Attention procrastinators: How are those winter projects coming?

Porsche is coming along, hopefully it will be running and driving in a couple weeks. Still needs a timing belt, water pump, valves checked, front struts, and some tie rods and then we'll see what other winter projects I come up with for it.

Then work will continue on the 325ES. Need to wrap up the rust repair in the passenger rear wheel well, swap the coilovers on, and reseal the M20B25 to get ready to swap that in. I'll be thrilled if I can get that all done this winter, that stuff plus all the manual swap stuff is taking up a ton of space in the garage.

Then I'll be back to working on the bikes. 300 needs all the suspension bits greased and a new seat, 690 needs suspension revalve and some linkage testing, and I want to see if I can swap the engine from the FX450 into it. 990 is pretty decent, just need to lace up a new front wheel. CX500 needs an adapter for the front brake disc conversion and some time spent looking at a rear disc conversion. I say this like it's all winter projects, but who knows. Some of them might end up being next winter projects depending on how distracted I get...

I'm stuck somewhere between "I don't want to work on car projects in the summer, because of the lake."  and "I don't want to work on car projects in the winter, because it's cold and dark."  I'll knock out some stuff after the holidays and before spring.

I have this habit of buying parts for projects, which fools me into thinking I'm making progress....then they sit around in unopened boxes for a while.

Hitting it hard.

Dusty car in the foreground,

Rear upper control arm upgrade to 11-14.  Install NOS Boss 302 brake lines.  Passenger side header gasket and mid pipe fitment.

Clean it in and out.

Lemons car in the background,

Adjust valves, new aero front end with weight reduction, find clunk in front strut area, dash removal and upgrade, swap transmission, reroute the air filter to under the cowl ala 67 Z28 style using a generic square filter instead of a cone.

After presents are paid for and in hand, I am going to be ordering a distributor for my 94 BMW and some upper strut mounts for the front and it will get a tackled in the spring. 

Drift car might get its first oil change in 8 years over winter, and maybe some body repairs via a BFH and some centralized heat, maybe sort out getting the trunk lid latching in place properly. 

Intrepid needs the least amount of work but has to wait til spring. May bring the control arms inside to 'pre assemble' them so thats a quicker swap in the spring. 

My first (and only) winter "project" was to prepare (repaint) the winter wheels for my street car and get new tires on them before the first snow.  I failed. 

The tires are finally getting mounted today... 

Building my engine for Spec Miata. Well.. just finished taking it apart at least. Off to machine shop today. Trying not to procrastinate as this is taking up my only garage space while my daily sits in the cold.

Peanu_Keeyes said:

Building my engine for Spec Miata. Well.. just finished taking it apart at least. Off to machine shop today. Trying not to procrastinate as this is taking up my only garage space while my daily sits in the cold.

The BoHo rug and music stand really tie the garage together. 

I'm hoping to get the 2020 Challenge project moving again. Stampie is going to be cracking the whip on me next week. 
 

Also need to replace the radiator and some AC parts in the Miata.

My son's daily, the ralliart wagon is getting the timing belt done this week. I'll need to do brake pads on the front when it gets home. 

We traded in the Mazda five, so I don't have any work on that hanging over my head anymore.
 

I need to get my GMT 400 ready to sell. Fortunately, not much planned for that. My DD/track car/back up autocross civic doesn't need much right now….

hopefully the expedition we just bought is good for a while.
 

Hoping to buy a trailer this winter to start towing the autocross cars. Need to sell the truck and some stuff to pay for it.
 

The 240Z's suspension is about 70% complete in the refinishing and rebuilding phase right now.  That is the main thing I am tackling on the project car, but what is oddly putting a pause on the progress is finding spring hats for the coilovers (they were missing along with the inserts and the gland nuts).  KONI Inserts should be good to go, so it's just looking and researching on line until I find enough coilover parts to complete them.   If the suspension is all I get completed by Christmas, I'll drink a cup of cheer to the progress.  Merry Christmas to me 

I've got a bunch of "deferred maintenance" to perform on my Forte GT daily driver. Oil change, brakes, winter wheel slop, and maybe plugs and a cabin air filter. The brakes should be interesting; I've been getting an intermittent grinding/thumping noise out back and lots of vibration while stopping. 

Other than that, I am pondering opening the can of worms that is the floor repair on the Power Wagon. I was driving down the road the other day, and I heard a loud POP and more road noise. I get to my destination and see this: 



Not great! 

