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!

Why did I title this entry “It’s Inevitable”?

Here’s exactly why:

Whenever I hand a camera to a guy and say, “Could ya snap a couple of shots of me workin’ on the car?” there’s always at least one of my ass!!!! Oh well… All in good fun, I suppose.

I dunno what it is about me and working on my car, but I really enjoy sitting in the engine compartment while I work. It also seems to cut down on the back strain somehow.

This is my least favorite thing to do. I dunno why, but I hate scraping gaskets off and cleaning the surface. It’s not that I suck at it or anything. And I have lots of patience for it, but I’m thinkin’ maybe I just like to have a tool in my hand rather than a rag.

I figured that while I was there, I might as well retorque the heads. Sadly, I’ve only got a hundred pounds to put behind a torque wrench. Leverage is my best friend.

The next couple shots are the struggle to get the intake back in. Yeah, it’s easier to pull the distributor so it’s out of the way, but as of late, it has been easier to work around the distributor than have to re-stab it. So, here I go, getting the manifold back in without smearing the silicone.

Not too shabby. I’m leaving out the oddyssey of the bolt hole that needed tapping in the head, the metal shavings everywhere, the second oil change and the initial silicone mess during my first failed attempt at getting the intake on. Those aren’t important…*cough, cough* (Yeah, they’re just what working on cars is really all about: adventure!)

The next shot was from when everything went smoothly…

Okay, smoothly except when I accidentally sprayed carb clean on the Band-Aid over my busted knuckle from the day before. Yeah, I hit it so squarely that the pad soaked up the carb clean and transmitted it to my open wound before I could get the darn thing off and quit being grumpy about it. (Hey…it stung…a lot…)

After a few more grumpy faces and a whole lot more cussing, I got back to torquing down the manifold.

And at the end of the adventure, I was one seriously happy little chick. I love my car. I love my car. I love my car!

Jason didn’t think I could pull my intake in 20 minutes. Well, here’s proof. (We didn’t have a stopwatch running, though. It might’ve taken me closer to 25 minutes because I wasn’t actully in a hurry to proove anything. I mostly just wanted to show Jason that I could do it and it really wasn’t that big of a deal.)

There’s really not much involved… I started with the fuel line so that I could get the carburetor out of the way.

I don’t recall how, but I’d already busted a knuckle. Can you believe it? (Okay, yeah, so it’s not hard to bust a knuckle while working on car. At least it wasn’t bad enough to drip blood everywhere… I just kept on workin’.) And it’s not like I’d be sticking my middle finger in puddles of gasoline or carb cleaner or just about every other automotive fluid–’cause they all hurt!

The car was still kind of warm… Luckily I had a few shop rags close by to use as…uh…potholders.

I was trying to beat the clock while not actually rushing. The first socket I’d found happened to be quarter inch, so I ran with that instead of digging out my three-eighths set up. I’m an equal opportunity tool wench.

And here you have it… Me climbin’ in to get better leverage and yanking out my intake manifold. Yippee!!

Putting it back together took more than 20 minutes, but after cleaning everything up, I could’ve easily done it…had my engine been a little more cooperative, that is…

And here we have the final post about the engine swap experience. I only wish I could’ve done an mp3 of starting up the car. 1) I didn’t even think of it. 2) If I had, it would’ve prolonged turning the key. I was so jazzed that my car was finally back together that I simply couldn’t wait a moment longer than necessary.

That final day, Jason and I were putting the last bits on the engine and buttoning everything up. As you can see in the following pic, I was glad that yoga is such a big part of my life now. Not only am I even more impossibly flexible, I’m also a lot stronger and both of those qualities come in handy while working on cars… Well at least they do for me!

The following is Jason’s favorite pic of the adventure. The car is together and we’re just about to start it. Right after this shot, we opened the garage door and I turned the key…and gas promptly leaked out of the fuel rail. Arrrrrrrrrgh! We didn’t get to officially start the car until the next day after I made a parts run. And wouldn’t ya know it? The darn thing started as though I’d just parked the car an hour ago. What an awesome sound that is, too–a new engine starting up. Yeah, there’s smoke and weirdness, but there’s also nothing like the satisfaction of a job well done.

