Building a Class 11 Lookalike.

I finally was able to get a bug back in the garage. I picked this one up a while back to replace Tugger our old Baja. I am planning on making it into a class 11 lookalike. That's basically a full bodied baja bug. I picked up this bug for a good price and the heater channels are good on it. It has some other rust issues but the heat is good so it will make a perfect winter driver here in Utah. Here it is in front of my lowered bug. I figure if you have a lowered bug, then you need to have a raised bug to even things out. Ha Ha.

 So the plans for this one is to install Tuggers engine, install raised spindles with new ball joints on the front, raise the back up, pack the wheel bearings, check the brakes, install Tuggers old tires on the stock wheels and install a new windshield. After that It will be road worthy and ready to cruise for the winter.

The engine that was in this bug was seized. The previous owner said it had a rod knock but I think he left the air cleaner off and water got down into the engine seizing it up. I had planned on installing the engine I have so we just needed to get it out.

 You can see from this picture that the engine has been sitting for a long time.

This is the engine I am planning on installing in the bug. It's a 1641 CC with a mild cam. We are going to strip it down and clean it up before we install it. I will powder coat all the tin and the doghouse before we put it in also. 2 winters in my old Baja bug took it's toll on it. That's why I wanted to get a full bodied baja.

 Here it is up high on jack stands ready for the engine to come out. Isaac helped me. He has been really excited to start working on this since I brought it home.

 20 minutes later and the engine was out. Here it is getting lowered to the floor.

 The throwout bearing looks good and I think I can use the clutch that is in it so that will save some money. Now we just need to choose which tins we are going to run and get them ready to install and we should be able to go back in with the new engine soon. Isaac wants the engine to be black, blue and chrome so that's what we are going to do. I do need to order some blue powder coat for it.

We threw on Tuggers wheels and tires to see how it would look. We are not going to run these wheels but we are going to use the tires. We are going to run the stock wheels so the offset is perfect. I don't want the tires sticking out of the fenders. We will clean up the stock wheels and probably run the little moons that were on them.

 This car had a brand new muffler on it for a fuel injected bug. It will be perfect for this car because it tucks up nice and far so we won't have to worry about tearing it off due to clearance issues. You can see it under the car in this picture. It's almost a 200 dollar muffler so that will save some money also.

 I think it will look pretty cool. We are going to pack the wheel bearings and install new ball joints while it is up in the air waiting for the engine to be installed.

 Here is Isaac, proud as can be. He really loved Tugger but I think he's coming around to the new bug.

So that's a wrap for the weekend. Hopefully you will see this bug running around town soon. If you are wondering what a class 11 bug is, here is a couple pictures.

It's a Baja race class that restricts you to a stock motor and pretty much stock suspension. We are building a class 11 lookalike because we want windows and we want to be able to drive it on the road everyday. It should be a fun project and one that we can modify along the way. Till next time, Keep the flywheel turning.

Enjoying the Drive part 2.

I am going to make this a weekly entry if I can find enough cars on the road that are picture worthy. These are the cars I have seen this week of people enjoying the drive. It was a good week. Enjoy!

You gotta love seeing these old cars still on the road. I salute these drivers that brave the crazy roads and the crazy people on them to take their cool old cars for a drive. If you have one in the garage, take a cruise in it. You might end up on this blog.

Strutting around in a Toyota echo?

I have been putting the guy that owns this car off for awhile. He bought the parts and I finally had the time to fit it into the garage. It needed all 4 struts changed. I pulled it in Friday night and here is the process to change them. It is about the easiest strut job you will do.

 These echos are goofy little cars. Isaac calls it the white iguana for some reason. I think it needs it's top chopped about 6 inches to improve the looks. It just looks top heavy to me. Anyways, pop the hood so you can get to the 6 nuts on the top of the struts.

 Pull the wheel off and disconnect the brake line bracket and the 2 bolts that hold the strut to the steering knuckle. an Impact gun makes fast work of this.

 Next, remove the 3 nuts from the strut. You can take the time to remove the upper panel if you want. I didn't bother with it. I just pulled the nuts off using a gear wrench. Just make sure you don't drop the nuts behind the strut tower. The strut just pulls out now. Really simple and easy. If you bought new struts that are completely assembled you could just slap them in now. If not keep reading.

I am too cheap to buy struts assembled so I swap the springs out. If you do this, get a good spring compressor. This one works great and is only about 60 dollars from harbor freight. Compress the spring and remove the top nut of the strut. Keep an eye on the spring because it has the potential of hurting you if it comes apart. After you remove the nut, take the strut mount off and the top spring plate. Remove the strut and the bellows now.

