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Wrench Scramble 2015: Don't Do Cage Me In
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LeMons is all about cutting corners, be it in build quality or literally in driving technique. I’ll admit that the cage I put in The Uberbird was very much My First Rollcage® grade fabrication, likely to help in the event of a big crash, but not something you really really trust. Which, of course, defeats the…
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Wrench Scramble 2015: Project Axle Hell
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I love drop-out 3rd member axles for how much they ease parts swapping and fabrication. Most famously Ford’s eight and nine-inch diffs, as well as most solid axles from Japanese truck manufacturers allow the differential to be removed and swapped with simple hand tools. Find a lower-geared, limited slip example in a junkyard or on eBay?…
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Wrench Scramble 2015: Playing Musical Engine Stands
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I have three engines, three transmissions and a spare head in my garage right now, none of which are bolted up in the right combination. We’ve got a kinda/sorta “built” 200ci six, the original 170ci that came with the car and a donor 170ci I bought only for the transmission attached to it. Our original…
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Wrench Scramble 2015 is Underway!
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Five years (to the exact day) ago I wrote about learning to avoid getting stretched so thin that project cars are more stressful than fun. Apparently I unlearned that lesson because as of tonight, all four of my cars are in need of services ranging from routine maintenance to a complete drivetrain swap. I’ve gotta get cranking,…
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Project Cars Update: LeMons Ranchero and Falcon
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Interchangeable parts, platform sharing and shared engineering are wonderful things. As an engineer, nothing scares me more than low-volume, one-off craftsmanship. On a high level, Ford used The Falcon Platform from the 1960 Falcon to the 1980 Granada/Monarch/Versailles, but their insistence on minor changes over the years has me nearly stymied. We’ve converted the Ranchero…
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Project Integra – Valve Cover Refinish
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It really bothered me. Every time I opened the hood of my project Integra, there it was, staring me in the face – the aged and faded valve cover. I decided to do something about it. As you can judge from the above picture, the result is pretty good. It’s actually much better than I…
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Justy Little Project Car: Shifter Tips for Everyone, Sweet New Wheels for Me
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Though my Subaru Justy’s cabin is surprisingly roomy and airy for such a small car and the pedals are well placed for podiatric gymnastics (I can make up words), the sloppy and vague shifter has always been something of a disappointment. The 4-wheel-drive system also wasn’t switching on. It might seem silly to work on these small…
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Project Regretmobile Dodge Magnum, Part 1: An elegy for sensibility
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I am not a smart man. We must get that out of the way here because it will make understanding the rest of this story so much easier. This is going to be a long build story about me, Eric Rood—a complete idiot whose mushy brain is filled almost entirely with Bad Ideas—and my struggles…
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Project AMC Eagle wrap-up: "Universal" was an exact fit; I sold it anyway
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This AMC Eagle’s unobtainable clutch master cylinder has plagued me since I bought the project two years ago. After enough screwing around with rebuild kits and new hoses, I finally capitulated and followed the advice of a LeMons racer I met last year: It’s a simple hydraulic system. Just adapt a Tilton or a Wilwood…
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True Companion: Living with a 1990 Peugeot 205 XS for two years
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A little more than two years ago, in the middle of the summer of 2013, I bought one of the cheapest cars I’ve ever seen advertised with valid inspection, let alone bought for myself. It was a white Peugeot 205 XS with 230 000 km on the clock, it cost 350 euros and I pretty…
