Biting off more than you can chew? Nah!

photo source: MoneyBlitz.TV

Delusions of grandeur? Maybe.

My Mustang sat around for around five months while I tried to convince myself that it couldn't really be the manifold, again. Then I bit the bullet and swapped the manifold, all hoses, and the serpentine belt. All that only ran a bit under four bills.

My Daughter's car needed a new set of tires. I couldn't swing another set of Bridgestone Turanzas, so I went with the same Falkens that I put on my '96. Not as bad a bill as I feared, but with the alignment it still was more than six hundred bucks.

It's been quite expensive taking care of my daily fleet. The truck needed new front brakes, and of course these are integral with the front hub. A new set of Hankook tires, a front end alignment and the bill came out to a bit over a grand. I wouldn't budge on my choice of Hankooks. These are the OE tire and the truck has always handled, steered, and rode quietly and smoothly. All these factors make the truck a delight to drive. I couldn't take a chance on losing THAT.

My Mark VII still needs me to pull the rest of the wheel cylinders off. My regular cars have needed more attention lately, so it just sits.

The XJS needs that front suspension to come apart. After the transmission replacement, things have come to a stop. It has not achieved daily driver status yet, but I do drive it occasionally.

My XJ6 front suspension could use the same attention. Come to think about it it's been at least six months since it's been in the driving rotation. Maybe I should finish making that spring compressor!

There must have been some kind of logical reasoning behind my decision to acquire all these cars.

I do have a reason that seemed logical to me, at least at the time.

Well maybe not logical, but with strong emotional appeal. It made plenty of sense to the irrational side of my brain.

Maybe even heroic.

I remember seeing this movie as a kid.

Who wouldn't want to be the hero of their own adventure? I did when I was eight years old, and I still do at my age! Who doesn't  think that they would leap at the chance to join this courageous crew on their challenging odyssey?

You've got to define your own narrative to be your own hero. Battling harpies, giant animated statues and risking the wrath of Poseidon. All to secure the Golden Fleece. Could it get any better?

That particular opportunity probably isn't going to make itself available anytime soon.

I've mentioned the magazine "Where Women Create." before. Browsing through this magazine always fills me a feeling of envy, these women are doing what they want to do. They found a way to fulfill their dream and actually run their passion as a business. After reading their stories I'm usually filled with a spirit of inspiration, like when I first started this blog.

There was an article in a recent issue of Jaguar World about a gent has been collecting for 41 years. He has amassed a collection of over twenty cars, some pretty darn good ones too.

There are two times when it makes sense to buy the old cars that you find interesting.

First, when you are young and dumb and the cars are cheap. This is a period when most people, your family, spouse, and friends will think that you are sort of "peculiar." You will usually end up hogging all the extra parking spots on your street which will not please your neighbors. Eventually calls will be made to the "parking authority" and tickets and notices will accumulate, and the herd will be thinned.

Second, when you are older and a bit more affluent, and you realize that you are running out of time. I have never tried to recapture the feeling of my high school years. Maybe because they weren't very good the first time around.

photo source"cicustoons.com
Gotta keep all those balls in the air.

So I took the dive to start acquiring some cars that are desirable to me. Was this the best time to do this? Did I have the space, money and energy to take on this task? Maybe not, but for one thing, there is no time like the present. And for a guy my age, all I've got left is the present.

For another thing, these cars are about as cheap as they are going to get for a decent example. I've seen so many cars that I've owned in the past start to climb on the value ladder. Those Sixties Rivieras, Fifties Cadillacs, even those Seventies Datsun Z cars have exited the Bargain Basement for the "Big Time."

So my hands are quite full and it is taking a juggling act to hold onto what I've got, and to make some progress with my project herd.

I've mentioned a story that appeared in the July 2015 issue of Hot Rod magazine. Here's a link to that story http://www.hotrod.com/articles/old-school-hot-rods-built-in-a-one-car-garage/

Just like those Ladies in "Where women Create" Dan built a home for his passion. No excuses, just action, So what's holding US back?

Compared to that shed, my two car garage looks almost like one of those Garage Mahals.

This article really lit a fire under me. I realized that the time is now. If I didn't reach for that Golden Fleece I was just going to sail on by into a sea of mediocrity. (Enough of the Argonaut imagery!)

For most of us there is always the lack of something; time, money, space, knowledge, or probably most deadly, enthusiasm. In Pirsig's book, "Zen and the art of motorcycle Maintenance", he refers to this as the "gumption trap."

This is a situation where something has to be done for work to continue, things are now coming to a standstill, work is grinding to a stop... And we still just can't bring ourselves to deal with it.

