. That said, a short circuit will produce red-hot wires in a hurry; you will only make the mistake of grabbing the wire to sever the connection once. Pay attention to the system you are working with and make sure to keep fuses in any circuit you run. Those short circuits are easily prevented with an inline fuse.

If your car’s wiring harness is so damaged that repair seems overwhelming, consider building a new harness. First, use a wiring diagram to lay it out. Use a universal hot-rod kit from a manufacturer like Painless Performance for the fuse block and basic harness, and then add specific things to your car or project. You can purchase complete, pre-built wiring harnesses for many classic vehicles, too, which can save you a lot of time and effort.

While electrical work rarely brings a light to a DIYer’s eyes, it isn’t worth fearing or avoiding. With a little patience, preparation, and a few affordable tools, you can get your car’s wiring system in flawless shape.

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You’re more likely to replace a part than to repair it, but at some point your DIY journey will require you either to create something from scratch or to modify a piece for the perfect fit. Welcome to basic fabrication. It’s a wonderful thing to practice and become good at. Last week I talked about fabricating a clutch cable for one of my aging Honda motorcycles, and the project made me consider which tools I use on a regular basis to make or customize components. Here are seven fabrication tools that belong in any DIYer’s garage.

Heat

The addition of heat is your best friend when working with most materials. A propane torch will help you to bend metal and supply the power to solder. The next step from this MAPP torch would be a full oxy/acetylene setup, which, for a home shop, falls just below a superpower. It also requires a lot more care to use, but when you can cut, weld, and heat-treat or anneal stock, taking the time to learn the proper techniques is worthwhile.

Big hammer

Brute force is required when making things from scratch. Steel requires percussive persuasion to bend. Multiple types of hammers are best but not everyone has the space or cash for a hammer toolbox in addition to the toolbox for everything else. It’s also overkill for most home shops. Have at least three, though: a big one for moving metal, a medium one for fine-tuning, and a small one for tasks that require high accuracy.

Cardboard

When the delivery truck backs up in your driveway, it’s often the part inside the box that is most exciting. However, those over a certain age probably have a box hanging around their house simply because it’s just a nice box, okay? A sheet of cardboard is a DIYer’s unsung hero. There are few things easier to work with when making templates, protecting surfaces, or sketching a quick drawing to confirm your plans. Cardstock in a large sheet can be a good substitute—it’s easier to store and, since it’s thinner, easier to manipulate—but you’re less likely to have it on hand than an unused box. Why buy when you could repurpose?

Drill

No matter what you are going to make, odds are that the finished product will need at least one hole. While having a drill press is nice, those machines take up bench or floor space—and for most of us, space is at a premium. A hand drill may be as good as it gets. Stack the odds in your favor by having a drill block, center punch, and cutting oil on hand. These will ensure you get nice, squarely drilled holes in just the spot you want without destroying your drill bits.

Sturdy vise

While a lot of cool things have been built using nothing but the shop floor and rudimentary tools, a vise is paramount to safe and productive shop time. A good bench vise, properly bolted to your workbench, is also a de facto press and anvil, and can last two lifetimes if maintained. Maintenance is simple: Keep the threaded rod clean of debris and ensure it’s well-greased. Buy once, cry once in the case of this tool: Good vises are pricey, but again, they last.

Files

Big cuts are one thing. Tuning them up or removing small amounts of material from them is another. Between a hacksaw and a file, a dedicated DIYer can create really good-quality brackets or mounts. Files also allow you to clean up OEM or replacement parts for an extra-tidy repair. Grab a couple different sizes and shapes to make sure you can adapt to whatever component crosses the bench. A word of warning, however: Files are made from very hard material, which means they are also very brittle. Be sure to properly store and care for what you buy.

Angle grinder

Nothing beats an angle grinder at serious material removal and clean-up. A 4.5-inch disc grinder provides many options for varying degrees of aggressiveness. With time, discs will accumulate in your toolbox, ranging from a brass wire brush to 36-grit flap wheel.

Safety is paramount with an angle grinder, because things can go sideways extremely fast. Eye and ear protection are absolute minimum but really a face shield, heavy gloves, and an apron are best. Also be aware that a grinder can throw debris across even the largest shops. Either cover up what you don’t want covered in shrapnel, or work in an area where nothing needs to stay clean.

Think something is missing on this list? Tell us about it in the Hagerty Community below.

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