With the house remodel finally finished after two years, I really wanted to use the work shop as a garage for a project car. But the problem is that the work shop, although it has a garage floor and concrete driveway leading up to it, has a wooden floor that absolutely could not hold up even a small car. I decided to change that!
At the last second, I decided not to use the Super Beetle body for my Miata chassis swap after all, and instead use this beautiful gem: a '67 VW Type 3 Squareback.
After cutting it in half and pulling it apart 6" to get the wheelbase I needed, it was time to put it back together. This meant new driveshaft, a bolt-on extention for the aluminum PPF, extended fuel and brake lines, etc.
Before I can put the Miata that I cut in half back together, I needed to build and install frame rails. Here's how I did it.
Ever wanted to know what it takes to cut a car in half, and then put it back together again?
My wife (or I guess she was still my fiance at the time) asked me to make the alter for our wedding. Or maybe it's called an arch, or arbor. Whatever it's called, its the big tall thing you stand under at your wedding ceremony.
This is how I made it.
These two cars will become one.
I go further down the rabbit hole, and I've acquired my victim: a '73 Super Beetle.
How to overhaul a kitchen, from floor to ceiling. Or, "how to polish a turd." Everything we did in 6 months: All new plumbing. All new electrical wiring and outlets. All new ceiling lights. All new appliances. New flooring. New cabinets and countertops. New garbage disposal and added a switch to control it. The interior doors where all renovated. Backsplash tile and paint. Removed the ugly AC unit that was in the wall (not the window, the wall) and patched up the drywall. Added a heater duct from the furnace to the kitchen (it used to be heated with baseboard heaters). Knocked down a closet that was taking up space for the kitchen table. Range hood vented through the roof. Custom cubby in the wall for the fridge. New baseboard trim. And more....
From the beginning, Logan and I knew we wanted wooden countertops in the kitchen. Thankfully, they were also fairly affordable compared to grantie or a similar stone countertop. And because they're made out of solid wood, I could do all the work of cutting and fitting them myself. Which is exactly what I did.
We ripped out the living room carpet on the first day we got the keys to the home in December 2016. But we were't fully finished renovating the living room until May 2018. How did we do it? Stay tuned and find out on this exciting new episode of This Old Fixer Upper!
An overheating issue really had me stumped for a very long time. It had the characteristic of a mild blown head gasket (it would only run hot on the highway, no other problems), but non of the physical symptoms - no coolant visible in the oil, no oil in the coolant, no smoke in the exhaust, compression was great on all cylinders (cold engine), it passed the combustion "block test" both with the rental kit from a parts store and when I took it to a local garage with an emissions test machine, and it passed the cooling system pressure test. Finally, I sent an oil sample to a lab and they said there was signs of coolant in the oil - not a lot but enough for concern. Off with the head!
As Jeremy Clarkson would say, my genius knows no bounds.
If you live in Kansas and like 4-wheeling, there aren't a whole lot of optoins. Tuttle Creek and Kansas Rocks are two good choices though.
When we bought this house last winter, we did it assuming that there was a hardwood floor underneath the carpet. We were right: antique douglas fir planks! But repairing and refinishing them was not easy. We made a few mistakes, and one of them I can honestly say was the biggest mistake we've made yet during our renovation.
I just bought my first welder. It's an inexpensive DC inverter stick welder from Amazon, and at $170 I think it's a really really good value. Before I move on to building my own custom bumpers, I wanted a smaller project to practice on first. So I chose to replace the stock roof rack bars with a custom one. The one I build will have removable crossbars, and the crossbars create a high amount of drag on the road, so it will also be more aerodynamic as well as stronger and better looking.
We completely gutted the stairs down to the stringers and rebuilt them. They challenged me at every step along the way - no pun intended. I had to use every tool I had, every skill I knew, and every ounce of my patience. Do not try this at home!
I've always hated the mirrors on my 1997 Jeep Cherokee XJ. They're too small and they look dumb! A rugged, manly vehicle deserves rugged, manly mirror. Right? I got these mirrors from Amazon for less than $40 for the pair and I'm really happy with them. They're for a TJ Jeep Wranger but they also look like YJ mirrors.
I had a round-back live-edge black walnut slab and I wasn't sure what to do with it. It wasn't wide enough to a table on it's own. So I added some oak to widen it and turned it into a long, narrow console table! Here's how I did it.
