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When people ask me what I do for a living there's a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is that I'm a mechanic. This is a simple answer and immediately puts an image of a greasy lube tech at a dealership or a tire throwing monkey at a wheel shop into the person's head. I usually leave it at that if they don't have any follow up questions and they usually don't unless they're "car people". For those that are, the inevitable long answer is that I'm a professional exotic automobile restorer and independent Bavarian sports car specialist. In Layman's terms this means that I get to wrench on some of the fastest, most expensive, most exclusive, and poorest engineered cars in the world. Lets have a look at my bay.  This is a Manta Mirage. It is (for better or worse) a near exact reproduction of a McLaren M8, one of the most successful cars in one of the most balls to the wall unlimited racing series the world has ever seen, the Canadian-American Challenge Cup or Can-Am.   It is a testament to how exquisite form can arrive out of calculated function. My pulse raced the first time I saw it and I felt a long absent sensation in my loins when I first turned the throaty Detroit V8 over after spraying a liberal amount of high octane gasoline into the eight individual throttle bodies. Did I mention that it's road legal?  That said, it is built with an almost stubborn appreciation for 1960/70s era British racing engineering. Coolant runs from the radiator to the small block V8 in the back by flowing through the car's 4"x2" square box steel main frame rails. From best as we can tell the manufacturer took no care to seal the interior of the frame from corrosion, nor did McLaren with the M8. Why should they? The cars only ran a few races before being completely broken down and rebuilt. I'm currently in the process of rewiring the bulk of the 12V harness to get this car road legal and ready for a buyer at the consignment shop I work for. Once that is done I'll move on to resealing the Corvair trans-axle that is fitted to this monstrosity so I can take it for a lengthy test drive to ensure all systems are functioning correctly. This is just what I do for my day job. I have a shop of my own where I have a bunch of goofy projects I know you'll enjoy but I'll get to that later. For now I'll post a few pictures of some of the cars I've been wrenching on at work lately.  This is a 1956 Bentley S1. These cars were sold almost exclusively to the house of Windsor and they're cricket partners. They are elegant, they are timeless, they are made of wood and measured in inches at best and hectares at worst. Do you know why the British drink they're beer warm? Because Lucas makes refrigerators too. This is a 1997 Lamborghini Diablo and it is quite yellow.  It even has a big yellow Italian engine.  It also has a leaky head gasket and likes to shook a plasma cutter like jet of fire through a hairline crack in it's hard cast aluminum headers. This is just a Corvette C6.   With more horsepower than a Bugatti Veyron. All of these and many more amazing and bizarre vehicles will require my mechanical attention in the weeks and months to come. I'll try and dump a bunch of pictures of some of the more interesting pieces in our shop tomorrow. For now I need some sleep. I do battle with another pesky Corvette and an Alpina B7 in the morning James Woods fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Dec 11, 2013 |
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Dec 11, 2013 10:55
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Oh holy poo poo, updates as soon as possible please!
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Dec 11, 2013 11:06
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Holy poo poo. Bookmarked for awesome war stories of nightmare cars and historic automobile hilarity.
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Dec 11, 2013 11:09
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Hello Spaceman posted:Holy poo poo. MOAR STORIES 
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Dec 11, 2013 11:15
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post everything
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Dec 11, 2013 12:27
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My mind!
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Dec 11, 2013 13:03
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Aaaaaand subscribed! This is going to be awesome. That McLaren is insane.
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Dec 11, 2013 13:13
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Subscribed. Can't wait to hear stories and see more pics. Quite envious of your job!
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Dec 11, 2013 18:18
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Can I come hang out at your job? I promise not to touch anything with my hands.
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Dec 11, 2013 18:20
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Cat Terrist posted:Oh holy poo poo, updates as soon as possible please! What this guy said. Because God drat.
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Dec 11, 2013 18:28
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Seat Safety Switch posted:I promise not to touch anything with my hands. but we can rest assured there will be touching 
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Dec 11, 2013 18:58
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This is it. This is the thread.
