I Have Not Betrayed His Teachings

David Freiburger has a saying, "Don't get it right, just get it running."

The idea is that a running car is one you will drive and if you're driving it, you will be motivated to work on it until it is right.

The AC fix is a running example of "getting it right."

I hope he forgives me doing so on my mobility blob®.

A 2012 Caprice PPV is too new for his tastes... 

Update:

I just realized that I kept it running for a year and a half without fixing the AC and, thus, followed his philosophy.  A running car with a problem gets you motivated to fix on it.

I remember The Biscayne SS being relegated to it's spot and decaying away because I didn't feel like working on it when I had The Precious to drive.

Menagerie Restored!

The Beast has a collection of beasts!  With the windows down, they'd fly around and there was a distinct chance of losing one overboard.

With the AC fixed, it shouldn't be a problem now.

I am a whimsical creature!

Monkey See

Back when I did my map-light mod I focused on the mechanical process of getting the right wires in the right position on the new connector.

Recently, the driver's map-light would stick in the on position.  Most of the time, the switch would eventually shut it off, but the other day...  Nope.

I had to unscrew the bulb.

I thought, "no biggie, I don't really use that one anyway."

There I sat until Marv started his own map-light mod and, unlike me, he's looking at WHY it works instead of just HOW it works.

He noted that there's a lot of voltage sensing circuitry in there and I remembered that the passenger side was stuck in the on position when I first did this mod!

So I put an incandescent in the driver's side and the switch appears to do what it's supposed to do again!

I'm not going to declare it fixed because it would work fine for decently long periods of time when I checked to see if it would stick. 

Falling In Love Again

Things that have been getting progressively fixed and upgraded on The Beast are really paying off.

My Lords she's smooth and surefooted now.

I am not sure how I will act with working AC, but I am poised to start the last step there. 

A Correction

I posted about Minnesota's changes to their classic car registration and mentioned some steep prices...  In this post.

I said:

Betcha that there's a lot of shitboxes that are 2006 and older that have a "Collector's Vehicle, collector plate" who are doing it to avoid the 10% of original MSRP plus 1.575% of current value.

For reference a '69 Chevelle's MSRP is in the $2,600 ballpark.  Current value is VERY subjective, so let's say $50k because that's what Autotempest says.  So $1,047.50 a year to register your '69 Chevelle in Minnesota.  That's steep.

A 2006 Toyota Corolla ran $14,725 sticker price and is worth $6,500 today.  $1,574.88 a year.

See the incentive to call your shitbox a collector car?

 But I made an important error.

The percentage value of your car is only on a car that's 10 years or newer.  It was also $10 plus a percentage not 10% of MSRP plus a percentage of current value.

The classic car we're talking about gets a $30 flat fee, plus $8 renewal fee, plus $2.25 technology fee, plus $15.50 or $13.50 for plates depending on if you want one or two and some counties add up to $20 for "wheelage".

$53.75 to $75.75 a year depending on how many plates and what county you live in.

The lifetime classic plate fee of $178.50 is a bargain!

My underlying conclusion that there's people with 20 year old cars who've gotten the classic plate to avoid the annual headache and costs is still valid, just not so strikingly so.

Still, nothing about putting restrictions on where or when you can drive a car so registered makes the sky fall. 

Oh, the cost to register a new car is fucking extortionate!

Replace the $30 with $10 + 1.25% of the base value of the car.  That's $12.50 per thousand dollars your cars original MSRP.  $413.18 for a 2027 Equinox in Hennepin County.  Every year.  For ten years!

Be Seated

Replaced the rear seat back with one from a wrecked 2008 Pontiac G8.  Harvey was instrumental in her assistance!

What you get with a G8 seat instead of a Caprice PPV is an armrest...

...and a pass-through to the trunk with a little table and cup holders.

The little blue beast sits in there just great!

I also confirmed that the wire I ran makes the overhead console's buttons illuminate.

The little light in the middle is supposed to light up the cup holders in a Holden VE Commodore.

It Really Ties The Room Together

The Beast is in an advanced state of reassembly!

The eagle eyed might notice that the steering wheel is different from when I started.

This wheel is from a 2009 Pontiac G8.  Since the G8 and Caprice PPV are from the same generation of Holden, it's a plug and play.

The big difference is the G8 wheel is leather wrapped instead of injection molded plastic over a foam core.  That foam degrades and the plastic starts to get loose...  Ask Marv how we know.

I did it more for the preference of a leather wheel than degradation on my old wheel.

That Will Learn Me

Harvey, via my ebay account, ordered a Pontiac G8 back seat for The Beast because it's got a fold-down arm-rest and a pass-through to the trunk.

She ordered it on the 20th with 4-day shipping.

You might notice today is the 26th.

No seat.

If I'd checked, and read, my emails from ebay I'd have caught the message from the seller asking me to call.

Something this size needs to be shipped to a freight center and they needed my OK to do so.

I gave the OK.

Gotta drive down to Tampa to get it, but mox nix.

