IssacZachary
Well-known member
Yes, working on a car can be a love-hate relationship. But there are those of us who always seem to have a hard time finding a decent mechanic. I don't know why but 9 out of 10 times I go to any mechanic it seems the car comes back worse than when I took it in. (For an example, once the mechanic cut the brake line and we ended slamming into the back of our land lord's truck. And I have several more stories just like that.) So I've ended up doing all my own mechanic work, even doing my own alignments.
Of course when you tinker on a car you many times start wanting to modify it. Maybe you want more power or better fuel mileage or something else. For an example I had a 1,500W engine block heater on a car that I just got in and went to work without idling the engine to warm it up even in -40°F weather since the engine was already warmed up to running temperature. I even thought about adding a big thermos that would hold hot coolant in it and then pump that into the engine right before taking off in the morning.
One thing I really wanted to do was do an EV conversion. I even got a car that was known to be easy to convert to a BEV, a classic VW Beetle. But then I got a Leaf instead. At first I wanted to do so many things to it: add more battery cells, add more chargers, add solar panels, add an emergency ICE range extender. Or at least some day take a 40 or 60 kWh battery out of a wrecked Leaf and throw it into my Leaf.
But alas! Every time I even mention working on my Leaf I both tell myself and am told by others the horrible danger of working on it. Sadly that means the Leaf won't work for me. It will never go as far as I want it to without modification. If I want to go farther in an EV I have to sell this one and buy that one. Yet that's only at least $30,000 for the "upgrade"? Ouch! No, I can't do that. Even with all the tax credits, no, it won't work for me.
So I'm back to tinkering on ICEV's again, but wondering what the world of vehicles is coming to. A day when you can't work on your own vehicle?? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I honestly don't know.
At least I got my 1972 VW Bug running and will be using that for now. I got a lot of tuning to still do, mainly jetting the carburetor and remapping the distributor advance curves. But hey! It's kind of fun!
Of course when you tinker on a car you many times start wanting to modify it. Maybe you want more power or better fuel mileage or something else. For an example I had a 1,500W engine block heater on a car that I just got in and went to work without idling the engine to warm it up even in -40°F weather since the engine was already warmed up to running temperature. I even thought about adding a big thermos that would hold hot coolant in it and then pump that into the engine right before taking off in the morning.
One thing I really wanted to do was do an EV conversion. I even got a car that was known to be easy to convert to a BEV, a classic VW Beetle. But then I got a Leaf instead. At first I wanted to do so many things to it: add more battery cells, add more chargers, add solar panels, add an emergency ICE range extender. Or at least some day take a 40 or 60 kWh battery out of a wrecked Leaf and throw it into my Leaf.
But alas! Every time I even mention working on my Leaf I both tell myself and am told by others the horrible danger of working on it. Sadly that means the Leaf won't work for me. It will never go as far as I want it to without modification. If I want to go farther in an EV I have to sell this one and buy that one. Yet that's only at least $30,000 for the "upgrade"? Ouch! No, I can't do that. Even with all the tax credits, no, it won't work for me.
So I'm back to tinkering on ICEV's again, but wondering what the world of vehicles is coming to. A day when you can't work on your own vehicle?? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I honestly don't know.
At least I got my 1972 VW Bug running and will be using that for now. I got a lot of tuning to still do, mainly jetting the carburetor and remapping the distributor advance curves. But hey! It's kind of fun!