I just went on a rampage and built a collage to use as a background for my myspace page.

Click here and add me as a friend.

I got all my cars into it except my ‘06 Mustang GT vert because I still don’t have pics of it. Ugh.

I just realized that I don’t have a shot of each of my cars posted here. Duh…

Here goes…!

This is my pride and joy… ‘68 Mustang fastback. She was born a plain jane, but I assure you, she’s never been plain during the years I’ve owned her. Most of this blog has pics of me working on her. She always keeps me on my toes and will always be with me.

The ‘83 Trans Am in the previous pic used to be mine as well. Had to sell it, but I don’t really miss it that much. It was a nifty neat car and I wish I could’ve kept it, but I’m glad to’ve owned it for a time and gotten to drive it in a few television shows.

Notice the difference in engine compartment between the previous pic and the following one? The one below was taken in 1998… A few things have changed during that time, huh?

‘66 Corvette convertible… Yes, that’s a 427/435 under that hood. I’ll admit that this is more Jason’s car than mine, but right now as I write this, I’m supposed to be tuning the carb, so if I gotta work on it, I’m claimin’ ownership, too! Yes, I do drive it. And yes, it’s a very loud beast. I even used it in a few television shows and feature films.

What can I say, I like ‘68 Mustangs. Here’s my Convertible cruiser. He’s not fast, but he sure does look and drive great.

I told my hubby I was gonna do ‘a little tinkering on the car’. He came out and this is what he found!

My uber-shiny ‘92 Camaro Convertible 25th Anniversary Heritage Edition. It’s supposedly one of 7 made in this particular option combo, but I haven’t done more research to find out how true that is or where the other 6 are.

Here’s my project car–’69 Corvette–when we bought it. Finding it, involved my best friend Eddie (he helped with the last engine swap) and a pair of binoculars…over a period of about 15 years.

When Eddie and Jason lifted the hood, this is what they found. Nice, huh? Just start ‘er up. NOT!

Eddie and I particularly enjoyed this detail… Yeah, that’s a wasp nest on that rotor… I saved it, too, just ‘cuz I’m weird like that.

My ‘03 Viper is quite a fun ride…

You boys can thank my hubby for the following shot. Previously, I blogged about the ‘inevitable butt shot’ that happens when I hand a guy a camera and ask him to take a few shots of me working on a car. Well…here’s yet another prime example…

Last, but certainly not least, my ‘00 Prowler… (I really need to take more pics of it. I don’t even have one of me with it! And I don’t know how that happened.)

I also have an ‘06 Mustang GT convertible, but I have yet to photograph it. As soon as I remember to snap some shots, I’ll post ‘em, I promise.

I wrote a novel and apparently it’s pretty good. It has received more than one 5-star review. As far as I’m concerned, the cover kicks ass, too.

Magic is only a small part of the real dangers lurking in a future of dark otherness.

It’s an urban fantasy. There aren’t any car chases. I know…I know…What’s the point, right? Well, like I said, it’s getting good reviews so it must not completely suck. And really, I just wanna post the video I made for it because it turned out way better than I thought it would…

Types of Car Guys…
While posting in a Mustang forum the other day, I had a tangential thought that had nothing to do with the forum or what I was posting. It just randomly landed in my brain and had me looking back over my automotive life.

The early years were spent in autoshop. It was there that I intensely learned the types of car guys through the school of hard knocks. Not that I’m grumpy, I’m most certainly not. I love guys and find them fascinating. Hell, I’ve been told I’m “more of a man than most men.” And it has been wondered if I’m a lesbian because I’m not into traditional girl things. Well, if I’m a lesbian, why do I hate chicks so much? Why would I prefer to be around guys and cars? I guess I’m just wired different. Oh well. Such is life. In fact, it keeps my life interesting to say the least.