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Dec 11, 2013 19:01
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More details on the Vette, please. PLEASE...........
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Dec 11, 2013 21:17
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That is a very interesting workshop. Awesome photos
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Dec 11, 2013 22:29
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More. MORE! MOREMOREMORE!!
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Dec 11, 2013 22:44
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This is the best thread.
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Dec 11, 2013 23:02
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EVERYWHERE 
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I could have sworn I thought you were a bartender.
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Dec 11, 2013 23:07
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i love you manta wizard
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Dec 11, 2013 23:49
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DrPain posted:I could have sworn I thought you were a bartender. That's a night job.
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Dec 12, 2013 00:13
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This is an awesome thread. Saw the title and thought it was a 13" thread until I opened it.
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Dec 12, 2013 00:15
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Aren't you the dude with the A/T Bartending thread too? Basically you're the coolest motherfucker on this planet.
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Dec 12, 2013 00:16
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This is loving awesome. I can't wait to read more. Thank you for posting this.
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Dec 12, 2013 00:59
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Holy gently caress you have the coolest job(s) ever. There are no words, in any language, to describe how envious I am. More updates soon, please! VVV Ask and ye shall receive! Terrible Robot fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Dec 12, 2013 |
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Dec 12, 2013 01:14
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At the risk of sounding pretentious, I sometimes feel at this job like more of a curator than a mechanic. While the eventual fate of most cars these days is to be bound for the crusher shortly after their warranties expire, these cars are cradled through history by a never ending series of jackasses like myself. They are Rosetta Stones to a bygone era of engineering when cars were thought up in bars and not marketing board rooms. And then there's this loving thing.  Don't get me wrong, I love Vettes. I have a C3 myself and consider the Corvette to be the ultimate expression of the American sports car. This one however has become the boomerang from hell over the silliest of all things. When we did our initial inspection on this car it only had two major issues that needed to be addressed. First off it had a lip on it's rotors almost as long as my dick is wide as well as being below spec to be machined. Second there was a DTC saying "SERVICE ACTIVE HANDLING SYSTEM". This is a system that works in conjunction with traction control to make slight adjustments to wheel speed to assist in high speed turns. I figure that this is a code that can probably be cleared with a Tech II and decide to research it later. Well we do a complete brake job and when we take it for a test drive we don't get two blocks before both calipers start throwing smoke. Well poo poo. Many hours later we get it home and up on the rack to investigate our work. Much to our surprise we find that we did everything right so we set our sights on the parts guy thinking that he'd ordered the wrong pads/calipers. Just as we're ready to strangle each other I get the idea to check the GM tech bulletins and find our answer. It turns out that there is an active recall out on cars in this range for the active handling system that can cause one or more of the calipers to suddenly lock up during normal operation. Which part of the car was the culprit? The loving telescoping steering column. It seems that the module that controls AHS is in the steering column and after a few years of going in and out it will wear out one of the connectors on the solid state control unit causing a short and then ending your life. I checked the manufacturing range and found that this car was in fact covered by the recall but GM is busting my balls every inch of the way not to fix it themselves. They claim that while it was build within the time for the recall that the VIN doesn't match up in their system. The lady at GM customer service then says that it may have come from another plant. I then inform her that this and every Corvette are all made in the same plant in Bowling loving Green Kentucky but even over the phone I can see her eyes glaze over so I eventually just hang up. PhotoKirk posted:More details on the Vette, please. PLEASE...........  1,032 hp and 965 tq or a power to weight ratio of .32. The Veyron only has a .22 although this is on paper.    In reality the car is almost completely undrivable. It's drat near impossible to keep it in a straight line.  This thing eats expensive tires the way I eat Korean BBQ. Elsewhere in the shop...  This thing used to be a rusted out 49' Cadillac before ZZ Top showed up one day with a bunch of girls and transformed the heap into what you see before you with the power of rock. I still have an awesome bolo tie from the makeovers the other mechanic Don and I got that day.  We take this thing to car shows to promote the shop and I'll tell you it's as fun to drive on California freeways as it looks. It has a 47' buddy here too that we're putting the finishing touches on now. I've also been spending a lot of time lately restoring old Mercs.  I just want to put this thing in a stroller and take it to the zoo.  This is a near perfect 230SL we just finished.  Here is one that has a lot of work to do yet. Speaking of Mercedes. I think something is wrong with the doors on this one. 
