Tips for New Mechanics - The Junkyard - Money/Skills

All but the laziest of mechanics (what are you doing being a mechanic in that case?) view a Pull-n-Pay Junkyard as a playground. For car enthusiasts and mechanics on a budget, it's a must. Also, new YouTube video at the end of this article.

This is an LS400 with Mercedez front. Interesting. 

At that type of junkyard, there are a number of things you can do to better yourself. I will list a few and I want you to post any other good ideas.

First of all, let's talk about acquiring the skills to be a mechanic. It's a steep learning curve if you aren't trained professionally and even then it's complicated.

Before I got this car, I knew a little bit about cars but the most I had done was replace an alternator and timing belt among a bunch of smaller things like changing brakes. Remember - I bought this car crashed and I suppose it was the motivation I had for it (being my dream car - I'm not kidding) that made me say, you know what, I'm going to do everything I feel I can pull off by myself.

That's one of the reasons I bought it. I figured I would learn to work on cars and build up my dream car in the process. And it has been working out.

Diggin' the outside woodgrain. I always thought wood floorboards in these cars look amazing.

The first ~$1500 I put into the car was all parts and fluids I changed myself save for the power steering pump. For that, I paid $300 total which included the part and installation.

I told you guys that I was waiting for cooler weather to fix the hood hinge and it's finally here. I have never removed a body part other than a hood before and I'm gonna have to take off the fender to get at the hinge unit.

So how am I going to do this without knowing anything? The first thing I did was Google it. I found a pretty straightforward tutorial but I didn't want to break anything. Can you guess where I went?

I went to U-Pull-n-Pay here in O-town, FL and got to work taking off the fender from an LS400 they had. I was able to take it off just to make sure I didn't make mistakes on my car so I felt a lot more confident after.

This is one of the best things this place offers. The parts are obviously cheap and you can make money here (will get to that in a second). Let me just say that I got a new hood for $50 when it is $200 at the next closest junkyard and $500 on eBay.

 I generally don't like the Too Fast Too Furious lights on the ground BUT purple coming out of the foglights only? Legit. 

This car below is one of my favorite LS400s and there was a similar one in my neighborhood. It didn't have the Arizona Tea logo but it was the same color and had these straight pipes that curved up and was two feet behind his car. I would be driving my wife's car, see it, and start flipping sh** because I thought it was beautiful and now I'm blessed enough to have the same car? Wow.

Anyway, getting back to building your skillset. Need to know how to replace the alternator on a Honda Civic? Go there and do it. Learn how electrical systems work and how interior panels come off.

People pay thousands of dollars to apprentice but you can literally teach yourself for a $2.00 entrance fee. Just PLEASE work clean - don't break parts that others might need and if you remove something you don't need, leave it close. It's just common courtesy.

The last part I'm gonna talk about is making a little bit of project car money at the junkyard. Realize that some people show up there alone because they need something but the item is something big, like a hood, and the guy wasn't able to bring help? Well that was me and I paid somebody $30.00 to help me take the old hood off and put the new one on.

This isn't an uncommon thing. Matter of fact, these people who are alone will appreciate it. The junkyard doesn't have staff to do it so they don't mind either. Maybe this guy wouldn't have bought the hood if someone wasn't there to help, you know?

Keep an open mind and you will see opportunity all around you.

Don't make this small mistake I did. You see, I had went to the junkyard to see how to install a new Engine Temp Sender. Long story short, I ended up calling a mobile mechanic to do it for $30 but what he did was exactly what I was gonna do. That's when it hit me, I need to have a lot more confidence in myself. I KNEW I could it and chose the safe route which took away the small amount of experience I would have gained from just doing it.

Click here to see my newest video explaining how to use vinyl paint on floormatts. This is the first of a series where I will show you how to change the color of the interior of your car WITHOUT REMOVING ANYTHING and also for under $100. Stay tuned!

