Rooms · Fix things
This is what I do: fix things. Machines, vehicles, boats, equipment, buildings, and improbable rescues.
This is what I do: fix things.
The useful details are usually found after the easy answer fails. These completed projects span vehicles, boats, machinery, tools, buildings, and whatever else has been declared finished before I agree. The work is done; what remains is writing down what happened and what I learned.
Completed restoration · Old iron
A rusty 1966 convertible, two years of structural repair and assembly, and the odd realization that finishing the car had cured me of wanting to own it.
Read the Mustang storyStart here
How a $100 pile of dead lawn equipment turned into a dozen running chainsaws, what I learned about fixing two-stroke engines, and which brands I’d actually buy.
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Two dead golf carts, one flipped for a profit and one sold to a hard-bargaining minister, and an auction Club Car that’s been hauling trash at the lake all summer.
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A Florida fence job led to a $3,400 center console, a 1,100-mile tow, two engine teardowns, and one unexpectedly fast little boat.
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How a rusty, 325,000-mile ex-U-Haul box truck became the workhorse that moved a condo’s worth of used furniture, and paid for itself several times over.
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As I said in my introduction, I like to fix things. I take pride in finding the problem that somebody else missed, repairing it and seeing some thing that is left for dead come back to life. Be it a piece of furniture, a machine, a car, or a bicycle.
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A week in Florida became a full-time fence project—and one of the ten home projects Drew later reviewed on video.
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Or I should name this blog “Easy fixes that turn out hard vs. hard fixes that turn out easy” You see, even though I’m pretty decent at fixing things, I’m still terrible at judging how much work it will take to fix something.
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July 2022 – A couple weeks ago I bought a 2020 Toyota Tundra sight unseen from the insurance auction in Portland Oregon. I like my 2010 Tundra so much that I wanted to get an identical newer one, before they get a lot of miles on them.
Read the full story →Well, maybe not the worst, but it’s pretty bad. It’s a 2002 Honda Silverwing scooter, which is a big – well scooter. Many people love them and take them all over on rides. They were made from 2002 to 2013. I’ve been curious about alternative types of motorcycles the past couple years, having bought my Honda Pacific Coast and more recently a Piaggio 50cc scooter. I like the idea of something simpler than a large motorcycle, and I don’t really need to go fast anymore. That said the Silverwing is hardly the typical scooter. It’s 600cc engine has about 50 horsepower – more than enough to ride it on the highway.
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No, I’m not talking about a place, I’m talking about a motorcycle. Honda is one of the premier Motorcycle builders in the world and although I’ve owned many other brands of motorcycle over the years, I’ve always found Honda to be equal to or better than the others, no matter what the category.
Read the full story →Completed projects
Frame repair turns a truck project into structural work before the ordinary mechanical work can even begin.
A wrecked Polaris Ranger is a collection of repairable systems, provided the damage is understood before the parts begin flying.
Small equipment packs full-sized mechanical and hydraulic problems into a very tight package.
A wooden Chris-Craft is simultaneously a boat, a structure, a machine, and a piece of design history.
Three tractors from different eras and scales, each built around a different idea of durable, repairable work.
Racing preparation turns every neglected fitting and adjustment into something measurable on the water.
The Ridgeline solves truck problems differently, which makes repairing and understanding it a project of its own.
A sophisticated touring motorcycle brings together mechanical, electrical, braking, and bodywork problems in one compact machine.
My dad’s 1915 Underwood makes every mechanical relationship visible—and every sticky pivot or bent linkage impossible to ignore.
Sewing machines are precision mechanisms meant to work hard, and good ones are usually worth repairing.
Durable bags demand the same things as other fabrication projects: suitable materials, sound joints, good tools, and careful sequencing.
Industrial equipment often looks finished when one failed component is hiding inside an otherwise durable machine.
A tow truck must move itself and operate its working equipment; either system can turn the whole machine into dead weight.
Tires are consumable, but deciding what can be repaired—and doing it safely—requires more judgment than simply replacing everything.