At this point I had hoped to have a mk1 Capri in the garage and that's not happened.  I am continuing to very slowly get the garage organized.  No other updates at this time, unfortunately.  I may have to start a thread begging for help getting hoped-for Capri into said garage...

After a burst of energy this fall, my projects have once again been sitting in my garage untouched for a while. The Miata needs new brake fluid, and the stock car still needs its oil pan reinstalled and a ton of other stuff. Unfortunately, I'm moving in January to a condo without a garage or car storage, so the cars will have to stay behind 2.5 hours away. I know I should be busting my butt to get them to a good place before I leave, but I'm so busy I don't usually have the leftover drive to get into the garage in my precious free moments. Of course, before I can work on either of my fun cars I need to replace the fuel pump in my truck...

No projects at the moment, other than trying to find an opening in the house. We rehomed our cat recently (he was getting worse and worse about tormenting the dogs), and now I could hear something crawling around in the attic last night. 

We paid a company a few years ago to come seal up the house, but it seems like one of those disgusting creatures found a way in. 

DirtyBird222 said:

Peanu_Keeyes said:

Building my engine for Spec Miata. Well.. just finished taking it apart at least. Off to machine shop today. Trying not to procrastinate as this is taking up my only garage space while my daily sits in the cold.

The BoHo rug and music stand really tie the garage together. 

Haha, the Mrs. wanted a place to occasionally hang out and knit since I spend pretty much all my free time in the garage these days. A rug and Amazon couch to the rescue. The music stand... well, I was out of spots to put stuff. 

Progress!! The new steering coupler tightened up the steering–no more dead spot before engagement–and the HVAC fan now works.

Just one more thing to tackle on that car.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I should have a Foxbody Mustang arriving in a couple fo weeks................you all have inspired me not to do any mods to it.......for at least a year. LOL

My biggest winter project is rehabbing my badly-broken right wrist (in mid-August a person in a car ran a red light and hit me on my motorcycle.) I'm well on the way, with quite a bit still to go, hoping to recover some to most of the mobility and strength I once had! 
 

On the FR-S daily/track car:

-Adjustable camber rear upper control arms

-Small streetable front splitter

-Brake pads, rotors, lines

On the Cappuccino: 

-Driveshaft joints

-Fluids

-Turbo/injectors/downpipe/exhaust

On the bikes:

-Finish the crash damage repair on the Husky 701 (nearly done)

-Aesthetic, lighting, and cooling upgrades on the Husaberg FS570

-For the too-long-parked JDM Suzuki GSXR250 inline four: carb/tank/petcock clean/rebuild, brake caliper/master rebuilds, fork rebuild, wheel refurbishment and new tires...test ride!

Fortunately, I only procrastinate the stuff that's not important. Like going to the doctor, and cleaning gutters.

Last week

Today

Hopefully driving it this weekend.

Winter car projects:

1. Figure out why the carb in my TR8 isn't getting fuel; fix said problem (possibly a fuel pump, but not sure).  

2. Purchase and install distributor with operable advance for the TR8 so (hopefully) the engine stops running so damn hot.

3. Fix rubber headlight trim on TR8.

4. If all that happens, start on the transmission swap in the GT6.

There are dozens more, but these are currently at the top of the list.

Of course, none of this will happen if I'm not home... which is looking likely... 

I've finished all of my planned winter projects and now I'm anxious to figure out something else to dig into.

Miata K swap, in progress...

This project got started months behind due to a move, but now it's chugging along.  I'm getting too old for marathon wrenching sessions, so slow and steady is my method.  I try to work on the car every day... even if it's only 20 minutes, do something with it.  It keeps me motivated, progress happens, and the elephant is eventually eaten.

I was going to ask, projects from which winter? 

I'm years behind, but this year's punch list includes:

- Finish the ceiling in our porch

- Get the Saab to the point where it's my DD (replacing the water pump and fixing the leaking heater hoses are the immediate priority)

- Fix the power sliding door that's been broken on the minivan for the past 1.5 years

- Spark plugs on the wife's Pilot

- Spark plugs on the Rav4

- Swap over parts from the parts 9-3 to the "good" 9-3

- Do a cooling system refresh on the Rav4 - radiator, water pump, t-stat, etc.

I'm sure several of those items will still be hanging out there in the Spring!

dj06482 (Forum Supporter) said:

I was going to ask, projects from which winter? 

 

for serious, I think I am closing in on finishing to-dos for 2010

Tom1200 said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I should have a Foxbody Mustang arriving in a couple fo weeks................you all have inspired me not to do any mods to it.......for at least a year. LOL

Yeah, right. :) 

It does feel good making progress, even if little victories.