Actually, I think that previous pic might’ve been just after I’d put in the starter. With headers on the car, it’s impossible to get the starter in without cranking the steering wheel. Jason had taken the starter out but then couldn’t figure out how to get it back in. He cranked the wheel while I went under while the car was still jacked up…And discovered that because starters are so heavy and my arms are so wimpy, the only way I’ve been able to wrestle with and install them is because my forearm happens to be the perfect length to tilt my hand back, cradling the starter while shoving it into place. We had to set the car back onto the ground because my arm got too tired holding up the damn starter! I’ve learned the funniest things about myself and how I work on cars…

Anyhow, this last shot (sorry it’s dark, my flash didn’t go off when I needed it), is after the test drive. My valve covers didn’t have baffles in them and too much oil was coming out of the breathers. We used Eddie’s method of tying red shop rags around the bases. Worked brilliantly! (And it’d be months before I solved this problem more permanently!)

There you have it!!!!! I’m a chick who works on cars and you’ve seen the photographic proof!

This post is a little weak on pictures. I have no idea why, but I only snapped a shot before I started working and then one later when I was done…but of myself, not the engine. Whatever.

Everything needed to be put on the front, everything needed to be hooked up. Everything, everything, everything except installing the headers…because Jason promised he’d help with that. I dunno why, but I wasn’t gonna turn down free help, either!

The following picture is an example of what I was always hated for. I used to work in a theatrical scene shop. I own grubby clothes and even coveralls, but rarely wear them unless I know without a doubt there’s a significant chance of getting dirty. Back in the day, I’d paint set pieces, backdrops, build stuff and somehow by the time I left the shop, my clothes would still be clean. Maybe a little dusty, but nothing I couldn’t brush off. I’ve done the same while working on cars, too. Yeah, it’s messy business, but a lot can be done without having to get dirty. Jason marvels at how my clothes remain clean even when there’s motor oil and grease gooping about.

And here I am, displaying my filthy hands and white shirt with only to two tiny dots of dirt after spending several hours getting the car back together. Granted, I stayed topside–anything on my back would’ve required either getting dirty or laying down on a towel, so I refrained–but there you have it… Only two little spots–one of which, the camera didn’t even pick up.

This post reminds me of one of my very first automotive expeditions. I was in my first year of college and had owned this car for about two months when I embarked on my first real project. I’d diagnosed the problem (car was overheating despite being full of coolant. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the coolant wasn’t circulating. Diagnosis=stuck/bad thermostat), opened my still-white-paged Chilton manual and read up on what to do while cross-referencing with my autoshop textbooks. (Good golly, that was sooooooo long ago!) At the time, my car was still as I’d gotten it from the previous owner…never been cleaned under the hood. It didn’t have any leaks, but it certainly had 20 years+ of road grime under there.

I sighed…I didn’t have coveralls yet, so I was going to have to make a few decisions. I went into my room and ever-so-carefully chose a t-shirt and jeans that I could get dirty–maybe even ruin–and be okay with that. This was very difficult for me. I loved my clothes very much and would never intentionally ruin them.

A few hours, a lot of new knowledge, and some impressive cussing later, I not only had a car that didn’t overheat, I had an absolutely filthy set of grubbies–properly seasoned as working-on-the-car clothes. Obviously, my mom wasn’t going to let me put those in with the regular laundry for fear of ruining other clothes, so they were set aside.

To this day, I have no idea how, but my mom got those filthy clothes completely free of stains! And suddenly, I was so pissed! I’d spent so long agonizing over which clothes to ruin and she’d gone and cleaned away my medals of honor. I laughed and thanked her, but darnit! all my proof of being a chick who worked on cars was gone. Oh, the horror!

I still chuckle whenever I think about it. Obviously, Mom and I are from two different worlds when it comes to dirt and it’s a damn good thing because otherwise, I doubt I would’ve learned how to stay so miraculously clean while I work!

Here it is. That crucial moment requiring a little bit of dancing. Jason and Jay are getting the new engine lined up with the tranny.

Eddie’s steering the picker.

It’s really, really close to being ready to bolt up.