Although still off my original topic, that brings me to something else I gotta share. One guy say to me, “You must be a dude. You have a dick, don’t you?” Before I could say anything, my ex-boyfriend said, “She doesn’t have a dick. She’s got five. She keeps them in jars as trophies.” Same guy who said I am more of a man than most men. It has been about a decade since then. I wonder if I’ve girlified since then. I still have the jars–err…uh…never mind.

Anyway, back to my topic…

In no particular order, I started thinking about the various car guy types I’d met. From the old guys who’d seen and done it all and really didn’t give a shit anymore. To the young bucks dripping with so much machismo, they slipped in their own puddles.

But it wasn’t always about age. I think it was a confidence thing.

As evidenced by my little Car Guy Types here:

There were a few–maybe two or three–guys per autoshop class who were genuinely excited about having a girl in the class. They wanted to take me under their wing and teach me a thing or two (or three or four) about cars and for that I’m greatly indebted to those few men who for the most part were surprisingly not trying to date me, or if they were, didn’t show it. I did date a couple of these guys because I’m attracted to people I can learn from. And what better way to learn than from someone as passionate as I was about cars? Plus, there’s always the added bonus of working on cars together and cracking jokes about honing my master cylinder.

Next are another favorite of mine… The guys who genuinely didn’t care that I was a girl and treated me like one of the guys. There was the occasional, “You wrench like a girl.” type jokes, but I love ‘em. I loved those guys because they also helped cultivate my deep appreciation for dick-and-fart jokes while teaching me a thing or two or three about cars.

Now we start getting into the other, less fun types…

And there are two subsets of this type. Both hated that there was a girl in the class. She didn’t belong there no matter how smart or how capable or how much she liked cars. She was a girl and should be playing with dolls or something. (Little did they know, at home, I was collecting antique dolls and now I restore them as well as I restore cars.) Anyway, one type I put up with because of the nature of their affliction. The other I simply avoided like the plague because I didn’t need the bullshit.

On my first day in bodyshop class, during break, a guy sat down next to me. I’d been hiding all the way in the back of class. I never know if I’m walking into an ambush, so I just hide until I know who feels what about having a girl in class. Anyway, this guy plunks down next to me and says, “So why are you here?” I reply, “Uh…To learn…” Duh. Why else does a person take a class? He says, “Yeah, sure. You’re just here to pick up guys.” I stifled a pretty hard laugh. I mean, doesn’t every girl pick up guys in autoshop rather than engineering or business, or even music or literature? Sure. And every woman knows mechanic’s hands are always so clean and silky smooth. Uh-huh. Yeah, like a rasp or a cheese grater when sculpting bondo. Niiiice. Like the business end of a cylinder hone. Mhmmm… Oh yeah, now there’s a great exfoliant.

But that set the tone for my in-class relationship with the guy. In essence, I avoided him. Just as I avoided the guys who said, “Isn’t there a kitchen you should be cleaning somewhere?” Bullshit. I suck at cleaning. Always have. Just ask my mom.

So, you have the guys that are just really irritated that there’s a woman in ‘their domain’. They try to sabotage every now and then, but I’ve also found that they are often pretty stupid. Which makes them more pissed off when I get around whatever they put in my way. More bullshit just triggers more avoidance. Who needs the anguish? Besides, success is the best revenge.

And finally, there’s the guys who like the other sub-set are upset that there’s a woman in the class. She doesn’t belong there, but she’s there and he’s gotta deal with it. And by golly, there’s no fuckin’ way she’s gonna score higher on the test or fix a car better. No fuckin’ way. No sirree. He’s gonna have to show her just how much smarter and how much better he is.

And that’s why I put up with those guys. They learn the most from the class and about life while trying to outdo the chick. I wasn’t there to impress anyone but myself, so I really didn’t care if a guy felt he had to do better than me. Quite honestly, I’ve always been book smart and the autoshop tests were pretty easy for me…which made ego guys work harder to learn more. I always had one of the top three or four scores on each written test. And seeing a guy go from a D to a B during a semester was always a joy.

