Quote: (03-11-2016 01:48 PM)evilhei Wrote:
Is anybody building a car as a hobby? I have one older Open Corsa which is not needed and I was thinking that instead of just scrapping it or selling it for couple of hundred bucks I would do some modifications on it and maybe drive it around for fun.
I have no experience in building cars so it would be good opportunity to build up some manly car skills.
First thing I would probably need to find some places where to actually execute my hacks on the car. After finding the place I would swap the engine from 1.2->1.6 and see where to go from there.
Anybody else got some 67 Mustang or Opel Corsa sitting in the garage for some Sunday man fun?
I buy cars, build cars, drift cars, track cars, sell cars, scrap cars, and when I feel down I just stand at busy intersections and look at all the cars. I can therefore safely say that I'm a car guy. Here's a few pointers;
- It's hard to find other car guys in Europe because Europeans are fucking boring.
- Being a single car guy and living in a European metropolitan city (seeing the flag I assume you're living in a European metro) is hard because you have to pick between living in the suburbs to have a house and garage vs. living downtown to have good logistics.
- If you don't have a garage, and when you do find other car guys, you can pool up and rent a garage somewhere in the sticks and do all your car shit there.
- If you do have a place to do mods at, but it's not owned by you, assume that something will go horribly wrong and your car won't be able to make it out of there on its own power, and make sure that it's not a problem that it stays there for a while (until you get parts or tools to fix your fuck up)
- If you have literally no experience in building cars, just sell that 1.2 Corsa and buy a 1.6 Corsa if that's what you want or something else if it isn't, and save yourself the headache and swear words because an engine swap is not the best first mod.
- If the Corsa you have is destined for the scrap yard, instead of starting an engine swap which you almost certainly won't be able to finish, just rip out the interior, do a tune up (oil, oil filter, spark plugs, air filter, run a can of Seafoam through a vacuum line) then start with a battery relocation (which is indeed a good first project) and just smash it around the nearest race track.
- If you instead decide to sell it, get a miata or an E30 both of which are very fun vehicles.
Tool pointers:
- First of all get a Haynes manual for whatever car you have.
- Get a good socket wrench. Don't cheap out on the wrench, get a good one or cry later. Get 3/8" and/or 1/2" drives and you may also get a smaller one with a 1/4" drive in case you need to do electrical work in cramped areas like the footwell etc.
- Get a metric socket set and make sure you have multiple 8, 10 and 13 mm sockets as these are the most commonly used and you'll most certainly drop a couple in your engine bay.
- You don't need an imperial socket set
- Get a spark plug socket
- Get a wrench set, those with one open end and one box end, again metric. You may get a ratcheting wrench set if you're feeling extravagant.
- Get an oil filter tool
- Screwdriver set
- Hammer, mallet, pliers etc. the usual suspects
- Can of WD-40, penetrating fluid, degreaser, rust remover etc
- Jack and jack stands (Please use jack stands!) or a set of ramps
- Bricks or old wheels are not jack stands
- These are pretty much the basics, I have a duffel bag full of tools that I carry out most of my shit with and it pretty much consists of these and a bunch more stuff that you probably won't need in the beginning.
Overall:
- Automotive work is very easy when someone else does it.
- I think I already covered how you shouldn't assume that your car will be able to make it out of the garage, last sockets get dropped in the engine bay, bolts break when you don't have extractors, wiring shorts out and electrical parts get damaged, you realize you don't have the right tool at the end of a 3-hour job and you can't put the thing back together, do your thing carefully but keep in mind that anything can happen.
- When buying junkers to fix and flip I personally try to avoid ones with electrical issues because of how quickly it becomes a shit show considering pretty much everything is electronic (and proprietary) in modern cars.
- Try to buy something with easy fixes such as "needs new exhaust" "clicking CV joint" "blown shocks" etc.
- Make sure you have another means of transportation while your car's out of order, to be able to go to the store and blow more cash on tools and parts.
Ping el mech so he also drops his $0.02
Godspeed OP and welcome to the club.