So here’s the question: If your friend wants to borrow your car, can you toss them your keys without rattling off a list of issues they need to be aware of? We’ve all heard them:
You have to slam the passenger door to close it.
The temp gauge may read high or not at all–either way, ignore it.
You …
I usually sort my cars right when I'm getting ready to sell them. Then I wish I did it sooner because it's so much nicer to live with.
I worked for a restoration shop that specialized in British sports cars. We used to say that sorting the car was the longest and most tedious part of the job. Getting a car ready to give the keys to a customer and have it behave as if it were new is an incredible amount of work but very satisfying when it's done and a definite necessity for customer cars.
I don't know how many times I was stranded on a test drive with some unforeseen issue or would pull over to make a roadside adjustment or repair during the sorting process. I would often drive cars home or on small errands until they were ready to go. We'd gradually increase the speeds and distance from 'home' until the car could pass everything we could throw at it. The process usually took a couple hundred miles.
My personal cars/ projects are always fully sorted, half-assed stuff drives me crazy.
Fully sorted cars are goal to shoot for, in actual practice there are a few I have owned that never quite got there. I certainly strive for that, but with an older car and tempermental emission control devices sadly required everywhere in VA at least for a street car that must pass annual inspection to continue to drive it, it can be problematic. In NOVA all that silly but necessary emission control stuff has to actually work and pass the test, anything I own must be street driveable as I refuse to go to the expense and aggravation of having to tow the car for service work I cannot perform myself. I don't know how some people can afford or tolerate the inconvenience of having to tow their track car everywhere it goes. I just can't make that work for me. Driving the car, whether primarily for competition or not MUST be doable on the street for the sorting process to have a prayer of happening.
Building "Hot Rods" is easy and fun. Building "Cars for Transportation" is a lot of work. If you use your spouse as the test driver, you will know when you are done.
Pete
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