And at long last, the boys are watching the topside while I crawl underneath to mate the flexplate with the torque converter. It’s a damn good thing I’m skinny! Between the floor jack under the tranny, the legs of the hoist and the car itself, I barely had enough room to do anything under there.

And here it is…with Eddie pointing to it. I have no idea why.

I’d like to say that the hard part is done, but really, nothing about any of this is truly hard. It’s just time consuming, tedious, and messy. In fact, whenever another woman asks me if it’s hard to work on cars, I usually say, “C’mon. Think about it. If a *guy* can do it…” And she usually replies with a knowing chuckle, “Good point. Probably pretty easy, then, huh?”

It can be.

But then again… I’m just a dumb girl. I dunno anything about cars.

Up next will be reassembly. Y’know, making the car actually run and drive. I sometimes think that’s the fun part.

It’s also the least fun sometimes because this is when you discover how many parts/nuts/bolts/etc. you forgot to pick up before you started the project. I swear, one of the worst things about working on cars is forgetting that damn $2 part. Y’know, like oil, a new battery cable, a few feet of fuel line or vacuum line. You can’t run the car without ‘em and it’s amazing how easy they are to forget until that very moment when you can’t hook something up or get something together. And then the car gets stuck sitting until you can make that parts run. Ugh.

You’ve seen some of my favorite pics from this odyssey. Here’s a shot of my favorite surprise… Ever since I picked out the parts to build my first engine, I’d wanted full roller rockers, but always had to settle on roller tips because to have both roller tip and roller fulcrum was always too expensive. Jason got this engine from T&L and I don’t believe we specified which rocker arms we wanted. So, when we had to swap the old valve covers for the new, I was beyond the valley of elated to discover a tiny little dream of mine had come true without any effort on my part. Notice the immense glee…

Once again, I have no idea what Eddie was doing, but my neighbor, Jay, and I were putting on the valve covers, getting ready to get the show on the road.

Here’s a bonus shot. I don’t know why I was so thrilled with the Dart heads at this point. I mean, it was their fault I had to do all the grinding on the headers.

Although, those heads are probably responsible for a lot of the new power I’m driving. My car gets a lot of attention (well more than it used to, at least) when I pull up to stoplights or cruise through parking lots. It’s not only louder, it’s got the old Ford firing order and sounds meeeeeeeeeeeeeean. One of these days, I’m gonna get Jason into the Viper or the Corvette and see how my dinky 347 measures up. My guess is that there’s still no replacement for displacement, but holy-gas-mileage, Batman, I’m driving one hot little go-cart.

Here’s where I need the most help, so I called in reinforcements. Obviously, Jason was on my team, but between the two of us, not only did we need an engine hoist, it’s always better to have another car guy helping.

And for us, that car guy is Eddie… He’s been Jason’s best friend since junior high and he was the Best Man at our wedding…plus he’s pulled and dropped more engines than both Jason and I combined.

While I’m dinking with the new engine, Eddie’s dinking with the old one. (Notice the Viper doubling as a Mustang hood holder in the background. We’re obviously not the kind of people who get freaky about stuff like that. I’ve known too many guys who actually keep a cloth diaper on their person just to stroke down the car if it gets a speck of dust on it. I will NEVER be that kind of car chick. And you can even watch this blog through the years to see if I end up eating those words. I sincerely doubt it. I’ve yet to eat the fact I swore my car would remain an automatic…and never have a big block…and that I’d never sell it.)

For the following to make sense, you just gotta know Eddie… Okay, so it doesn’t make sense to me either, but still, I think everybody needs to know and have a friend like Eddie.

Jason handed off the camera and got into the fray…I love his shirt. I found it at a thrift store for 99 cents….

“I think. I can.” …And doesn’t he look as happy as I did a few posts ago?!

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had to get new headers and being the girl that I am… If I gotta grind on a set of headers, I wanna grind on the pretty ones. As you can see…these are the pretty ones and good golly, they were worth all the metal shavings embedded in my skin after this adventure.

This next pic is self-explanatory. It’s from the day after all the grinding when we finally did the swap:

The old engine coming out and the new engine still resting on the stand, waiting to go in.

Pulling an engine out is easy. Putting one back in…well…You’ll see in the next post or two…