Jody's Blog at They Might Be Racing

So this whole process of merging households and getting married has taken quite the toll on the car front. I've been spending 90% of my non-work time trying to ensure that everything my wife, daughter and forthcoming baby needs are taken care of.

For the car folks, this is actually a good thing. I've agreed to clean out my 20'X20' storage unit of car parts. I'm starting with the Studebaker related items, and will be moving on to the Austin Healey and finally Jensen Healey items. So check my ebay page frequently. http://motors.shop.ebay.com/merchant/jodyfkerr

Once I get myself out from under my present mess (and work's been crazy on top of it all) I'll be finishing up the door anel assembly article and then figuring out how to recover the center console on the Jensen Healey. We've settled on the name Jensen if it's a boy. :) If it's a girl, well, we haven't figured that out yet.

Also, I'm going to be focusing on the non-cost related aspects of the restorations in the near future as apparently babies need diapers... I figured those blue shop towels were good enough, but then I got one of *those* looks from SWMBO.

So I'm presently taking a break from the latest project and picking off the adhesive stuck to my fingers. I figured I'd put in a plug for this article, as it's going to be a good one. In this next article I'll be covering the process of recovering the door panels for the Jensen Healey. I just finished up 90% of the first panel, and as far as I'm concerned it looks damned skippy. Now that I've got the JH specific kinks worked out I'll film the second door panel and publish the article!

Cheers!
Jody

Yesterday was spent cleaning the garage. This morning I've added an article on the basics of the car stereo component. You can find the article here

Cheers!
Jody

So it's been a crazy month over here. We've had two weddings in my family this month, and I also found out that I'm going to be a dad. Needless to say, cars took a seat on the back burner for a little bit.

This being said, we were out in Las Vegas this weekend and I snapped ~400 photos of the car collection at the Imperial Palace. It's my favorite stop on the Strip. You can see the photos here!

Jody

Hey Folks,

Published the following article on useful modifications for Meda (Sand) blasting cabinets: Media Cabinet Modifications

Also made a video:

The Jensen Healey Heater Assembly restoration article and videos are published!

Here's the article:
Heater restoration article.

Here's the video (part 1 of 2):



(part 2 of 2):


Cheers!
Jody

Hey Folks,

So, when I posted the cost estimation calculator I forgot to add a blog entry about it. I have many people come to me or the site trying to figure out how expensive it will be to restore a car. The Project Estimator is a calculator, based on my experience and a few other known factors to give a rough cost estimate of how much a restoration will cost to perfom. So far it's been pretty well recieved.

Also, yesterday night I did my first "Battery Bailout" of the year. Once it starts getting hot here in Phoenix batteries begin to die at an alarming rate. For those who don't know, a car battery here only lasts a couple years at best. It's due to the extreme heat of the summers here. So, please, before you're stuck in a gas station parking lot, go to your local auto store and have your battery checked. I recommend having it done once every 6 months. Consider it to be free insurance against future breakdowns.

And, for us car guys, remember, a raised hood is a cry for help. As people who know and understand cars, its our responsibility to take these situations as an opportunity to help someone out, and possibly teach them something about their cars at the same time. Remember, what goes around, comes around. I cant count the number of times I've been helped out over the years when one of my LBCs dies on me in the middle of an intersection.

Cheers!
Jody

The Sandblasting Episode:

So, I'm not sure what's more frustrating, seeing that my blog hasn't been updated in two weeks (meaning I've not accomplished anything noteworthy in the past two weeks), or knowing the reason why it hasn't been updated.

I've more or less lost the past couple weeks to working too hard, little girl-ifying my old home office, and dealing with frustrating leg issues. That being said, I managed to get a wild hair on friday, bought some new tools, and managed to get some work done this weekend. :)

At present, the heater sheetmetal bits are sitting out in the sun drying. There was a lot more damage in the unit than anticipated (nothing earth shattering, just mildly annoying). So, I'm almost ready for reassembly of the heater unit, which means that article is forthcoming.

