Your first "big" mechanical project

I was looking for an old pic last night and ran across these pics below. It got me thinking that this was my first big mechanical project on my own. I'd done lots of brakes, starters, alternators, etc. on my cars but hadn't really developed much mechanical sense yet. I'd helped do engine swaps, clutches, etc. but in those cases, it wasn't my stuff on the line if I screwed up. When I was 22 I decided that I was going to go motorcycle road racing, and even though my RZ350 was fully functional, I had it in my head that it needed to be freshly rebuilt and fast before I could race it. I've since learned to appreciate racing clapped-out stuff, but that's another story. 

Anyway, it was a last minute decision - my friends and I were in FL for bike week and the bug to race hit me hard. I sent the crank off to Falicon, sent the cylinders off for porting, ordered everything else from my local dealer and set about a full rebuild. It was a rushed effort to make the school I'd signed up for a few weeks later. The pic of me is at a point where I sat back and wondered if I'd ever be able to put it all back together. Amazingly, it all worked! Given the work environment, and the knucklehead doing the work, that was pretty amazing.

What about you? What was the first project where you took that big bite? 

I knew I wanted a cool old car as my first car. I ended up buying a '74 Beetle that was in fine condition and ran well. We all know what that means, "if it ain't broke, fix it until it is." I bought the car in September and by December I'd started building a hotter engine for it. That engine build took me WAY longer than an ACVW engine build should and it lasted less than 200 miles before ejecting all the oil and seizing a main bearing. The second engine I built ran much better and took less time to build!

Mine was a bike as well.

I have a thing for small GP bikes and the teenage me wanted to be 125cc World Champion.

It took till I was 24 to be able to afford a race bike. This was my 1978 MT125RII. I completely dissembled it and refurbished everything along with adding an upgraded front brake.

I grew up helping my dad build aircooled VW motors, but the headgasket on my 1985 XR4Ti was the first big one in my memory. It is a lot different when the girlfriend needs to make it to work on Monday. 

It was a big step up from oil changes and ball joints to 19 year old Trent. I only had very basic hand tools, a Chilton manual, a NAPA within walking distance and a gravel parking space.  It was 100 degrees out.

After 5 hours of getting everything ready, that cast iron head felt like it weighed 200 pounds when I pulled it off.

I only had to call my dad for help once and he simply pointed and told me what I needed to do. Fair play to him. I learned a lot.

Good topic, I grew up tinkering with things pulling them apart, putting them back together but all of those things weren't "mine".

That changed when I bought a 1988 Polaris Indy Trail as a 17 year old all on my own. Found out pretty quick if I wanted to ride it I'd need to fix it. I learned a lot about routine maintenance, locktite, torquing things to spec, lubrication etc. A lot of those lessons were learned the hard way but they were learned and laid the foundation for taking on larger more complicated jobs going forward.

A nine year old little Kozzy disassembled a 69 Z50A down to the case and frame.  I timed the engine and got it all back together, dad had to help with the correct ignition wire to make it run.  This was also the year that I read in a book how to drive a manual trans and taught myself how to drive one.  Then proceeded to move moms car around until someone noticed and asked how I did that.  I may have peaked at 9 years of age.

It was a case of me asking a friends dad about that motorbike on the side of the garage, he said take it if you want it.

When it threw a rod at 15rpm I knew that being a mechanic was not for me.

Dropping and then tearing down the original 2.7 engine in my 911. 

By 'big', in other words beyond the normal car maintenance, I've probably done three that would qualify.  

1 - I bought an early TVR (Grantura Mk 3) and decided it would be a good idea ro make it into a race car. That entailed using a cutting wheel to remove the body from the tube chassis because when you wrap steel tubing in fiberglass, the tubing turns into rust.  Cut it off, replaced the missing frame tubing ad then made up fiberglass channels to bond into the body so I could convert the car to a bolt on body.  Itched for a couple of weeks straight with all the finely ground fiberglass dust, but it was a learning experience (I learned never to do that again!)

2 - having raced my trusty MGA using the original pushrod engine, I decided that it would be an interesting project to try and graft an MGA Twin Cam head onto the B series block so I would end up with a 5 main bearing (stronger) engine with larger displacement (1950 cc instead of 1588 cc). Despite the blocks being similar there were many issues to resolve and a bunch of specialize machining to do, but it worked in the end and it was fun blowing off Jag XK 150S on the straight and running with the 4 cam Porsches.