Changing Interior Color with Vinyl Paint

Tan interiors fit nicely in red Ferraris but look gaudy to me. Especially when they're permanently stained from the dog that previously owned the car (I think it was a dog because literally every seat was ripped up - front, passenger, back left, and back right.) I was going to just get it detailed until I figure something out.

But then I did.

Before I continue, there is an introduction video on my YouTube that I want everybody to look at and give me constructive criticism. You can see it here.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I briefly read up on dyeing car seats and came to the conclusion that it's too much of a mess. I heard sometimes it can end up staining other things... No thanks!

But yesterday the thought came to me again. I took a look at the available products and while there is dyes, there is also vinyl paint.

To be honest, I was so excitedly shocked by how well this stuff works. It costs $5 per can and that was enough to do the floormatts pictured above although you would get more use on plastic and vinyl surfaces like your dash. See, carpet obviously has a bunch of fibers which need to be brushed back and forth as you put down layers to cover everything.

I will try to find the type that you can apply with a brush. That would make things even easier because you wouldn't necessarily have to remove each panel to paint it if you know what you're doing (stay tuned for a tutorial).

By now, the most astute of my readers should have a good idea of how to use this stuff. It also has directions on the bottle. But let me lead you through the procedure so you can see how easy this is.

It took me about twenty minutes to paint both floormatts.

You will typically want to remove each item for painting for two reasons. The first is so that you can cover everything (edges that you might miss, for example) and so you don't spray something else in your car! If you're going to leave the part inside, get the paint you can apply with a brush at the very least.

Here is the procedure for the spray kind. I will post the same thing when I get my hands on the stuff you apply with a brush.

(Tip: These vinyl paints is exactly what manufacturers like Ford use. It is the same pigment [chemically] and if you DO have a Ford or GM vehicle, you can buy the original colors that came with your car. I wanted to mention that because that gave me confidence to know it's a legit product.)

Here we go. You are going to paint the item in question in about four coats. Use as many as you need to make it look right. If you spray it completely the first time, it won't look right.

Hold the spray can about six inches away and paint in even strokes back and forth. You want the paint to go from left to right as opposed to applying it chaotically.

Wait five minutes and add another coat. Remember, the item you are painting will be EVENLY covered in the end if you follow this method. For carpets, you want to initially comb the fibers one way and comb them the other way about halfway through the job. That is what's going to cover everything (the paint needs to get in the fibers). Continue adding coats until the item in question is completely covered. It's okay to quickly spray spots that you missed.

I need to start taking 'before' pictures more often so you can see the difference but here are the finished floormatts in my car. Before I painted it, both matts were a completely different color from the front ones. They were stained almost orange. Now look at the difference something so small can create.

(Tip: Let it dry for 30 minutes before you put it in your car or it's going to smell like paint for a little while.)

I'm going to dig up old pictures of the car for you guys so you can actually see the difference.

One of my concerns when I bought the car was the ugly and somewhat dirty interior. I was originally going to reupholster pretty much everything to change the color. Now that I found out about this product, my next big interior project is giving the car a black and silver interior. I'm thinking silver for the lighter browns and black for the darker browns such as the dashboard.

Thank you guys for reading! I hope you were entertained or at least learned something.

Comment if you have any questions or comments and I will definitely reply.

Old Car Problems

The tricks old cars play on you. My Lexus has a rebuilt salvage title. The engine was stolen and the car was paid out as a total loss by insurance, I suppose. Somebody then picked it up at auction and threw a newer engine in there. It seems there was also work done in the back with the trunk and gas tank. Also, whoever put it all together must have taken about 20 shortcuts to get the car running.

This results in loose screws (the frickin bolts on the rear brakes were loose on one side!), loose electrical components, just loose things in general, and things that are off ever so slightly causing things like no contact when it comes to a button. Or a key.

One more example really quick before I tell you what happened yesterday and drove me nuts!