I also published an article on sandblasting basics today, as I spent yesterday explaining it to the 8-year old, and the material was fresh in my head. That article is in the new Shop Tech section of the site.

So, I had another case of the "too busy with life" blues this week in terms of car stuff. I did get one afternoon, but I spent that locating materials for my Heater Assembly rebuild on the Jensen Healey. There's a number of No Longer Availale (NLA) bits inside the box that needed to be replaced.

The one website thing that was done was to upload the photos I took at last Saturday's Pavillions car show. They're available in the Car Show's section of the site.

Jody

So, I've somehow managed to get more articles in the works than I'm able to easily write about in a week. It seems that the combination of doing and then writing about doing is such that it tends to double the time involved.

When you add in me being a doof in front of a video camera it gets even worse. :) I just did a code push which published the first article about Frame-Off restorations. Each project now has a Literature page about the books of the marque. I also tweaked some stuff across the site. Additionally the following articles are presently in the works:

• Car Detailing


• Car Detailing : 2002 Honda Civic Example - Refreshing a mom-mobile


• Jensen Healey Heater Assembly Restoration

I also found out that my Windshield Wiper Restoration article will be appearing in the next issue of the Jensen Healey Preservation Society magazine. How cool is that?

Cheers!
Jody

Still some kinks to work out, and my friend mentioned that I sound a little like a dead fish (from an excitement perspective).

So, one of the super secret suprises from my errands yesterday was a stop off to pick up a better point and click camera to carry in the car/pocket for my random sightings. It really bothered me that I couldn't take good pictures of those cars I saw the other day.

While I was out I gave in to another idea that had been niggling the back of the noggin for a while: Video. I watch all the car shows on Spike & Speed Channel, and thought, why not? Let's do some decent videos of the types of cars and restorations that we don't see on the big shows. Also, it's always bothered me that these shows are done in pretty, professional garages with huge collections of specialists and expensie tools. The reality is that most cars are restored in a normal household garage, using whatever tools are at hand.

I've never done much with video before, though I have been on TV. So, there's going to be a bit o a learning curve on my end getting this right. A little patience at the onset, and some constructive criticism from my readers will go a long way.

Cheers!
Jody

So, today is a car day without really being a car day. I have a wedding to attend this afternoon and hae been given the directive to not allow myself or my junior greasemonkey to get dirty before the wedding.

So, we're running minor car related errands and hopefully getting my articles on car detailing done. I really wanted to go to the pavillions car show today, but well, so it goes. As I was running around early this morning I was listening to an old Harry Nilsson album. I'm always struck by how amazing he was. I still have going through my head, "You've got to have soul, to wash your sins way...."

One of the sideline items that I really get a charge out of is ensuring that I have the popular music of the time the car was originally on the road. Or better yet, finding those amazing albums of the time that may not have been popular, and are less likely to even be remembered.

When cruising around in my '74 Jensen Healey I love to listen to the Harry Nilsson albums Nilsson Schmilsson and The Point!. Additionally, when it's time for driving fast I really enjoy Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive. (and, yes, I know it was released in 1981, but I can imagine many other Jensen Healey drivers listening to it when it came out)

Happy Motoring! It's a beautiful day for driving in Arizona.
Jody

Man, here is the reason why I love living in Arizona. Today, while out fo lunch we stumbled across a new Ford Mustang Cobra GT500, a 1968 Chevy Camaro SS convertible, and one of my favorites, the "venerable" fibreglass body dune buggy.

Watch the slideshow to see what I saw. I apologize for the quality of the pictures. I need to start carrying my proper camera with me at all times. My cell phone is good for a phone, but that's about it.



Cheers!
Jody

So I *finally* got the Jensen Healey Wiper Assembly restoration article done. Special thanks to the folks at Stafford Vehicle Components for information on the wiring that I'd otherwise have had to muddle through on my own. The article can be found here.