3 - bought a Fiberfab Jamaican bodied MGA 1500 that was basically in good shape but which had been neglected and also had some issues solved in a way I would have never considered (e.g. if the oil filler fouls the body, just hit it with a big hammer until it no longer fouls and you can close the bonnet....)  Decided to go further than a full restoration and tossed the drive line and picked up a 3.4 GM V6 that I mated with a T5 trans and then shoehorned it into the car.  More learning involved with constructing a fuel injection system and the usual creation of new mounts, upgraded braking system etc. 

Built more then a few cars a couple hosues as well but I did this entire car minus the glass body and frame welding myself. Do not do what I did and stuff a monster motor in one of these 70hp is plenty. 

First big job. I think I was about 18.

Rebuilt the Chrysler 727 auto in my 1979 IHC scout. Installed Hemi bands and clutches, shift kit too.

Damn thing worked perfect when I put it back in. The first couple of minutes, waiting for it to pump up were a little scary though.

I did plenty of home renovation projects with my father growing up, but the first real mechanical thing that I tackled was a 1990 Honda Civic DX Sedan.  It was mom's and had 95,000 miles on it.  The dealer only offered her $500 on trade, so I bought it for that much. All it really needed was new CV-joints up front and that seemed like something I might be able to handle. I discovered that aftermarket "race" axles came as complete units and were cheaper than OEM. I got her fixed, inspected, then fell down the rabbit-hole of 4th gen Civic mods, then autocrossing, and the rest is financial ruin...I... I mean...the rest is history. 

I got an old mountain bike from a friend and rebuilt it completely right down to the pawls in the freewheel. Laced and rebuilt the wheels, everything. This was in the mid-80s sometime and I was in high school.

First gasoline powered one was a 1967 Land Rover that I dragged out of a barn and got mobile in my driveway. I'd modified cars before that, but it was the first one that came to me broken and decrepit. Got it registered on my 30th birthday after four months of evening and weekend work during the Canadian winter. I froze myself to the ground rebuilding wheel bearings. A few months later, I drove it across the continent so I could start work at FM. 

1989, I think.  Honda VF500F.  'Rebuilt' it on the kitchen table of the row house I was living in.  Fresh bearings, ball hone, fresh rings.  Sent the heads out and (knowing what I know now) they absolutely butchered the 'skim' I asked for.

Back together, it ran great but was puking oil out the countershaft seal which required splitting the cases again.  Back together, now it wouldn't start.  I finally brought it, hat in hand, to the mechanics at the Honda dealer where my racing buddy worked.  They immediately saw that I had reversed intake and exhaust cams...  The offer to spend the summer building bikes was withdrawn.  :)

Finally back together, I started it up and the loose dipstick shot across the garage.  That's when I noticed the kinked breather line...

mfennell said:

1989, I think.  Honda VF500F.  'Rebuilt' it on the kitchen table of the row house I was living in.  Fresh bearings, ball hone, fresh rings.  Sent the heads out and (knowing what I know now) they absolutely butchered the 'skim' I asked for.

Back together, it ran great but was puking oil out the countershaft seal which required splitting the cases again. 

 

Leave it to Honda to require case splitting to replace a countershaft seal. I once did a crank up rebuild on a 1988 XR250R and had a leaking countershaft seal when I started it. My displeasure was nearly immeasurable. :) That said, the second rebuild only took a few hours from running to running. It's easy when you've just done it and everything is clean and new. 

I'm a sucker for 80s Hondas but somehow I have never owned a VF500. One day. 

When I was 18, the head cracked on my '88 Mazda 626. I was good at fixing things, but didn't have anyone near me that knew cars and I was broke. No choice but to figure it out for myself. In a random stroke of luck, a guy around the corner from where I lived just happened to have a bad Ford Probe engine with a good head, and he sold it to me for just $100. So I had the parts, and I had the Mitchell pages that I printed at the local library. This was pre internet. My cheap Chinese socket set was not up to the task so I bought some slightly less cheap tools that didn't snap in half when I actually used them. The repair was a great success, and I put another 200k miles on the car until it was killed years later by an errant wheel that had come off a hearse. 