I had installed a new Engine Temperature Sender. In the LS400 and some other cars, this is the unit that sends temperature readings to the gauge in your dash. I was driving when I decided to bang on the top to possibly get it to move. Sure enough - it must have been stuck and popped all the way up before gradually being pulled down all the way again over time...

What happened when I banged on the dash is however funny in retrospect and completely screwed at the time. I saw the needle go off but all of a sudden, all the lights went off and gaugea died. Great. I thought I broke the whole thing because the car was still on!

I got home, cursing all the two miles, until I go to turn the key to shut off the car and it clicks, moves a millimeter, and my lights are back on.

So now I know that the part of the ignition where you stick the key in is looser than an old meat purse. This leads me to what happened.

I turn the car on yesterday and as soon as I shift to reverse, the car turns right off. What?! I turn it back on, it goes into reverse, goes into drive as I am re-parking it after vacuuming, and then shuts off again when I put it in park.

I should mention that there is something ELSE loose that makes a clank when I shift gears sometimes. It comes from the front tire area so I always assumed the front brakes have a part loose or something that hits metal going from forward to reverse and back, understand?

Well this sound happened every time the car shut off.

Throwing me off completely. Now I'm thinking is this a transmission problem even though the (probably unrelated) clank sound isn't coming from the transmission. So I'm freaking out at this point until I collect my thoughts later.

Remember how the key is loose? I noticed it moves freely a couple millimeters when the car is on. I moved it a little and the problem hasn't happened again thankfully.

I don't even mind changing a transmission in this car because it's my baby but I can't afford that now!

It made me remember something however. Even though the car has had fu trans fluid since I got it, I never changed it. I don't even wanna see how bad it is until I change it tuesday.

This type of car is NOT for something who doesn't deal with challenges well nor is it for someone who can't constantly find the problem him or herself because it would cost too much.

In a case like that, don't buy a $300 Lexus like I did. I did it with the dream of having it completely rebuilt eventually.

I had a discussion with somebody about my car. I told him that I've put probably 1.8k into the car so far and he said I'm a dummy for not just buying one without any damage for the same price.

However, even now at this point in life where I have a crap job and I'm starting a business, I can't save that much money to have all at once. It's just easier to spend $300 initially, then another $150, then another $80, etc. until your car is running correctly.

To me, this also has the benefit that when you're done, you will have replaced all of those items that tend to go around 200-300k miles and if you do it correctly, you can have a Lexus LS400 as close to original and right out of the factory as possible, for what? $10k? It cost $45k new... $70k in today's prices. So if this is the car I really want... and no, I don't want a newer one because I love THIS model, then is $10k really not worth it? Remember, that gets you a $70k car that is as close to factory reliability and standards as you can get unless you find one with 5,000 miles on it.

In which case, it's still going to cost $10k!

The man that said that to me is my pops who calls himself a car enthusiast. He has rallied before. That's who gave me the E30 BMW that I had. So what happened? The two family cars are now Ford Focuses, both automatic. This Lexus that is three times their age not only has a better interior but drives smoother and kicks those cars' asses in everything except fuel economy. Mine isn't but the LS is definitely more reliable too if you compare these cars as new.

What is my point? Not much... Just an observation as to how life can suck the blood out of you. Pops has been going through depression and some other issues. I think he needs some medicine. Maybe a new rally car is in order... Just saying...

I didn't dare tell hm that I'm going to eventually spend way more money on this car than is actually smart but his idea was to run it into the ground and junk it. You can do that to that Focus, sir!

(Stock Focuses are really bad in my opinion. Inside all you hear is a bunch of crazy sounds coming from half the systems in the car and the quality is just shite. Ofcourse, I like the faster spec ones. It's not a bad front wheel drive sporty car in that case especially for rallying.)