The leg, being a bit twitchy tonight, meant that I was not really up to heading out there to work on the heater assembly. Instead I spent some time well spent on Jay Leno's car site. I figure, if I can't be out messin' and drivin' the least I can do is live vicariously through someone else. And, when it comes to a killer car collection that actually gets driven Jay can't be beat. Videos of his cars and drives can be found on his website in the video section. Especially nice is the Jaguar XK 120 FHC (in the classics section). Oh, and for you holier than thou hybrid drivers, look at the 1938 Fiat Topolino.

Cheers!
Jody

So, I'm witing for another publish to finish. I've managed to do a fair amount of catchup. I completed two of the three Honda Civic articles I wanted to complete. They are performing an oil change and changing the spark plugs.

This lead me to do some thinking about modern cars, something that's not normally at the fore of my brain. While I didn't necessarily think much about the work on the various Toyotas recently excepting the ease at which I could work on them, I was very suprised by the differences between the Honda and the Toyotas. Normally I lump all of these into the economy car segment and dismiss them.

But, now, as I'm thinking and comparing the two brands I'm very suprised at how easy the Toyota is to work on, and how much of a pain in the butt the Honda is by comparison. In addition, as I was looking over the work that was done, I realized that the overall Toyota design was more elegant, and that the quality of the parts was higher. Even though it's a silly part, just comparing the engine covers gives a good indication to the rest of the car. The Toyota one was molded with a fair bit of thickness and strength. It was also held down by proper nuts and bolts. The Honda one was thin and flimsy and held in place with plastic fasteners. Based on what I've seen first hand, I'd say that was a fairly good inication of the quality differences between the two cars.

And, whomever thought that having an oil filter installed horizontally halfway up the block on the firewall side of the engine needs to spend eternity in purgatory changing oil filters on his design. No mechanic would have done that, it must have been an "Engineer."

On a much better note, half of the fun this weekend was having SWMBO out there with me. She has been wanting to learn how to change oil (and got a trial by fire on the Honda). She also did a full spark plug job by herself (again, the Honda). While I enjoy just mucking about with cars in general, it's much more fun to share it with someone, especially someone special. Good job honey!

I'm sitting here waiting for the site to finish publishing to the web. I've added the writeup on the spark plug changeout on the Toyota Echo. In addition to this I had to go and back add Meta Tag functionality to the site. I really didn't want to mess with code, as programming is nowhere near as much fun as working on the car. That being said, I needed to do this work to ensure that teh search engines were able to appropriately organize and find pages within the site.

Now that the site has finished publishing out to the server, it's time to work on the other articles. We had a very busy weekend and it's going to take a while to get it all typed out.

So, yesterday was a good and busy day out in the garage. It feels really good to be able to mess around working on stuff again. While I'm still paying for it by the evening, just being able to do something it a great sanity saver!

So, we finished up the Jensen Healey Wiper Assembly restoration/refresh. While the article is published here it's not quite complete, and will be finished this week. I also managed to get the Jensen Healey Heater Assembly restoration/refresh started, so that article will be coming soon.

While doing the Jensen related stuff, we also did an oil change and spark plug replacement on my Assistant Greasemonkey's car, a 2002 Toyota Echo. I was amazed to find that there is no Chilton's or Haynes manual for the car. There is a factory service manual, but it's out of stock on Amazon. I just finished writing up the oil change process here. I'll be adding the spark plug replacement in the next day or so.

Based on efforts to start collecting Austin Healey literature for my BT7 I figured it was a big enough effort to start documenting the Austin Healey project. Project preparation is just as important as wrench turning, and I'd say that without the proper reading ahead of time you can easily jeapordize the success of your project or greatly extend the time it takes to do the restoration. I added two new pages to the site, Project Overview and Literature research. I'm really excited about this project. The Healey is one of my "Holy Grail Cars" and it will be the first full restoration documentation on the website.

Additionally, I went out this morning to do the periodic starting of my "driveable" Jensen Healey (the blue one). I needed to make sure that the battery was still charged (it was). Today SWMBO is off at work, and my junior greasemonkey is visiting with Grandma, so, leg permitting, I should have a good day out in the garage. It's pretty overcast here today (which normally is a rarity in AZ, but this "winter" it's been the norm). Hopefully we won't get any rain. I think we might as the joints are being my weather forcast this morning.

