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Cars I Once Knew
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Before I started building websites, my living was made by hustlin’. I would find beat up cars, put a good face on them and sell them. I went through more than a dozen cars before I finished, and it was a lot of hard work! Some were easy electronic fixes, such as replacing a faulty computer or re-soldering a bad fuel relay connection, but others were pretty tough, such as installing new head gaskets, starters and such. Occasionally, I would get a car that just wasn’t worth the parts and efforts it would take to fix it. When that happened, I would tear it apart and list the parts on Ebay. Surprisingly, this usually turned out to be more profitable than actually fixing the car!
Anyways, I ran across some old photos the other day, and thought I’d share.
| Before |
1986 Honda VF500F |
After |
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There really wasnt a whole lot wrong with this bike. It just had some fuel feed issues. I ended driving this as my only vehicle for about a year. It was a great bike and I was sad to let it go.
I started a website for it www.vf500f.com which is still going on to this day. |
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| Before |
1975 Pontiac Phoenix |
After |
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This was a crummy old car when I got it. Lots of rust spots, wheel covers, and a rusty engine. Nothing some chrome wheels, engine chrome, and an orange pinstripe couldn’t fix! I didn’t make a whole lot off this one, but it was a lot of fun! | 
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| After |
1997? Pontiac Grand Am |
After |
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This car was a tricky fix. It took me forever to figure out that you can’t just change out a car’s computer for another… you have to reset the crankshaft position. At least it was necessary on this car. I ended up finding a guy who had a machine for it, and it was top-notch!
Sorry, no before pictures. |
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| After |
1993 Honda Civic |
After |
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I don’t have before pics for this one either, but this was one of my favorite cars to fix. It wouldn’t start all the time so I bought it for a steal, then I found out it was simply a matter of bad Honda soldering which made the fuel pump relay work intermittently. A quick resoldering of the pertinent connections made this puppy good as ever!
It was incredibly dirty, so after fixing it, I thoroughly detailed it and made twice as much as I bought it for. I miss this one. |
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| After |
Chevrolet S-10 |
After |
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In my defense, I didn’t lower this truck. I would never treat a truck like that. The guy I bought this truck from had it so low, that I couldn’t find a place to align the tires that had a ramp I could go up without getting stuck. I added some chrome tires I had that were pretty wide and gave me an inch or two more ground clearance. I also made new seat covers, cleaned out the engine and carburetor. Good as new! |   |
| Before |
1984 Toyota 4Runner |
After |
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This truck had all four fenders rusted out. A little bit of fiberglass, chicken wire, foam, body filler, and paint fixed it right up! |  |
And there are more, but these are all the photos I could find at the moment. I miss those good old days, I was in a different vehicle every month and always working on something. I ended up going through about 16 different vehicles in the span of 2 years. However, with my website job paying much better money, and some rough run-ins with some scaryish grumpy customers (used cars always breakdown at the worst times), I decided to let this hobby go.
Thanks for watching!
What about the Honda go-cart that got 60 mpg. I believe you said “this is the last car I will ever own, its perfect”. Where’s it now? Probably some poor Asian kids hands burning up the clutch. Oh and the Jetta that got rolled. Like the blog Pongo.
This is really interesting! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed fixing the cars in retrospect. I remember one time when you were so sick of fixing cars. I’m glad to know that wasn’t your feeling all along. I’m so proud of you for learning all the technical details of fixing cars all on your own!