Pirsig liked that term "gumption." It has a good old fashioned ring to it, something that our Grand Daddy would say.  I might define it as energy, combined with determination and most importantly, action. It can be in short supply at times in the old car game. Really, in every aspect of our lives.

Somehow we've got to recharge our "enthusiasm batteries", how can we do that?

If we have a group of friends that share our interests, we can feel our batteries recharging as we discuss our project. Maybe even one or two of them can drop by and lend a hand.

We can go to a car show. This can backfire if it leads to despair that your car will never  look as good as those that are there on display. If the owner is the builder, he can tell about his own struggles in moving the project along.

Back in the day, we would read car magazines to get that jolt of enthusiasm. I've always maintained that this has always been what enthusiast magazines were for.

Now we can watch videos like Petrolicious, that can help restart the fire. But be careful, You know that you can waste hours down that rabbit hole.

Or we can work that overtime to afford the new parts that we need.

Or list those extra parts on CL, and sell them to raise a little extra money

Or we could just go down to the garage and start turning wrenches! In "Boy Gets Car" Woody realizes that his friends are not going to help him with his car, so he finally drags himself down to the garage and fixes those brakes. A life lesson for all of us.

Sometimes, you just have to do the work.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a prison of our own making. It only becomes a prison if we let it reduce us to inaction.

Chew your way out of that "gumption trap!"

photo source:Quickmeme

Have a happy Memorial Day weekend.

Easy Rider. Get your motor running!

Born to be Wild.
Maybe I wasn't, but that didn't stop my dreaming.

This movie connected with me in a special way. It combined my yearning for freedom and adventure with my love of motorcycles. With a splash of youthful rebelliousness.


Especially my love of Harley Davidsons. Though I was happily riding a Honda, I knew that I needed to have an HD to express the degree of my motorcycling commitment. I needed something that would identify me as a real rider. I knew that life changing day would inevitably come.

It doesn't look like a textbook.

It doesn't look like a Bible.

Reading Choppers and Big Bike magazine was where I got my education in Harley Davidson and the hard core biker lifestyle. Easy Riders came along quite a few years later. Their articles and features were written from the view point of the lifer biker, not the poser.

Street Chopper took a more middle class approach to the subject.

It was never about the illegal, drug fueled adventures of Capt. America and Billy, it was the fact that they actually rode`those bikes a very long, long, way. Even if they didn't find what they thought they were looking for.

Even at the beginning, when I first started riding motorcycles, it was always about going somewhere. The further the better. I remember riding my Honda 50 up a hill that was so steep and so long, that it just couldn't go any further. The motor stalled and I was forced to turn it around and go back downhill. I knew that some day, and it would be someday soon, I would have a motorcycle that would be able to crest that hill and deliver me to the Promised Land on the other side.

A year later I had my Honda 160, which was still kind of small, but was big enough to conquer that hill and even venture onto the freeway. Everything was going to be different from now on.

The desire to own one of those custom choppers was shared by multitudes of young American riders who modified their own Hondas and Kawasakis into some semblance of Billy and Captain America's chopped Panheads.

I've posted my experiment with my Honda 305, and later with my Harley Sportster. But it was always about riding. I have modified many of my motorcycles over the years, but it was always with the idea of making them perform better on the road. Cafe racer or dragster type performance was never the goal. On the other hand, a full dress touring bike was never in my sights.  I wanted something that was more like the horse of a wandering cowboy, a faithful mount that could carry me anywhere, without looking like a two wheeled Winnebago.

My fascination with the Harley Davidson became something of an obsession. I was attracted by the mystique of the marque. The history and exclusivity. At this time there weren't any other companies building a big V twin. The Japanese were years away from their initial foray into the V twin cruiser genre. Their initial offering were, to put it mildly, laughable at best. The resurrection of the Indian brand was even further off in the horizon at the time.

To be a real biker, you needed to ride a Harley. As Chris Bunch once wrote "There's nothing wrong with a Triumph that giving it your old lady, and buying a Hog can't fix."

This book was not what I expected.

My longing to experience the freedom of the road was shared by my whole generation. It manifested itself through literature and song.

Robert Pirsig's book is about a lot of things, and well worth reading. Those who have never read it might assume that it explains how riding a motorcycle would transport you into a "Zen like" state of consciousness. You could take that away from it. Riding puts you in the here and now, in the immediacy of the moment. The experience is the whole point.


I have written about my own adventures on the road and how the fire was fueled by the social milieu. It's easy to reference my feelings back to TV shows like "Route 66" and "Then came Bronson." Maybe even "The littlest Hobo." (Now that's an obscure allusion!)