So today's been a pretty good day. for starters I woke up early and my leg wasn't giving me fits. That's a first since the surgery. Then, in the quiet morning time before the house got moving I managed to find a few minutes to enjoy a cup of coffee and the latest Austin Healey Magazine (March-April 2008). I love reading club magazines because of the wealth of information about how to do my own restorations but even more so for the stories about the other car owners. I checked online hoping that the fellow had a website that I could post a link to, but I couldn't find one.

Then I ordered my Heritage Certificate for the Austin Healey. This is an important document to obtain because it will tell me exactly what the factory records of my car were as of the time it left the factory. This will help to verify that all the bits that are on the car are supposed to be there.

And this afternoon, after asking about good books on Healey restoration I had the opportunity to talk to the folks over at
British Car Specialists in Stockton, California. What an enthusiastic bunch they are! The fellow I was working with on the phone about ordering books was very chatty and we ended up spending the better part of an hour talking about our various projects. And better yet, he stumbled across another book after the call that I needed, so he rang me back and we added it to the order. So I should have a nice pile of presents arriving in the post next week to read while dreaming about the restoration.

This evening I also took some time to write out a bit about the history of my Healey. The stories of these cars always intrigues me, so I wanted to make sure I wrote down the story as I remembered it being told to me (as well as adding information from after my acquisition). You can read my History of my Austin Healey BT7 Here.

Cheers!
Jody

I didn't have enough in me to get out to the garage today. I had a nerve conduction study this afternoon, and honestly, if a doctor ever tells you that you need one then run away, very far away. That had to be one of the most annoyingly painful experiences of my life.

So, as I sat here all grumps and stuff, I figured I could at least get some programming done. I've been meaning to add commenting functionality to the site for a bit now. As a computer dork I spend a lot of time on the MSDN sites and I like their feedback/commenting function. So I reproduced it for the site. Now, on almost all pages excepting the Photography based ones you can comment away to your heart's content.

I want to integrate the Photo pages into Picasa's commenting capabilities. I'll be targeting that on my next code release.

Cheers!
Jody

Sunday was a beautiful day, and perfect for a car show. The annual Wheels of Britain event was held at Heritage Square Park in Phoenix Arizona. I saw all sorts of cars: Austins, MGs, Lotus', Deloreans, Minis, and Triumphs.

The full writeup and photos are here: Wheels of Britain '08

Cheers!
Jody

So I had all these grand aspirations to spend some time out in the garage finishing up the work that I've been doing on the wiper assembly for the green Jensen Healey. So that went out the window last night when SWMBO came home from work and told me that the oil in her Corolla needed to be changed because the light came on. Corolla's don't have "change the oil" lights, they have idiot lights that only come on when there's a serious problem.

So, today was spent dealing with Oil Change and investigation as well as being suprised by some of the underhood findings which required significant Battery Maintenance.

Unless I get up really early tomorrow and the leg feels good I'll most likely not get the windshield wiper assembly finished on the Jensen this weekend. But that's ok. Tomorrow I'm taking SWMBO and the munchkin to the Wheels Of Britain car show. There's always a beautiful collection of cars there!

I did my requisite annual visit to the Highland Games in Phoenix this year. Ate my three Scottish Pies, wandered around the clan booths, and watched one of the men (masters class) set a new world record on the weight for height event. This was the first year for the better half and the munchkin, so much of my time was spent educating them about Scotland and Scottish history.

The car collection was out on display, a teaser for next weekend's Wheels of Britain event. i collected a nice set of photos, and have put them on the Car Shows page.

I also managed to get a couple good days in the garage last week, so I'll be writing up an article on windshield wiper aseemblies for the Jensen Healey. I did fall prey to not following my own advice though. I was able to immediately put my hands on everything except the clamp for the windshield motor assembly. The box I found it in (eventually) was labeled "Heater." I'll blame it on the parts gremlins.