James Woods fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 12, 2013 01:16
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Yup, starting to seriously question major decisions in my life.
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Dec 12, 2013 03:05
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"I'm a mechanic." Hahaha. I love how much of a downplay that statement is. Great thread.
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Dec 12, 2013 03:15
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James Woods posted:
You have found my soft white underbelly. Sweet thread, thanks for sharing.
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Dec 12, 2013 03:23
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Buddha on a bicycle, a thousand horsepower C6?! That's at the wheels too, isn't it.
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Dec 12, 2013 03:44
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James Woods posted:And then there's this loving thing. Thank you for sharing all this with us. All I have to say about GM's bullshit with the Corvette is "loving typical".
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Dec 12, 2013 04:06
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drat it if I didn't like science so much....
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Dec 12, 2013 04:14
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Jesus. I picked the perfect day to see what's going on in AI. 
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Dec 12, 2013 04:28
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Left Ventricle posted:Buddha on a bicycle, a thousand horsepower C6?! That's at the wheels too, isn't it. Yes. Yes it is. DrPain posted:I could have sworn I thought you were a bartender. Fun fact, I started posting The Bartender Journals here just about ten years ago. Believe it or not I only started receiving any professional mechanic's training within the last five years. Before that I was the GM of a bar in San Francisco making quite a bit more than I do now. After I left that job I decided to start all over and began simultaneously attending two automotive schools. I did this to ensure I'd get into all the classes for both my Automotive Technology degree and all the supporting skills I wanted to learn like welding, metal fabrication and automotive painting. I decided to get a leg up on my competition in the job market who had a lot more experience than I did and focused a lot of my study on next generation technology like hybrids and EV conversion. This combined with a lot of luck eventually led me here. rear end in a top hat Bicycle posted:Yup, starting to seriously question major decisions in my life. CommieGIR posted:drat it if I didn't like science so much.... It's never too late. Tomorrow I will introduce you to my menagerie of 911s and explain why you should never get one in a convertible. James Woods fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Dec 12, 2013 |
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Dec 12, 2013 05:53
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Working at a BMW dealership pretty much destroyed any desire to work on cars for a living. If there was a shop like yours nearby, I'd reconsider.
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Dec 12, 2013 06:07
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So.... When are we going to have an AI goon meet at this guys shop?
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Dec 12, 2013 06:11
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Here I was thinking this would be a story about how you degraded yourself by stripping on cam sites or something. I'm very pleasantly disappointed to find out it isn't. Amazing.
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Dec 12, 2013 11:33
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Need any turbo manifolds?
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Dec 12, 2013 13:18
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all these cars are amazing, and whats even crazier is I remember reading through alot of your bartending journals when I was college. Its what got me hooked on rusty nails back then and having every bartender question my age when I ordered one at a college bar.
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Dec 12, 2013 13:58
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So hows your Vette coming along? Did you get it to where you want it yet? I remember seeing pics of it in the bartending thread and being jealous 
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Dec 12, 2013 15:31
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Mad Dragon posted:Working at a BMW dealership pretty much destroyed any desire to work on cars for a living. If there was a shop like yours nearby, I'd reconsider. Right around the time I joined SA I was deciding what direction to take my career, and someone had the foresight to remind me that whatever hobby/interest I chose as a career would ruin it for me. I ended up choosing to work in tech, and the only hardware I'm familiar with anymore is enterprise stuff. I had to look at Consumer's and some SH/SC threads to figure out what type of laptop I should get for my wife.
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Dec 12, 2013 18:51
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I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one - getting to curate over those rolling pieces of art is what I would want it to be.
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Dec 12, 2013 19:16
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