Same for working on the cars. I wasn’t always that great. I had lots to learn about how things went together and stuff. That was when the ego guys could and often did show me up…and I learned a lot from them showing off. For that I’m thankful.

So there you have it. Toolwench’s take on the types of car guys. I still think it’s a confidence thing. Women are guilty of it, too. There were times when I did want to show that I had a clue what I was doing. I do get irritated when I rumble up in my Mustang and some asshole says, “Hey, is that your boyfriend’s/husband’s/dad’s/brother’s/uncle’s car.” I do sometimes feel that I have something to proove, but I choose those battles wisely. I know where I stand in my car knowledge and lack thereof. I always want to learn more. That will never change.

And, no, it’s not my boyfriend’s/husband’s/dad’s/brother’s/uncle’s car. It’s mine!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m trying to post more often, but in that, I end up posting less often. I don’t know how that happens, but anyway, this time I do have a reason. I was gone for a week. I’d done the journey in about 4 days before, but this time, well, things went a bit differently.

I was driving a fully loaded ‘85 Cadillac Seville. Yep, that was 135 horses of purebread slowness, following a motorhome towing a trailer–which could smoke me on accelleration! Oh yeah, I was feelin’ sassy in my Cad-O-Lack that had been sitting for about ten years and probably should have been towed, but what the heck, I only live once.

And when Bobby Ore asks if you’d drive for him, the only answer is yes. So I did.

But the car kept breaking down. No surprises there, huh?

30 minutes in, radiator blew.

3 or 4 hours from there, the smog pump belt broke–and it was brand new!

Another 3 or 4 hours from there, we limped into a shop.

…Who among other things didn’t tighten down one of the radiator hoses.

Another 5 hours from there, that radiator hose came loose and sprayed the brakes plus the windshield. Nice.

Limping into another shop got everything patched up, but I think we were both still wary.

The rest of the trip went off without incident. Which was refreshing, I might add!

Somewhere during the first bit, we pulled off to glue the rearview mirror back on. But given that I’ve unsuccessfully done 4 and have a propensity for having them come off in my hand when I adjust them, I let Bobby do the glueing and then I decided to wait a few hours to let the glue dry.

Well, hours turned into days because I completely forgot!!!!! This pic was taken during the last 200 or so miles of the trip:

One of the reasons I forgot about the rearview was because I was concerned with the sideview mirror. The passenger side one was good as gold, but the driver side one… Well, I dunno what was going on with it other than it wasn’t really connected to the guts behind it. Over the course of the first thousand miles or so, I finally set up this sophisticated method of getting it to stay properly aligned. It was quite an engineering feat considering I had nothing but a couple napkins to work with…

All in all, even though it was hellish, the trip was worth making. I mean, if nothing else, it can serve as a memory of times much worse. I survived just fine. A little worse for wear, but the car made it to Florida in one piece after those first three days.

I forgot to take a picture of the car itself…Duh…I know, I know… But here was my view from Los Angeles to Central Florida:

Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Sorry, I’ve got no pics of the event, but it was raining pretty good most of the time and, really, I needed to focus on my driving.

‘Cause I wanted to pass this time!

I blogged about how hard I sucked at stunt driving, but this time was much different. This time, I was more confident and essentially, I realized that stunt driving is easy. My problem wasn’t the driving. It was me. Apparently, I have difficulty thinking. Yes, thinking. How so? Well, I don’t know how to answer that. All I know is that this time around, my thoughts were crystal clear and everything fell pretty much into place.

Bright and early on that Saturday morning, I showed up for class. I learned the importance of tires and various other bits about stunt driving on a working movie set. Then, it was time to go out on the course.

And I wasn’t nervous this time. Not at all. I knew a lot would be required of me, but for some reason I simply didn’t care. I just wanted to drive and learn.