 Here is everything disassembled. Now just install the strut in the reverse order. These springs are tiny and you almost don't even need a spring compressor because they are so small. Ha Ha. I should mention that it will save you some time if you carefully mark the spring location as it relates to the strut and the upper spring plate. If you forgot to do that you can still get it done with a little time testing how to fit it together. It's just a lot easier to match up some paint marks.

 Here it is all assembled and ready to go back in the car. Place it in the car with the upper 3 nuts first. Then you can install the 2 lower bolts and the brake line.

 All done on this side. The other side is just as easy. This really is about the easiest strut job you can do.

Now on to the back ones. The back ones are actually just shocks so they are even easier to do. The hardest part of this job is getting the back seat out. The bottom cushion just pulls up in 2 spots and then move it forward. Push the seat belts out of the seat and put it somewhere out of the way. This seat looks pretty gross. Not sure whats on the seat but I tried not to touch it.

 After the bottom cushion is out, remove the 3 screws on the lower part of the seat. You can then just pull the back seat up and it comes right out. Whoever owned this car previously really liked slim jims. There were about 5 wrappers under the seat.

 Here it is with the back seat removed. Now you have access to the nuts on the shocks.

 Here it is.

The easiest thing to do is use an impact wrench to remove the nuts. It makes quick work out of it and you won't have to worry about the shock spinning.

 Make sure you keep the rubber bushing and washer. The new shocks didn't come with them.

 Hop under the car now and remove the lower nut. The shock will just pull off now.

 New and old next to each other. The old ones had no spring back left to them so it was good they were changed.

Remove this part of the old shock. You need to reuse this also.

 Just slip it on the new shock and your ready to install it. Put the rod through the hole and compress the shock to install it on the shock mount. Install the nut and your done underneath the car. Go back into the car and install the top of the shocks. Re-install the seats and your done.

 We finished just as a big rain storm hit. It rained hard for awhile. Me and Isaac just sat and watched it until it stopped. We had to road test it so that was a perfect time to go get some lunch.

 We hit del taco and this was how all the parking lots looked around the area. The storm dropped a lot of water in a short time. The echo tested good so we headed for home.

We were able to do a bunch of other stuff today but I will blog about that later. It was nice to get the rain and it kept things cool today. If you need to change the struts on a Toyota echo, it is a really easy job. If you own one, well, all I can say is I'm sorry. Until next time, Keep the wheels spinning.

My kind of art!

Here are some pictures I took at peach days. I like them.

I am no artist but they look good to me.

Lots of peaches at Peach Days!

Saturday we had a peach of a day at peach days. Ha Ha. Peach days is a celebration held in Brigham City, Utah. They have lots of activities going on all day Friday and Saturday. We woke up early and hit the parade on Saturday. It's a good parade with lots of entries. It's the only parade that I have seen that has an actual tank drive down the road. That's always pretty cool to see. The weather was really nice. It was overcast most of the day and we had a little sprinkle during the parade but it felt good and cooled things off nicely.

 Pretty cool highway patrol car. I remember seeing this at the Auto Rama.

 Lots of clowns. The Shriner's were there driving little trail 70 motorcycles, little go carts and of course their flying carpets. I didn't get a picture of those though. Bummer!

 Jack Sparrow even showed up. We actually saw him driving down the freeway pulling the float on our way to the parade. The kids couldn't believe their eyes.

This was pretty cool. It's a car the local high school is going to restore. I wish my high school did something like that. We had to bring our own cars to work on in my auto shop class. It did give me a chance to hook up nitrous oxide to my trans am though.

 This old boy was having fun pulling a trailer in the parade. I don't think I have ever seen a Jacobsen tractor.

 Lots of cool old cars throughout the parade.

After the parade, we went to the car show. It was huge this year with lots of really nice cars. This truck was neat. It's sitting perfect. I wish I could get the international to sit like this.

 This Cadillac was HUGE! It was beautiful. It was pearl white and looked amazing. If you have ever painted pearl you know how hard it is to get it to look right. This one was perfect.

 Lots of motor in this car. I love the suicide doors.

 I have got to have one of these car club plates. I have never seen one until this one. I wish I could borrow it to make a sand casting from it. The search is on to locate one. If you know where one is or have one, get a hold of me please.

Nice. What more can I say?

 Not sure if I liked the fake patina on this one but it was different.

 Gotta love Tri Power in a goat.

 Ed Jones was there with his wheel standing fire truck. He is about to start it up for the crowd. It smells like Jelly Belly's when he runs it.

Here it is throwing out some flames from the exhaust. It was a sight to see. 1100 horsepower and it smells good too. It got a little warm standing this close to it.

 Here is a good use for a crescent wrench. You have to hold your lights up with something. The JD bottle is a good overflow container. If you look closely at rat rods, you will see this kind of cool stuff all over on them. That's why I like them so much. It's like rolling, driving art.