I was the shop parts cleaner, but apparently the first real job I ever did was to replace the camshaft in a flathead Ford stock car, at 4 years old. I remember none of it but my dad insisted that I did the majority of the work myself once he told me what to do. That may explain my lifelong interest in camshafts.

I was building bicycles for other kids by the time I was 10, mostly CCM Mustangs converted to choppers, with extended forks, small front wheels, banana seats, sissy bars and flat black paint, of course.

Trent said:

I grew up helping my dad build aircooled VW motors, but the headgasket on my 1985 XR4Ti was the first big one in my memory. It is a lot different when the girlfriend needs to make it to work on Monday. 

 

Exactly.  I wrench on stuff to relieve stress.  When it HAS to work it's a stress multiplier.  And I hate that.  

My first project was - not knowing anything about cars at the time - figuring out how to replace the fiber camshaft timing gear on my 1969 Chevy Impala (straight-6 engine, 2-sp trans!). I just dove in, thinking I'd figure things out as I went along, and did.

If we aren't restricted to car/bike stuff, then it would be building a COSMAC Elf computer, detailed in a 1976 Popular Electronics magazine, and it was an effing huge deal with me, setting my career path while still a teen.

Around my 16th birthday I spent several hundred hours helping my father build a house. In return he bought me a rat-trap 1964 Ranchero and provided guidance as I restored it. It was a pretty great experience except for two things: He lost interest (stopped funding me) near the end, so I never did sort the suspension or detail the interior. Also, the knucklehead at the local parts house gave us a flywheel for a 300 CI six, instead of the 302 V8 that I was building, so the motor vibrated terribly. 

Sadly I totalled the thing while street racing. Cool postscript: I sold the car for parts to Dick Mann of motorcycle racing fame, and a number of parts from it ended up on his daily driver.

Not my car, but a dead ringer:

16 years old, first time mechanic swapped a 235 into a 1952 Chevy pickup. Had to rebuild it first. In 1972 there was no accessible manual for that. I used a manual for a v8 Chevy. Made some mistakes, but drove it for a year then sold it to my brother who drove it for several more years before swapping in a 327.

I always wanted an RX-7 and a Jeep since I was kid.

When I *thought* I could afford it, I bought an '88 RX-7 in 1996.  The previous owner was Bruce Turrentine, who is a bit well known in the rotary world for producing a Wankel Rotary rebuild VHS video. Mind you, this is back in the day when the internet was a wee little thing. You had to be on the right mailing lists to get the good information, and I got into onto the "big list" early on and bought up double digit cars that were flooded or had stuck AFMs and flipped them for profit.

It was the salad days of rotary knowledge. 

Anyhow, I drove the snot out of my first RX-7, but it got very tired up around 1988k. So I parked it and bought a 1987 TII with some issues. With a factory service manual, a limited budget, high hopes, and a network of rotary nerds, I got the rotary aviation rebuild kit, Racing Beat street port templates, an S5 Turbo, sourced some minty rotor housings, and rebuilt and ported the engine. I upgraded the secondary injectors and got an RTEK chip. The TII was transformed into a vehicle that had no regard for human life. I loved that car, but when my daughter was born years later and the AC unit in the house went out, I sold it without regrets to somebody that could appreciate it.

A rotary rebuild was my first big mechanical project. Things either went downhill or most excellent from there, depending on how you like to spend your money.
 

When I was about 13 or so, I bought a non-running Honda CR125. That's my older brother on the back. I had to save my allowance for a long time to afford this bike that I'm guessing was being sold as a parts bike.

With the guidance of my dad, I pulled and cleaned the tank and carb. Next up was a top end rebuild. The case had a broken section (it was thin cast magnesium) so after draining the oil and thoroughly cleaning it, I JB Welded it, and it held. I did much of the work, with suggestions and the occasional helping hand from dad. New fluids, cleaned the plug, and it ran! 😆 

I stalled it about 800 zillion times in a row, and flooded it a few times. I finally got the balance of clutch and throttle, and scared myself silly riding around the front field/pasture! I haven't been the same since. 🤣