I'm leaving you guys with a picture of my still-dirty engine bay and you tell me if you see anything that's off. Also, if you have suggestions as to what to do with the ACV for the power steering - please let me know! I know to basically plug it but can I run the vacuum hose that comes out right in front of the Lexus logo on the engine to the small air hole that is found on the air intake assembly and is where the other hose for the PS pump goes. In a working system, one of these is where the air comes out of to go to the PS pump and then is returned to the intake, correct? I've only seen one person do this. It makes sense to send the air back but I don't know how much difference there is besides just plugging it. Thanks guys!

Review: 1989 BMW 325iX

My friends, how many of you like the iconic BMW E30 otherwise known as the 325? Consider the type of people that read this... Probably everyone here.

For good reason.

I had the coveted 325ix that looked almost exactly like the car pictured above.

When this car came out, it was an amazing car and it actually aged like a fine wine. This thing has an inline 6 cylinder engine that isn't FAST stock but definitely quick. That is not to mention it sounds great.

Bear with me for a few paragraphs and we can get to the good stuff.

To this day, the car is gorgeous to me. Look around on the street next time you drive. Notice the new cars and how most of them have no style whatsoever. Why does a headlight have to have nore curves than a boomerang and why does a van need to look like a fish (some of you will get that)? They have way too many stupid lines.

Some manufacturers aren't too bad with it like Volvo, Lincoln, Lexus, and I'm sure there's a couple more. It's hard to think of more but let me throw out an example. Honda made good looking cars in the 80s and 90s, even early 2000, but now... Well, just look at the new Civic V-Tec and notice how many parts the oversized wing is made out of. My wife says these new cars look like spaceships which would be cool except it's not.

The point is that I feel cars from the 80s and 90s not only looked better but are nore reliable, easier to work on, and have just the right amount of 'stuff' inside. I want AC, maybe a CD player, power windows, and that's it.

All of the electronics completely screw these new cars. It makes them unreliable after 100k miles because electrical components start going bad and that's a problem when the whole frickin thing runs off of electronics (there's a video on Youtube where this guy scans a few year old Mercedes V12 Bi-Turbo and it had 25 [twenty-five!] codes, mostly electronics). Maybe I'm biased - I don't enjoy fixing electrical problems.

Back to the review. I had to preface this with my thoughts on cars in general so you can better understand why the E30 is such a great car.

Starting with the interior, it is spartan if you need a navigation system but if you're like me, you're gonna love this car. You got your clutch, shifter, the instrument cluster lights up an awesome red at night, and you're sitting on these nice seats that have sustained practically no damage after 20-some years. What this is, is a sports car disguised as an economy car.

It is surprisingly small in person but has plenty of room inside. It doesn't have much airbags if any. You do have some amenities such as heated seats that still work (in an '89?). The rest of the car is really pretty simple. There's nothing of note that I can think of although the trunk has a good amount of space. The interior is well designed and looks great.

The car I had was the 325iX model. There was 1500 of these sold in the United States. They came with all wheel drive from the factory. This car was originally purchased by my father to rally race and was handed down to me.

Even on asphalt, it was doing the same time as Miatas and beating Mini Coopers left and right. Not too bad.

The clutch is pretty heavy but it is easy to drive either way. It never bothered me but the person who bought the car from me seemed to care.

The good stuff. This blog is about awesome cars that are available on a budget and are easy to work on. This car is SO simple to fix. And everyone loves the way the hood opens.

The engine in this little beast creates a wonderful sound. One of the best engine notes ever, in my opinion. Can you imagine if it had a Flowmaster exhaust?

Since I mentioned the fact that I rallied the car, I figure some people may want to know how it does. It does great on dirt but this IS the all wheel drive version. It has pretty high clearance aswell.

Everyone is now wondering how it is to daily drive. Let me put it this way. Manuals are fun - especially in this car - but they are NOT fun when you're in stop and go traffic. However shifting feels right. You don't have to put effort into finding the right spot. It's nice and tight.

Mileage wasn't bad for a car this old and came out to about 20 city and 25 highway.