Boy did I ever!!!!!!

It was raining. For me, I saw that as good luck because that’d mean it’d be easier for wimpy little me to get good lock-up. I knew that this was now or never.

We worked through the slalom and learned how to shuffle steer. I’d been practicing my shuffle steer every time I drove since my last class, so that was pretty easy for me. I’d also been practicing using a focal point.

Once the whole class was ready, we moved on to forward 180s. Last time, I had a helluva fight to yank up on the e-brake and get the car to lock up. This time, just as I’d suspected, because of the rain, locking up was hard, but not impossible like it had been last time. My arm started to hurt, but I didn’t care because I was finally able to get lock-up and and throw the car around. I know the teacher wanted us all to finesse these to perfection, but honestly, I didn’t care at all. For me, all that mattered was that I got lock-up and got the car around. The finesse, to me, wasn’t necessary for my own personal satisfaction with my performance. In essence, progress was more important than finesse.

The next day, we continued our forward 180s left and right and then went into sliding 90s. Y’know, when you slide into a parallel parking job coming at it from the side.

My arm hurt so bad, it went numb and didn’t always work. But the rain continued and I still got good lock-up. Once again, I know the teacher wanted us all to finesse the car right in the middle of the coned-off box, but I was satisfied with just getting the car fully in the box. Whether I was forward or back or side-to-side didn’t matter. Just getting it in the box was progress for me.

And that took awhile. For some reason, the whole class had started having trouble with our forward 180s and that sort of crushed our morale I guess when we went into the 90s.

But eventually I got it. And then the miracle happened… I started to really understand how to ‘feel’ the car. I’d been feeling it all along, but hadn’t been able to really understand it. I hadn’t been able to read it well enough to adjust my input to get a perfect run as a result. I’d come flying at the cone gate for the 180 and be so concerned with getting lock up that I’d forget to crank the wheel into the turn, or I’d turn it too far, or too soon. In the 90s, I’d fly toward the cone box too fast or forget to let go of the wheel once I tossed the car into the box.

I can’t say that I’m any good at stunt driving. I can’t say I’m consistent. But I can say that I know what I’m trying to do and learning how to read what I feel in order to make the stunt happen correctly.

Once I realized that, I sort of looked back at the day and a half and was so satisfied with my performance that not only did I not care if I never quite got the finesse right, but I also didn’t need to take the test at the end to be satisfied with what I’d learned.

However, the course was wet and slippery enough that I knew I’d be able to get decent lock-up. This time, I wanted to pass that test.

After more practice of the slalom, forward 80s and sliding 90s, we moved on to reverse 180s.

Sadly, I never quite mastered them. I learned a new technique–well, order of actions–from one of the instructor’s assistants which I put to good use and excelled way beyond how I’d fared in my last class. But more importantly–I thought, anyway– I figured out on my own what I was doing wrong just before the teacher told me. For some stupid reason, I kept forgetting to let go of the wheel and let the car right itself. Oh well. It’s something to work on in the future.

At the end of the second day, it was time to test. We practiced and I knew I was going to pass. I just knew it. I didn’t allow myself to practice into the ground because I wanted to save my poor little arm and I didn’t think I’d be getting any better that day anyway.

So, when the moment was upon me–finish the course in 59 seconds or less–I took off on a practice run…

And screwed it up so badly that I was thankful to take a second practice–which was close to perfect, but I didn’t quite get the car all the way into the final box. My time was good, though…50-something seconds. I wasn’t really worried about timing. I was worried about keeping the car between the cones without touching any of them.

But now it was do or die. I had to do a passing run on that third one or I’d fail again. Well, before I took off, I congratulated myself for actually testing this time. I didn’t even bother testing last time because I knew I’d fail. This time, I knew that even if I didn’t pass, I’d learned so much and came so far. It didn’t matter anymore, really.

But deep down, I wanted to pass.