Looking back, it is easy to say that it was all period of romantic delusion. The concept of experiencing real freedom on the road, in the saddle of powerful machine was just an illusion. Maybe it was all just a waste of time, maybe everyone, even myself, were just fooling ourselves. Maybe, but you had to be there to know.

A nice video, but this wasn't made by me. 

We all wanted to live that life. Maybe some of us did.

Jack Olsen's 12 gauge garage, have you experienced it?


All photos from his website.

photo source: 12 gauge garage.com

Very tidy.

That is a nice table.

It does look like a '60s machine shop.

A sink would come in handy.

If this place isn't a dream, what is?

Organization really matters.

What makes this garage extraordinary certainly isn't it's size. It's on the small side even for a detached, back of the lot, two car garage. It's the creativity, thought, and work that has gone into it. It holds his hobby car, a Porsche 911 and the other half is for working and fabricating. That Porsche is a good choice of a car to form a long term relationship with.



Those back of the lot garages come with a long driveway that runs alongside the house. Usually you can park three cars or more in the driveway. A gate can close access off from the street and provide some security for your cars that are parked outside.

You can pack a lot of yard into a small lot if you try. My Grandparents house in Berkeley had the driveway run alongside the right side of the house where it ended in a two car garage. One side was for parking a single vehicle. The other side of the building held a wood and fix it shop. With a work bench and shelves and it's own entry door. I recall my Uncle's 1949 Cadillac being in that garage. The shop seemed spacious to me at the time, but I was really a little kid when I formed my first impressions of  it. A narrow walkway led from the sidewalk past the side door and continued into the backyard. Immediately behind the house was a rose and flower garden. A concrete path separated that from the well tended and organized vegetable garden that my Grandfather had planted alongside the garage. That garden had it's own well and water tank! It looked like a miniature water tower. Behind the garage was a fenced off area that contained several cacti and a maguey plant.

How did they fit all that, plus a three bedroom house and front yard in such a small area? Most lots in that area were the standard 50 ft. across and 100 to 125 ft deep rectangular designs.

Not my actual Grandparents house but a typical set up.

For one thing it probably only seemed big in my recollections. I was in high school when my Grandparents moved out of that house. I hadn't spent much time in the backyard or garage once I got older. I went past it about ten years ago. Wow, did it seem tiny! Everything was just a lot closer together than I remembered.


Some set ups open into an alley that runs along the back. This can give you a bigger yard but your garage is more exposed to intrusion since a thief can park behind your house in the alley and break into the garage without you seeing him. Also alleys are public spaces and who knows whats going on back there?

Back in the day (early 1980's) I probably only lived about 35 miles away from Jack Olsen's garage. The house I was renting had a two car garage in the back. It had a sliding door that was kind of inconvenient and narrow to put my car in. But it was fine for my two motorcycles.

The back of the lot set up has some real advantages. Mine had a two car wide concrete apron to park on. You could work on your car away from street view and your open garage door was not exposed to passing traffic. You had to be good in backing down that long driveway, My Wife would park the car just outside the side door of the house. Our house had the lawn about three feet higher than the sidewalk, with concrete walls bordering the driveway and a short run of stairs from the sidewalk to climb up into the front yard.

Backing out meant avoiding scraping those walls, looking out for pedestrians and kids on bikes, and then finally sticking the rear of the car into a pretty busy four lane street. My Wife did that all the time back then, I know she wouldn't do that now.


I like Jack's garage. Check out his website. If he can do it, maybe we can too.


My own plan is to usually be able to park two cars inside. I want to find a way to arrange my tools and equipment so that, that will be possible. If a big project is planned I can leave one car in the driveway and have more room to work inside. Progress is slow but I am patient. At least my '96 Mustang is back in service. I had the garage available to do the suspension work, but I had to do the manifold replacement in the driveway.

There was an inspiring story in the July 2015 issue of Hot Rod magazine.  It was about a guy that found his ideal house, fifteen years ago, but it didn't have any garage at all. Now that didn't stop Dave Baur at all. He erected a heavy duty tent right alongside the house, ran a heavy extension cord into the tent for light,and started building. The first build that he accomplished in that tent was a chopped 1950 Mercury. He did it all there, including paint! He used this tent for several years until a particularly heavy snowfall caused it to collapse, right on top of his car!

He figured that it was about time that he put up a more permanent shop, so he built a 24'x14' wooden "shed." Space is tight, but none goes to waste. He can squeeze both of his hot rods in the shop, but it looks like he can only work on one at time inside.