 

A Little Irony

Being on the GM side of the Ford/Chevy debate in hot-rodding means that the brakes on my car came from Australia.

I noticed that on the castings for my '79 Camaro and they were present on the Biscayne SS and Corvette too.

But The Beast is running Brembo.

I bought an Australian car and for the first time in decades, my brakes aren't.

I guess having Italian brakes means continuing the tradition of the calipers being from a different nation than the car. 

It Was Cars First

My road to being a gun owner ran through being a hot-rodder.

It also is the core of my hatred of greenies.

Do you know how much pollution I've saved by not getting a new car every 3-5 years like they do?  They never count the pollution of making their new car and disposing of the old one.

It's a lot more than the pollution of driving a "dirty" car for 15-20 years.

It's amazing how many gun control things rhyme with car stuff.

California has a handgun roster and it is poised to have a tire roster.

Because rolling resistance is all that matters in a tire's design.

They're using the thin veil of "that's what came on the car" as cover for the decision and how much it's going to save the consumers in fuel.  Never mind the OE tire is normally the most expensive one you can get for a given car and that costing the customer more in tires than they save in gas...

But why did the OE put that shitty tire on the car in the first place?  Corporate Average Fuel Economy.  The teeny increase in mileage from low rolling resistance can be enough to move the car's EPA efficiency to a different column and keep the OE from paying taxes, fees and fines to put it on the road.

They didn't do it because it's the best tire for the car and what the consumer wants to do with it; they did it to comply with a set of regulations that were never attached to reality and get further detached every legislative session.

By the way, this is the same government that decided we all need to have run-flat tires rather than insist we learn how to deal with a blow-out.

Just wait for when your rear view mirror gets replaced with a camera! 

I'd Be Excomunicated

We were talking about winning any of several raffles giving away a hot rod and we expressed that modern engines and transmissions make life so much more bearable.

That means an engine and transmission swap on anything we might win.

We then turned to what our dream car might be and I mentioned that I like the MOPAR big cars like the Imperial and Fury.

An LS swap would be the best/cheapest, but that's a GM engine into a MOPAR and that just pisses people off.

A Hemi®™ crate engine and trans would retain the MOPAR, but it's a lot more expensive and a lot more finicky for the home-tuner.

The guy who has the money to already be building his dream car(s) says, "Put in a Coyote motor and piss everyone off!"

Then it hit me.

If you're going to be sacrilegious about engine swaps and be a heretic...

The car you put a Ford Coyote engine into is...

A Plymouth Road-Runner!

It's so damned obvious.

If I were very lucky, I could be buried in secrecy so my grave don't get violated. 

Ratioed

Did some math.

Being a long term hot-rodder it bothers me that the rear gear ratio in The Beast starts with a 2.

2.92:1 to be exact.

I think this bothers me because I had 2.56 gears in my '79 Camaro when I got it and they did not play well with the 305 small block and TH350.

The final ratios were 6.45/3.89/2.56.

It got better when I dropped a 350 small block and found a 2.73 posi rear.

6.88/4.15/2.73.

And a bit perkier with the Jaguar rear's 2.88.

7.26/4.38/2.88.

The Biscayne SS, with a 5.7L LT1 and 4L60E and 3.08 gears got:

9.42/5.02/3.08/2.14

The first gear ratio was like having 3.73 gears in the Camaro, but better than the 2.56 for cruising.  Everybody wins! 

The Beast's final ratios are:

 11.76/6.90/4.44/3.36/2.49/1.95

That's like having a 3.73 rear in the Biscayne or a 4.56 rear in the Camaro for the launch, plus extra gears for mileage.  70 mph highway rpms would be about 2,400 in the Biscayne and 4,200 in the Camaro versus 1,700 in the PPV.

A common mod for a PPV is to go with a 3.27 rear from a 5th Gen Camaro, it's stronger too.

Those ratios end up being:

13.17/7.73/4.98/3.77/2.79/2.18

To match that launch gear the Camaro would have needed 5.38 gears and would "cruise" at almost 4,600 rpm at 70.  Yikes!

The Biscayne would need a 4.56 gear set.  Cruise rpm would be just over 2,700.

The PPV would cruise at just about 1,900.

I kinda dig these new transmissions.  Plus, it doesn't seem like many people are complaining about the 6L80's strength. 

Conceited

Something I noticed that's made it hard for me to watch some CarTube channels is the obvious wealth of the presenter.

Their being richer isn't the problem.

It's the conceit that they're experiencing the same problems I would have in getting the money together for the project while they casually mention dropping thousands on it.

Additionally the "old friend" from the car rags days has returned.  Parts donated by a vendor and deals I won't get because a seller isn't trying to get ME to mention them on my channel.

So, no, will not be taking my $100k F350 and $20k enclosed car trailer to pick up a $3,500 car with a seized engine.

I will not be finding a 6.2l aluminum LS engine, that already has a Summit stage 4 cam, laying around for less than $5k.  I will not be handed a $5k exhaust system.  I will not be spending the day getting my car dyno-tuned, a $1,500 to $3,000 value.