I slalomed through the cones, grabbed that e-brake with all my might and whipped the car into the 180 to the right. Slamming the brake back down, I took off right through the center of the cone gate, set my focal point and then yanked the e-brake and tossed the car into a 180 to the left. Dropping the brake and smashing the gas, I had to cheat and use a little main brake to slow the car after locking it as I skidded into the box for the 90 to the right. I waited for the “go” once the guys were sure I was in the box without hitting cones. I gritted my teeth and set up for the reverse 180–trying to make myself believe that it wasn’t my weakest maneuver. I stomped the gas, then as I whipped the wheel, looked back and threw the car back into drive. I still forgot to let go of the wheel, but I didn’t care because I didn’t hit any cones. I blasted toward that final box and threw the car into it to the left.

And waited.

Nervously.

To find out if I was in the box all the way.

And if I’d made it in less than 59 seconds.

My heart was beating a mile a minute and I suddenly realised that I’d done it. I’d made it all the way through.

…And I had the fastest time in the class: 46 seconds.

Wahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I could think of was, “GO ME!!!!!!!!!!”

This was before all the fun started. I like the array of cars and sportbike in the background. I felt like I was definitely in for loads of fun.

I’ll be posting more videos at CarCrazyCentral, but for now, notice my big grin…? I was sitting in the backseat while my Buddy Jim Wilkey from Wagon Train Productions drifted the car every which way and then some.

While sifting through a file of non-car pics, I found one that is totally car-related. One of my favorites from this time period.

I like to think of it as a true portrait of the real me. It says just about everything anyone needs to know about me. (Well, except that I don’t normally wear pink. I just happened to be wearing pink on the day this pic was taken. Just imagine the shirt is blue or something.)

This also demonstrates what I mentioned a few posts earlier… Hand a guy a camera and ask him to get a few shots of me working on my car and there’s always a butt shot in there. And this was taken before I got a digital camera, so you can imagine my surprise when I got the pics back from the developer! Ah well.

Like I said, it’s all me. I’ll work on my car any time, anywhere, while wearing anything.

Hell, when my car caught on fire the first time, I was wearing a skirt. Yeah, on the side of the road, there I was using my fire extinguisher while trying to keep my skirt from flying up and giving even more of a show than my car.

Got the fire out.

Told all the tow truck drivers to get lost. They tried to take advantage of me, thinking that I’m just a dumb girl and I don’t know anything about cars. HA! Once the flames were doused, I was back on the road in ten minutes. No tow required.

Because I’ve got another general blog about various aspects of my life and I wanna get my car stuff all in one place, I’ve started this one, too.

Allow me to introduce myself…purely off the cuff and not really bio material yet:

My name is Toolwench.

I like cars. A lot. No, really. A lot. Yes, I’m a girl. I like boys, too. It’s probably their fault I like cars so much. I mean, when I was growing up, sure I played with dolls (still have ‘em and then some!), but I also played with Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, too (still have most of them, too!). It wasn’t until much, much later that I discovered how much I liked cars inside and out.

And tools… Well, there’s just something about tools. The way they fit in your hand, or sound when you power ‘em up or especially what they enable you to accomplish. From antique doll restoration (yeah, sorry, I’m still hardwired to be a girl!) to muscle car restoration, I’ve used my share of tools and always welcome new ones in hopes that they might be my next ‘lucky screwdriver’ or other storied tool in my arsenal. As a little girl, I was my daddy’s toolwench and I learned a lot about how things work.

I also thoroughly enjoy driving and I drive all of my cars like I stole ‘em. I mean, if I’m gonna have a car, it needs to be driven. That’s what they’re for, right? Plus, I know that if I wreck it in half, I’ll be the one welding it back together, so there’s considerable incentive to listen to the car and not push it beyond what it or myself can do.

Okay, there you have a little bit of background on me.

Now I’m gonna move some of the old posts from my other blog to this one… Scroll down and enjoy!