Matt Drayer's Journal

The car is covered in grease, and oil, and dirt. The garage floor is covered in grease, and oil, and dirt. I'm covered in grease, and oil, and dirt. She's covered in grease, and oil, and dirt. The starter is out, and confirmed dead. We've been scraping away at the engine bay, the underside, the front wheel wells, the front suspension, and the steering gear.

I was out here last night for a couple hours, taking a really good look at the engine and the transmission. I haven't really gotten into the technicalities yet, the manuals, the forums, I've just been going on my own experience working on previous rustbuckets. I know what I'm seeing, and what I'm not seeing. I also know I can handle this, mentally, but it's going to require going deep into the suck for hours, for days, maybe for weeks.

"So, at this point it's looking to me like a teardown."

"Oh..."

I can tell she's realized this project is now way more than a busted starter -- and as a busy teenager with homework, sports, extracurriculars, friends and (grrr) a possible first boyfriend entering the picture, availability was looking tight.

"We're going to need to pull out the engine and transmission, remove all the parts, and take a good look at everything. We're going to need to remove the suspension components, too. It all needs to be cleaned. We'll keep what we can and do a parts order for what we can't. It's going to be a lot of work, but it's going to also be a lot of fun putting it together and you WILL be driving it before school ends."

"You're going to pull out the engine? How???"

"With an engine crane, of course! It's just removing a few bolts and a couple of wires/tubes on these cars -- trust me, it'll go. I've already found a guy a few towns over selling a like-new crane, leveler, and stand for short money. Just think of all the new tools we'll get for this project! And then we'll already have them when it's your brother's turn."

"Haha, Mom's gonna love that!"

"Look, cleaning this little beast is going to be a nasty job. Really dirty work using chemicals and solvents that I'd prefer you are not exposed to. I'm going to be hyper-focused on getting it done by the end of the year. I'm going to be swearing...a lot . You can come out here anytime and help me, but I don't want you to feel guilty if things come up and you can't. Besides, the fun part is going to be putting everything back together when she's cleaned up and we have all the parts ready to go, anyway. We'll aim to start doing that after the holidays. Sound like a deal to you?"

"Deal!"

"Alright, let's begin removing parts. Everything comes off. Everything goes into ziplock bags with labels written on them. Ready?"

"Yes!"