But most of all, I will not be doing it in my forty-thousand square foot shop with 8 two-post lifts.

Because of all that, it rubs me wrong when they start complaining about how much a fucking water pump would cost.  I might, by necessity, need to skip the $200 water pump if I needed to get my car back on the road after an engine swap.

But I also don't brag about "being under ten grand" on a project that has, at least, another $10k in parts donated to it.

Your project is $25 grand to the rest of us and I can't pretend otherwise.

My suspension of disbelief is no longer willing. 

Right To Repair

It would appear that President Trump did us hot-rodders a solid!

 

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump signs an order to STOP people from being arrested or targeted for FIXING THEIR VEHICLE, giving the “right to fix”

Common sense!

This also breaks up a California-based monopoly on 3rd party car parts certification, per Lee Zeldin 👏🏻

TRUMP: “It came… pic.twitter.com/yOf3FiBzlu

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 29, 2026

 

I think I'm better than the dealer at fixing my car and have always felt that I should be able to access, modify or fix any system on it.

I Predicted This

Marv and I discussed going on the Hot Rod Power Tour because of the anniversary of Route 66.

Then we noticed much of the route was in Illinois.

We snarked that a bunch of cars would end up missing because the start point was in Joliet.

Well...  Guess what happened. 

Gods it must suck walking out of your hotel to find an empty parking spot where your car was parked.

Surprisingly, it wasn't older cars, which are generally easier to steal.

Must have been manuals. 

Scan Issues

Yesterday, The Beast decided that the left front speed sensor was absent and turned on the ABS and Stabilitrak lights.

The $410 Topdon Artidiag Pro scanner we got just for such occasions did not tell me this.  It told me the engine and transmission modules reported no codes. 

The old BlueDriver bluetooth code reader told me it was the LF speed sensor, but wouldn't clear the code.

The old Innova scanner cleared the code.

Tonight I decided to see WHY the Topdon wouldn't read the car.

Ran the updates, tried to scan, no joy except for the engine and transmission.

It turns out that I need to tell the scanner to scan for Holden (Australia), 2012, VE/WM Series and it can suddenly see the other modules!

Good to know.

It's possible that this is my fault by enabling BCM features not normally on a US spec car with OBDSynch, so now the BCM thinks it's from the land of Oz. 

Mods ≠ Value

Over and over I see someone who's heavily modified their car and think that just because they spent $15k on the mods, that means they've added $15k to the value of the car.

If the car is normally $10k, they want $25k for it.

That only works if the prospective buyer wanted that model car with those exact mods and the seller is the only one with this combination.

By this logic, I should add the price of every oil change to the value of the car.  I spent the money, right?

The $15k in equals $15k out also forgets something important, depreciation.  Everything loses value when you break the seal on the box.

If that really bugs you, I suggest a different hobby from hot rodding.

Hot Rods are a money sink.  You just don't break even unless you got lucky and your make and model becomes the hot collectible.

If you are lucky and owned the thing before it became the new hotness, you stand to make money, or at least not have lost money due to inflation; and what you've done to the car won't matter.

Wait, I'm making my point again...  Your mods don't affect the value.

The condition, year, make and model determine the value; in many cases the mods reduce the value.

Another interesting thing here with people trying to recoup their mod expenditures is the number of folks who have very recently completed the mod.

That's worrisome to me.

It makes me wonder about the value of the mod in the first place.

Did it make the car miserable to drive?  Did it crater the mileage?  Is it now unreliable?  Did it break something you only notice after owning for a while? 

A Bit Late I'm Afraid

I used to have a '79 Camaro Berlinetta.

It was extensively modified and I had to give it up because I couldn't get body parts.

The white on the ground in Iowa in the winter isn't snow, it's salt. 

This was back in 1995 or so.

Today, Facebook is aggressively advertising that just about every part for a 2nd gen Camaro is available now.

To the point that I don't think you need suffer with a single genuine GM part.

Thirty years too late, I'm afraid. 

No Show

Harvey and I attempted to go to a car show about 45 minutes away.

While it was a pleasant drive, the show was a no show.

The food trucks had arrived, but at 5:20 pm of a 4-8pm car show...  Yeah.

But we got a good drive out of it.

Trans temp peaked at 93°C (199.4°F) in stop and go traffic getting to the Suncoast Parkway.  That plummeted to 76°C (168.8°F) when it got into lock up at 70 mph.

In stop and go traffic on the way home, it barely broke 90°C. 

Temps

The other day I had transmission temps between 82°C (179.6°F) and 79°C (174.2°F).

Yesterday, Marv's 2011 PPV was running temps around 59°C (138.2°F).

Several sites say the ideal temp range is 175°F (79.4°C) to 200°F (93.3°C). 

Looking around I discovered that the 2011 doesn't have the "thermal bypass" block like the 2012+ does.  This is a thermostat that controls when fluid is allowed into the transmission cooler.

The day was hotter and it wasn't raining when I made my measurements.