Day 2: The Sound of Potential

Day two has come and gone. I didn't get much done today, put some trim back on the car after giving it a good scrub down. Pulled the exhaust out from under it and drove it around in it's un-muffled state for about ten minutes with an ear-to-ear grin on my face. Oh yeah, also threw some new fuses in and checked all the electronics, they all seem to work fine.

This JEV6 is a noisy booger! I mean, I thought the two massive mufflers were overkill, but now I know why they added them onto the van. It was so much fun to rumble around on our property with the floors shaking to the bass rumble of the engine, honestly though, a straight pipe system may be too loud for the finished product. I'd still like to be able to hear the radio while I'm drivin' around yah know?

The roof. It was sooooo dirty to begin with. Much cleaner now.

The hood where it now sits in my shop. I should have take a before and after photo of the underside. It was like black to begin with. Now the underside has the best paint on the car.

The second catalytic converter, and first muffler out from under the MPV. The first cat is still up in there just to keep the exhaust gases under the vehicle in case I have to move it around some.

Second muffler.

That's about it. I recorded a video showing just how loud this van is without a muffler. It doesn't do it justice, trust me, my ears hurt afterwards. Anyway, more to come soon!

The Bradley GT-I: A high school senior year project.

A little more than ten years ago my mother purchased a Volkswagen Bradley GT-I. Beautiful little kit car, I don't remember much about it from back then, but the important thing is, it quit. Mum and dad took it around to several mechanics and they all said it needed a rebuild. So bummed out at the cost of a rebuild my mother placed the car into storage. And there it sat for ten years. About a year and a half ago when I was entering eleventh grade, we decided I needed some hands-on experience in the world of mechanics, since this was my dream job. So armed with a pair of manuals, some hand tools, as well as some choice two by fours, I set to work. Unfortunately my brilliant self didn't document much of anything in this rebuild up until now, I have very little to show for this endeavor, aside from a really cool car that rumbles around under it's own power now.

This was supposed to be my senior year project, and here I am at the beginning of the year and my mechanic's elective is about done. Over the summer I've easily put about 150+ hours into this vehicle. Which, I know, isn't great for rebuilding a VW motor, but this is the first time I've ever done this. Now with what I know I'm confident I could do another complete tear-down and rebuild in a little less than a week.
 Alright, enough rambling I suppose. I'll show you what I did document.



Yeah, Imma fix this car! I'm an idiot with no clue what he's doing! (I really don't remember the context of my face in this photo.)

Anyway, enough silliness. This is before I'd touched anything on the car. That first crucial moment when the hood is opened. About at this moment I realized I didn't know much about cars. Oh, well best way to learn is to do it!

Got her opened up and check out the rust. Even on the pulleys! it's a good thing the block is aluminum, otherwise there might not have been much left.

I did some research and started on my merry way. First bit of business was to remove the engine cover. And then drain the oil. Now I'd done simple stuff before like oil changes, it's always a good idea to wear a thick leather glove, whether the oil is hot or not. Unless you like not being able to hold on to anything.

Now everything I read said that getting stuff back together was hard. So I labeled everything. Which worked for the most part. Didn't have too much trouble piecing her back together later.

Again, I labeled it all. And I mean it all.

As a note, if a car sits for years on end, it tends to acquire... tenants. They were easily evicted with a shop-vac.

Pulled the engine out. This actually took me a long time. I couldn't get the mounting bolts unstuck. It took me two days before I figured out I was turning the bolts backwards! Ahh, well. Live and learn, turned them the right way and pop! The engine came out. (Notice my fancy engine removal devices.)

Engine's out and I'm quite excited to finally have something to do again. I did throw a plastic bag over the transmission to keep the critters out.

The engine again. It's a '69 Beetle engine, 1500cc, with single port heads, and a PICT-3 carburetor.

Aaaand the covered transmission. The pipes are for the heat for the vehicle, currently disabled due to an exhaust leak. The old Volkswagen's had heater boxes around the exhaust pipes for... well, heat, they were notorious for rusting out and getting exhaust fumes into the cabin.

The brakes. Disk-brakes on all four sides. This Bradley has a '71 Beetle frame, the rear brakes where a challenge, as I though it had a '69 frame (Same as the engine.) until I looked up the frame's serial number. I had to do some work on the brakes later on.

Pile of parts as I pulled them off the engine block. It's amazing the way these engines are engineered. The fact it can keep itself cool with out some sort of liquid coolant still blows my mind.

An example of before an after for the cylinders. They were kinda crusty and the rings needed to be replaced. These are the 32.95mm cylinders for the 1500cc engine, so the rings were a challenge to find. I actually ended up using 33mm rings, but it such a small difference I don't think the car cares overly much. I didn't want to put 35mm jugs on the car, too expensive.

Check this out! This engine is tiny once you pull everything off it! Still weighs a bunch though. I pulled several muscles goofing off with it.

Again, the engine. I got most of the black crud cleaned off later. And this ends the documentation of the tear-down. I didn't document the rebuild at all this summer. (I'm bad I know.) I replaced all the gaskets, got a new distributor (Important for later.), cleaned the carb, got a new ignition coil, and oil cooler.