 I love the shift handle on this one.

 I want to add a logo like this to the international when I get it up and going. Of course it will say Olson's Speed Shop though.

It was a great day. This show seems to get bigger and bigger every year. Someday I will get a car that's good enough to enter into a show. Not sure if I will enter it even if I do but it is fun to go and get ideas and motivation from them. Summers almost over. I guess I need to quit going to car shows and get my winter driver running before the snow flies. Not sure if I am going to make it.

Enjoying the drive?

I passed these 2 cars on SR-201. Do you think they have a boring commute?

 The top one was just plain cool. It just does not get better then that! One day when I can afford it I will be driving one of these everyday until my kids take my keys away because I am too old to drive.

This ford cracked me up. I thought maybe it just had a door missing but both of the doors were off. The left front wheel had some major problems. It looked like it was ready to bust a ball joint. The stuff in the cab was flying around from the air and the stuff in the bed of the truck looked just as sketchy. I am going to keep an eye out for cars that are out of the ordinary driving on the road and post them here when I find them. I generally only see about 1 car a week that will actually turn my head so we will see how many will end up here. Happy Labor Day everyone! We are going to attempt to BBQ some ribs for the first time. I hope they turn out. If not, I guess we will have hot dogs. So, until next time, Are you enjoying the drive?

Taking a stand against boring commutes!

OK so here is an official rant by me. I am SOOOOOOO sick of hearing about gas mileage this and gas mileage that. Blah, Blah, Blah! I am taking a stand against boring commutes. I figure I spend 1.5 hours on work days commuting. That adds up to 7.5 hours. I then end up driving a couple hours each weekend so I am going to estimate that I spend roughly 10 hours a week driving. That equals 520 hours a year at least, give or take a little. That equals out to be a lot of time spent on the road. I remember when I was in high school I loved to drive. In fact I lived for it. I had a big block trans am that was a blast to drive. When I got home from my mission I bought an Isuzu trooper. Not really sure what I was thinking there but that only lasted a few months and I ended up buying my brothers 69 Nova. I kept that car until I got married. After that there were many cars that came into and out of our lives. I bought my dad's 92 Chevy truck that he had bought new. I loved that truck and I only sold it because my family grew too big to fit in a single cab. That is when I bought the truck that I currently have. I put about 2000 miles a year on it now so soon it will be a low mileage truck. I remember the first car we bought was a Honda CRX. It was a little 2 seater that I used as a truck most of the time. I have to admit it was really fun to drive. I still liked driving back then. Anyways, time went on. A few years ago I bought a "commuter" car. It was a 96 Mitsubishi Galant. I look back now and can't really figure out what I was thinking. I never did like driving that car. (Dixie did though.) I ended up buying a Pontiac Bonneville that I was going to flip. I decided to put both cars up for sale and I would keep the one that didn't sell. I ended up selling both cars which didn't really bother me and I ended up buying my 1969 bug. For the past 3 years I have been driving aircooled bugs for my daily drivers. It has been many miles and I look forward to driving to and from work everyday. In fact if I have to drive my truck for more than a couple days I dread it. My bug doesn't have air conditioning, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, air bags, automatic trans, or cup holders and it rides fairly rough but I have a blast driving it. I feel like I am in a go cart wherever I go. It turns on a dime and I love to shift it. The radio is an old cassette player with one speaker in the dash but it works good. I get great tans on my left arm the longer summer goes on and it takes a little more maintenance then once every 100,000 miles like today's cars. I have vowed to never drive anything as a daily driver that is less then 35 years old. I don't want to be stuck in a cookie cutter car that looks like every other car on the road out there. Jay Leno is my hero when it comes to driving old cars. He has a big collection of cars and drives all of them. He even drives his old steamer cars to work. In fact here is an article he wrote about it.It's titled "Why I like em older."
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/articles/why-i-like-em-older/index.shtml
Here is another article he wrote that goes along with my thinking. It's titled "Why everyone should drive an old car."
 http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/articles/why-everyone-should-drive-an-old-car/index.shtml#item=84665
Here is my final argument for my stand. It comes from a roadkill episode on you tube. The part that I am referring to starts at 12:00 minutes and goes until 12:40. The parts about appliances and gas station conversations are so true! Check it out!

So, I guess I will end my rant. I understand that some people can't go without A/C and cruise but I can do without those creature comforts as long as it keeps my driving interesting and fun. Life is to short to drive around in an appliance. Ha Ha. My old cars may be the death of me someday but there are worse ways to go. Life is too short, you might as well enjoy as much of it as you can! Until next time turn down the i pod, put down your soda,  roll down your windows and enjoy some air that isn't getting blown through your cabin air filter (that has probably never been changed). You might decide you like it.