Overall, this is one of the best cars I've owned. Everybody that has owned one of these and aols it says they regret it and I do too. It gives me some peace, however, that it went to a BMW enthusiast who is going to take care of it.

Mechanically this car is not only solid but simple. It barely has any bull-doodoo electronics (remember what I said earlier?) and most things are pretty easy to get to and diagnose. If you want to learn to work on cars, this is a great choice.

You might not get to work on it too much because it's extremely reliable. It went over 200k for the few years I had it and not one thing broke except part of the AWD system which was fixed by adding a spacer. The driveshaft (I think I'm wrong on this - it's the part AWD cars have that links the front and rear wheels; it's a shaft with teeth) had worn down the teeth that allow it to spin. The spacer essentially pushed in some of the good 'teeth,' acting as a temporary fix.

If you want one, get it as soon as possible. I sold mine for 1.7k and I don't even want to look at the prices they're at now...

This car gets 4 out of 5 gold stars. If this was an AWD M3, well then it would hit that special 5 stars. Here are the factors I base this on.

1. Cost and value
2. Reliability
3. Cool factor
4. Mechanically - easy to work on?
5. Quality

Using Seafoam Helps

If you're a car enthusiast, you probably know about Seafoam.

I found out about it when I had my first car. It was a '97 Volvo 850 that I thought was fast as hell because it would do a nice little burnout if you did a neutral drop. Ofcourse I found this product because it said it restores power and that's all I wanted! Screw a clean engine!

That Volvo died when it overheated because I had no coolant in it and blew a headgasket. At that point it was running on four cylinders instead of five.

Yes, one of Volvo's best engines is their five cylinder engines. In the 850, it was normal to reach 300k miles because they were reliable. Throw a turbo on it and you got yourself the 850R which came with around 230 HP, I believe, and can be had now for $1500 or so.

People need to know about these more "obscure" quick cars (it's all Honda this Mustang that) but I went off on a tangent.

In an earlier post I mentioned that the LS400 was having problems starting. It would turn over but wouldn't fire up most of the time. I thought, initially, that the fuel pump was going bad but actually this is not the case - thank God.

You see, depending on what cylinder was next in line to fire, it might not while others fire right up. Lexy also didn't ever sputter or hesitate when I hit it which implies the fuel pump is working fine.

My conclusion was that it is something simple so I bought new spark plugs and because it was cheap, I picked up some STP Fuel Injector Cleaner because it was cheap. I didn't think it would do much but I was hoping.

Initially I used half a bottle of this stuff in a half tank's worth of gasoline. I thought it was a coincidence when it felt like the car was actually driving a little bit better. I tend to be a skeptic with these products unless I try them myself and the science is sound.

The results were that now, the car was firing up 70-80% on the first try - quickly too. I drove it for a little while before I used the rest of the bottle which helped as well. Today, I decided to use the rest of the Seafoam.

Half a bottle is how much I had left and also how much I used the first time.

Huge difference. The first time, there was barely any white smoke coming out of the exhaust which suggested to me that either the car was clean as a whistle (yeah right) or the product isn't penetrating. Seems I was right. Today when I did it, there was at least three times the amount of smoke coming out which suggests that the fuel injector cleaner not only cleaned up the deposits itself but made the rest more penetreble.

Knock on woodgrain but it seems like that cleared up the problem. The car suprises me sometimes as to how fast it fires up now.

I still have the spark plugs.

I definitely want and need to change them but considering the main reason I got them is okay, I'm gonna wait a little bit until I get some time. The reason is that it takes a while to get to the spark plugs in the first place because you have to take the air intake off completely and also some covers. What's actually going to take up more time, however, is that I'm going to start cleaning the engine going top to bottom.

It's the perfect opportunity to do it and I can not wait for that feeling of satisfaction.

The other day, a driver in the next lane over yelled out "Rocking the old school car! That's what's up!" as he poured out some of his beer in some gesture of respect.

