A Little More About Me

I went into this project with a few things in mind. First and foremost, I wanted a sweet little 1800. Secondly, I wanted a project. "Wanted a project" implies an awful lot. It's not just about having some broken down piece of crap to drink beer over and smack with a wrench. It's about heading out into unfamiliar water, diving in, and seeing what I can learn and accomplish. It's also about having a story that other people can look at and think "Hey, that doesn't look too bad, maybe I'll try it." This post is for you people (all the rest are for me... or the dog).

I wasn't a gearhead when I started this. I'm still not a gearhead. Maybe next year some time that will change. Hopefully, somebody can clue me in on what's needed to earn that title. For now working I'm under the assumption of "rebuilt an engine and nobody died." So far I'm OK on the last bit of my requirement, haven't yet finished the first. Nope, I'm a computer nerd. I write software (or documents about writing software) all day, then I come home and play video games.

Don't let this guy near any power tools.

I sometimes get asked how I got in to playing with cars. I don't think I have a good answer for that, so I'll blame my need to take things apart and put them back together again on Lego. My parents never worked on their cars. My dad teaches history at a college and my mom's an interior decorator. My older siblings wouldn't know a torque wrench from a shetland sheepdog. My friends? They're all off playing video games or writing software... Or both...

Some time after high school I picked up a 1992 Nissan 240sx. What do teenagers do with a car like that? They poke them and prod them, pull off important bits, put on unimportant bits, and generally ruin them and ensure they will never be classic vehicles forty five years down the road. Luckily (being a nerd and all), I was too cheap to buy many unimportant bits and too lazy to take off many important bits, so my futzing with the car didn't go past replacing some worn out suspension bits (mostly the unimportant ones) and installing stereos.

This experience taught me two important lessons:

1) That electrical problem is *always* a bad ground
2) Don't be afraid of the tools.

The only thing holding me back (besides finances, but we don't talk about those here) from a sweet little Volvo project was fear of the unknown. What if it breaks down in the middle of Death Valley? What the heck are points anyway? Where are all the wires? So, I took my first little step and accepted that I knew nothing. Then, I took my second little step and found a great online resource in a friendly antiquated old Yahoo mailing list filled with (I assume from my experience with the Airheads) friendly antiquated old Volvo drivers. Then I took my third big step and bought that heap of metal I introduced you to last week.

This is a learning process. I will read everything I can, pick the brains of those willing to put up with me, fix things, break things, fix more things. When it's all said and done, God willin' and the creek don't rise, I'll take a drive in comfort and style.

And if I do it right, I won't get anybody killed.

A Guy with a Wrench

I've started this to log the rebuild on my grungy old car. I may also write about other things from time to time - music, household projects, musings on beer, dogs, motorcycles, women and cheese.

Though I've always changed my own oil and did most of my own basic maintenance on my cars, I'd never really considered myself a "car guy" so never really considered diving in to a classic car myself. After expanding my horizons into motorcycles a few years back, and went through a couple of progressively older models before landing my beloved 1994 BMW R100R Mystic - a bike that more or less demands an owner/mechanic in one package due to it's ease of repair. After a few months of sorting out the major flaws on that bike without getting myself (or anybody else) killed, I deemed myself almost competent enough to dive into a four wheeled version.

So began the search for a classy little two door to subject to my unrelenting wrench! Everybody I spoke to had their opinions, mostly "don't do it!!!" - save for two little devils on my shoulder. Triumphs, MGs, Fiats, old Z cars... Every one had their occasional merits and major flaws, but I always came back to the image of little old Volvo wagon I remembered seeing in the parking lot at high school. Two little round headlights, a big smiley grille, and an amazing swooping bodyline. After halfheartedly chasing some leads on Triumph Spitfires and MGBs, I bit the bullet on a 1967 Volvo 1800s the second time it came up on Craigslist:

 The Volvorine as I first saw it

My friends saw an old scrap heap get rolled off a flatbed and pushed to it's initial resting place in the driveway. Mismatched front and rear wheels, a motor that wouldn't run because of "some issue with the fuel line," and brake and clutch pedals that did nothing except fall to the floor. My girlfriend saw an interior she was terrified to look at, let alone touch. I saw a solid body with very little rust, a full set of good chrome and glass, and a complete engine bay.

The Volvorine as everybody else first saw it

So it begins...