Engine's back in here! No biggie, just took about an hour to get her lined up with the transmission since I only have a cheap jack and some two by fours. After that I shoved her in and found she didn't crank. This is where I added the ignition coil. Fired right up after that.

Pulled the wheels off now that the engine's back in. She needs some new rubber since the old tires were dry-rotted. While she was up in the air I serviced the brakes, new shoes and hardware all around. We're going to get some disk-brakes one day. I don't trust these rusty drums very much.

The lightwieght Fenton racing wheels waiting for some new rubber. No real trouble here, we think one of the rims was bent (it didn't hold air with the new tire on it) and took it back to the tire mounting place. They sealed up the holes in that one wheel for no charge and we brought it back home. If any of you live near Westminster, SC go give Black's tires some business, they're local, honest and friendly. Not to mention they got me a good deal on these tires.

 Also checked all the lights while it was up in the air.

They all seem to work.

Got her to crank up and rolled her out of the garage for cleaning.

Look at her out in the sunshine for the first time in years! She looks so happy.

IT WORKS! (Mostly)

After all that we got her on the road for a test drive and I found I have the wrong type distributor. I need a vacuum advance distributor for the PICT-3 carburetor this motor is equipped with. Those are a little hard to find for a decent price but hopefully something'll turn up. Also there's a little roll pin on the throttle plate in the carburetor that's missing, easy fix I just gotta get to it.

That's about it for today. I'll get the carburetor fixed soon and hopefully we'll be able to find a vacuum advance distributor.

(The photography contained within this blog is a mixture of the photographic talents of my mother, Cherry at Studio Seventh Sanctuary, my little brother, and myself. All rights go to them/us)

Day 1: Starting the Teardown

Alright, right off the bat Imma say this. I'm not labeling this as literal days, these are just the days I work on the vehicles. Also, if you see any parts coming off the car you want; please contact me, we can probably work something out.

Okay first day! Today I just did a bunch of simple stuff, pulled the hood and some trim off. Got most of the exhaust unbolted and dropped down. Pulled part of the intake off... and that's about it, gonna wait for some fuses before I do much of anything else so I can check to make sure she still runs. (I shorted the battery out a few days ago in a freak accident, blew the main fuses. Hopefully didn't damage the electronics though.)


With the hood and grill removed. Pulled the hood off for ease of access, same for the grill.

You can see the exhaust laying on the floor here, I had to cut the bolts holding with a Dremel tool because they were rusted solid. No damage to the exhaust system itself though. Getting it out from under the car should be fun without any form of lift. I'm really beginning to wish I had a lift and it's only the first day.

You can see where I pulled the intake scoop off the filter here.

Not terrible much done today, but hey! It's progress, you gotta start somewhere.

The MPV, a VG30DETT swap car.

Alright, today marks the first day of my massive undertaking of turning my old '97 Mazda MPV into a race-ready machine. How many of you remember the days of your childhood being shuttled around in your parents minivan? For me it was a comforting thing, we've had this van for almost as long as I can remember and I love it to death. This is also the first driver I've ever owned, (I don't say my first car because I've had a truck since I was fourteen and I still haven't driven it on the road.) so there's a lot of bonding I've done with this car. The old JE engine has given me a lot of pleasure on the road and she's gotten me out of sticky situations more than once. (Think semi-truck sandwich.) But unfortunately, sometime in the past few years we took it to an express lube somewhere and they overfilled the girl. Most of the seals and gaskets on the engine are now gone. She runs, but it got to the point where I was adding more oil than gas every week, so it was time for something to go. Now me, being an avid car enthusiast and mechanic-in-training, I enjoy going fast and I enjoy working on vehicles, so I've decided to do something crazy and off-the-wall. I'm going to put a VG30DETT into the MPV. I've only ever seen this done once before, and it was in fact done right by a  certain D. Swensonhimer.

Now, this won't be the same as what Swensonhimer has done, (Obviously I don't want to copy him, that's just wrong.) namely because my MPV is a little newer. (More electronics to deal with. Whoopee.) But I'm going a little farther than he went. This car isn't going to be a sleeper, eventually I plan to compete in the SCCA Solo racing events with this vehicle, so a new suspension system is a must, as well as a rollcage. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This will not be completed in just a few months, this project may take me years, mainly because of funding. I'm parting out the engine and transmission in hopes to get enough money to buy a used 300ZX Fairlady Z32, and then going from there, hopefully parting out what's left of the 300ZX for more funding. But we'll see.Whatever the case, it may take me years, but this car will be finished someday.

This is where she's sat for the past few months. I needed to get her moved somewhere out of the elements, I do plan to repaint as soon as the engine is out, as there are some rust spots and such that bother me.

The original JE V6 by Mazda. A wonderful little engine, this one has 280,000 miles on it and still ran strong until that jiffy lube killed her.

After moving her down into my workshop. It's a tight fit at the moment, but hopefully we'll get some stuff moved out of there soon. She looks so much happier out of the weather.