Isn't that the reason for living when it comes to car guys? Maybe that's exaggerated but it feels good to know that someone enjoys your car like you do when most people don't notice.

All in all, I would like to say; use seafoam. Also no matter what old unreliable car you want - if that's really what you want and can take care of it - do it! You live one time baby.

I secretly want the Foxbody Firebird Turbo Coupe. Such a hot car! Who knows, maybe that will be the next project later down the road because I'm gonna need a sports car.

Take care.

(How could you not love that car?!)

Mechanic Philosophy - Law of Attraction

Guys, I come from a background of a lazy person. I'm not gonna lie. I have gotten myself to not be lazy for the most part but sometimes it happens.

I'm talking about changing the spark plugs. Today is when I planned on doing it because both me and my wife have the day off but it didn't feel right.

Get ready for some hippie shit.

I mentioned laziness earlier because that may well be the case but I don't feel like I'm doing it for that reason (putting off this project for a day or two). I happen to believe in the Law of Attraction and more importantly in this case, intuition.

I know from experience that when I get that sudden urge to go fix something NOW and I do it, I always do a better job. Why? Your subconscious or maybe even conscious mind just realized something about the project - maybe something you were wondering about how you're gonna install or maybe there was a step you weren't sure about.

Your intuition basically said to you, "You have the rest of today off as well as the time and tools to do it and since you are now prepared mentally, go do this project right now. It is a good time." Same thing when it's backwards. I'm confident I can do the job but it IS starting to get very hot here in Florida.

I guarantee you I will do a better job in the morning starting around 7. My mind is clear and it's still cool outside.

Do you see what I mean? I would recommend that if you strongly feel like you should wait for seemingly no reason and you have the time to put it off a little, do that.

Enough of that. Today I topped off the oil. The car goes through about a quart every 45 days or so. Initially I thought there might be a problem but when I read the owner's manual, it says the car naturally burns oil. It burns more if the oil is dirty. The reason for this is that 1uz engines keep oil in the cylinders when you turn it off. In most cars, the pistons aren't actually lubricated by oil for a second until the engine gets going. The benefit is less wear and tear on the engine reulting in a longer life.

I was shown a sign to do it - paint the rims black. I saw these awesome caps at the auto store and while they didn't have purple, they had blue. Awesome.

There is a constant check engine light that sometimes goes off for a couple weeks that I want to check. I have to find an OBDI scanner but also I'm gonna have to clean this port.

Somebody please tell me... WHAT IS THIS STUFF? It's hard to get off... Very sticky.

Anyway I have to clean this and I will begin to clean the engine aswell when I do the spark plugs. It makes sense because that involves taking off a bunch of plastic pieces that I can clean while they're off.

I want to show you my engine bay. This is the before but I also want to point out that I decided to put that big plastic piece for the intake back on and let me nust say that Lexus knew what they were doing.

Before I did this, my car was KINDA having a rough idle which I thought was the spark plugs but all of that was eliminated by putting a plastic intake part back. My thought process was that the hood was essentially an inch and a half open that cold air would be able to get in the engine bay so screw it right? Wrong.

Putting this plastic piece back on did the following. Eliminated the slightly rough idle, keeps my engine cooler, and the car got back a bunch of power when it's hot out. I attributed it to just the 98 degree Florida weather (ofcourse a car isn't going to perform its best in conditions like that). When it was cool in the morning and at night, the car just drove better. It was making more power and probably getting better mileage. Some of you see where I'm going with this. The plastic cover made my car behave the same at 98 degrees.

It just needed the incoming air and not the swirling, mixed engine bay air! I am convinced by this (if I wasn't before) that stuff like aftermarket intakes are only useful if your car doesn't already have a setup where it grabs air from outside. Then there's no difference in terms of the air that is being sucked in but in a case like that, you can prefab your own intakes that is directly facing incoming fresh air. In race cars, they'll put it in place of a headlight sometimes.