It is actually almost as wide as a typical two car garage.

My first house had an attached single car garage and it was tighter than this, with a car inside. I usually kept the cars outside in the driveway, but it was great for my two motorcycles. My current house has the usual attached two car garage, which also has the water heater, furnace, and laundry inside. Really pretty typical of suburban ranchers. I used to keep my Riviera, and even a car as large as my '56 Cadillac in there next to my Wife's car.

You can do a lot in a two car garage but you have to keep it free of household storage and clutter. That seems to be the greatest challenge in achieving the goal of a "car hobby oriented" workspace. Luckily my spouse is very supportive of my dream.

Two hot rods will barely fit.

Dave maximizes the utility of his workspace.

Steady efforts yields great results.

Dave says, "Anything that I can order from a catalog I can build in my shop!"

Jack Olsen's garage is amazing, but Dave's shed is truly inspirational. What car nut wouldn't want a shop just for our cars?

Hot Rod magazine, Is the Renaissance over?

A bold claim, not easy to keep.
Have they kept their promise?

I've been reading Hot Rod Magazine for almost fifty years. In the beginning I was hungry and eager to read anything about cars. A few years ago, my brother in law gave me his twenty year collection of Hot Rod magazine. It was fun to look through the collection and find those issues that I had read when they were new. Hot Rod is the original high performance car magazine, started by Robert E. Petersen. Since then the field has become swollen with niche choices, many were started by the Petersen publishing company itself. Hot Rod remained as "everyone's automotive magazine."

Over the years I found that the magazine had less and less relevance to my interests. Some of this was due to my changing interests and some was due to their emphasis on drag racing, and drag race style modifications. While I like fast cars, the automotive experiences that I enjoy have to last much longer than a quarter mile. Truthfully this makes me "tune out" from much of the magazine's editorial content.

Okay Dom, Let's agree to disagree.

A common technical article was "Swapping out your SBC cam."  I have never swapped out a cam in any vehicle. Why take out a perfectly good cam? Engine modifications to produce more horsepower is the basic premise of the magazine. This is their basic bread and butter. Lately the articles have had very good dyno comparisons between competing set ups.

I will admit it's been awhile.

Street freaks, (how I hated street freaks!) Well, they don't really feature these extremely made over vehicles very often anymore.  These cars usually featured big wheels and injection stacks or blowers protruding through the hood. In my eyes nothing should ever poke through the hood except a Mustang's shaker hood set up. A parachute bolted to the rear bumper always made a nice touch.

While they haven't been featured in awhile, they did feature that bubble top custom Gasser a couple of years back. Gassers are those cars that feature that distinctive raised solid axle front suspension. They are usually jacked up in the back too. These modifications were commonly used on drag strip only machines but I guess the styling strikes a visceral chord with many readers.

Yeah, that would be a gasser.
Maybe I was wrong about that Street Freak thing, this wasn't that long ago!

I also quickly got the idea that whenever the term "wild" was used, it was a  signal that the subject would be something that I would have little interest in. Maybe I'm just an old man.

One of their best recent issues.

This "Speedmetal" issue was brilliant and one of the best in recent times. That '57 Chevy's exquisite fabrication is detailed in fascinating photography. There is a great article on new methods of fabrication, famous contemporary fabricators and a story recommending the best tools to help you build "anything you want," This was my most favorite issue since the rebirth. The downside has been that they shrunk the physical size of the magazine down a bit. To me it just makes the whole enterprise feel a bit cheaper.

She isn't necessary but doesn't hurt.

Don't be distracted by the nice girl on the cover. Inside there is great coverage of some amazing garages. Jack Olsen's 12 gauge garage is featured. This was my first exposure to it. Very inspiring. It was almost as inspiring as the guy that was building cars in a big tent next to his house. Then he built a small garage and kept on going. That made me decide to go for it. If he could do it, why couldn't I? Buy what I could, hold onto it and fix it as I could afford. I'm still trying to make that work!

What a great photo.

Driving two hot rod Chevys' through the rigors of downtown Manhattan, now that's different! It seems that most cars like this are only driven to a local cruise night. Not stuck idling in traffic. A pretty good story.

There are those interviews with famous people in the automotive world. These are often quite good. The conversation with Ray Brock was quite memorable.

Hot Rod to the rescue!

This has been a very worthwhile addition to the magazine.

This guy pieced together an EFI system.
It would have been easier to take everything from a single donor.

This guy has thrown together an odd cam, old heads, poor carb,
bad ignition, sloppy tune and of course it runs like crap

This is a feature where a modified car with intractable problems is examined by an expert tuner and finally sorted out. So many cars are modified and the results are not exactly satisfying to the builder/owner. Over heating, rough running. flat spots, vibrations, lack of power, problems with clutch engagement and chatter, drivetrain vibrations and more, often plague the home builder. Lack of driveability after assembly is a common problem. Automotive engines may seem simple, but they are designed as a complete system.  Random modifications can throw the whole thing out of whack.

It's amazing how many home builders will put up with annoying problems and shortcomings. Many times these cars are just sidelined and somewhat ignored, sometimes even for years.

I find this to be the most interesting department of the magazine. Actually having to carefully diagnose a problem, and then logically address the issues to fix it, is challenging and interesting. You can learn a lot about thoughtful and careful mechanical work here.


Freiberger Run Amok!

Not really my cup of tea.

I loved ol' Freiberger when he was the editor of Car Craft, he lead that magazine in a direction that made the reader feel like he was a part of a car building community. But his Roadkill stuff just strikes me as kind of silly. Throwing some junk together, half assed, and then hammering on it until it breaks, is just dumb. I don't care how cheap and sorry my stuff is, I never abuse it, to try to break it.

More of the same, Do something crazy, sure sounds like good advice to me.

I might be a little rough on this concept, but I do realize that you have to shake up the establishment sometimes.

Daily Driver Diaries. 

Elena Sherr is a "typical car guy." Even if she's not.

One "kind of glamour" shot.

On the other hand, Elena Sherr was the inspiration and encouragement for me starting this blog.  I figured if she could write a monthly column, then I should be able to come up with enough material for a weekly column. Her column is just about daily life with her little fleet of cars. Her big Dodge Polara, Challenger, and little Opel GT. What it's like to drive a big old car without a/c in L.A. traffic. About letting little things go, and postponing  repairs until it becomes a pressing need. Pretty much what life is like for most of us in the hobby. She writes in a very familiar and comfortable tone.

Others not so glamorous.

I guess that it seems that I have forgotten to mention any of the feature cars. That's not a mistake. For the most part, most have been pretty forgettable. That first car featured, the silver mid-engined Mustang. Now that was something to ponder. It was a very impressive collage of imagination, engineering and construction.

Wouldn't this get your attention if it showed up in your rear view mirror?

That photo above is from an article  from quite a few years ago. It was all about building a high speed, over the highway competition machine. What could be better than a Dodge Charger? These over the road events occurred in Nevada, at the Silver State Classic and the Maxton Mile in Ohio, and the cars are set up to run at very high speeds. This Dodge displayed  the coolest NASCAR vibe. but is fully street legal. ( I wouldn't be surprised if this was the inspiration for building a custom grill for my '70 Mustang) There was another article about cars set up to be canyon running, road warriors. Now that's more like it!

My personal preference has always been for over the road traveling vehicles. Something that you could take on a long, high speed trip and travel in comfort and safety. My modified motorcycles have always conformed to this style.  I wouldn't modify a car in a manner that would decrease it's roadability and ultimate practicality. Of course, I'm the guy that drove a ground scraping old Riviera on a family vacation, so there's a lot of room for interpretation in my Credo!

Okay, They do get it sometimes!

I may seem that I'm just  taking random potshots at the magazine content, but you have to read it consistently to have an opinion. I have read it consistently, and there is a lot that is good. I even found that I had "accidentally" agreed to sign up for an additional three year subscription. I called the company to find out exactly how that happened. They agreed that I could cancel the subscription if I wished, but I declined. What the hell, it's not that bad! And subscriptions are amazingly cheap!

I'll admit that I do like the presentation of a higher line magazine like Octane, although most of what is presented is way out of my league. Still, Octane allows me to view an alternate automotive enthusiast universe. Some of my appreciation may be due to my now more "mature status".

I mentioned Car Craft magazine earlier. For several years I found that it's content was more attuned to my interests. I think it was because the age range of the vehicles was more compatible with my interest. Primarily cars from the 1960s and 1970s. I left Car Craft to go back to Hot Rod, but at least I kept it in the family.

In writing this overview I've come to realize that Hot Rod magazine is still pretty much what it always has been. Sometimes inspired, sometimes insipid. Mostly consistent. It just depends upon my viewpoint, which has changed markedly over a span of many years, a half a Century, in fact. My preferences and changing tastes should not dictate their editorial direction and coverage. Especially since I've never even written them a letter to the editor voicing my concerns!

I guess I'm lucky that I don't have to read a review of my blog site. I'm sure that I've fallen short of some of my objectives. But I do post consistently every week!