A Couple Potholes

As I briefly mentioned in my last blog entry, so far I haven't really ran into many bumps in the road yet. The only thing that's happened once or twice is that my Dad and I have to reschedule when we're going to work on the truck because something unexpectedly pops up or we just simply have other plans. Fortunately its seeming like once we get the engine swap done most of the other fixes will be smaller and ones I can tackle by myself. Planning around just myself is also a lot easier than having to plan around both of our free time. But as long as that doesn't become a frequent issue we should be able to tackle the needed repairs before the senior project deadline and have some time to spare.

Is This All Realistic?

After doing most of the budgeting for this project its given an even stronger reason to believe that I can get this all done by the end of the year. I listed out all the parts and supplies I plan on buying, and its adding up to around $1,000 which is about what I was expecting when I bought the truck. Since its a Toyota parts are fairly cheap and thanks to a website called Rockauto.com, I can easily order everything I need and have it shipped right to my doorstep. The project is also happening at either my house or my Dad's and that's great because I won't have to travel out of the way to make progress.

But it is possible for me to fall behind, mainly if there end up being more problems with the pickup then we realized or simply if me or my Dad get busy on the weekends or after school / work and fall behind schedule. Hopefully that wont happen though, both of us are pretty motivated to make progress. Plus luckily there are a handful of side projects that I can work on where I don't need help from a mentor.

The Mentor.

My main mentor is the same person who reached out to me about the truck being for sale, Caleb Atwood, aka my Father. I'm choosing him because he's going to be the main person helping me solve and fix all the little (and big) issues I run into. He's one of those people where he doesn't work on cars or engines for a living, but he has been tinkering on own vehicles for his entire life; Meaning he's racked up a great amount of knowledge on whats what and how it goes together / comes apart. Plus he owned a 1985 Toyota Pickup back in the day, so he has a little bit of experience working on these.

When the time comes later in the project when I need to do rust repair I might try and seek out another short term mentor to help with welding, and maybe another for upholstery or any other subtopics I touch on.

What's the Plan?

Luckily I'm planning for my senior project to touch lots of different content within automobile mechanics. Since the truck has a variety of random issues to touch up on, there's plenty to choose from. Here are some of the genres I plan on approaching first:

• Engine repair and engine swaps
• Wiring, fuses, and electronics
• Welding a new piece for part of the cab that's become soft
• Suspension repair (and researching difference between leaf springs and struts)
• Rust repair, prevention, and painting
• Carpentry for the wooden bed that I want to build for it

As of now those are all the sub topics I'm planning to explore, hopefully the list doesn't grow much more or else I'll run out of time. But for now its definitely a challenging amount of work, while still not being too much to handle.

Quickly, some of the questions I want to explore are:

• How hard is it to actually do an engine swap?
• How expensive is sheet metal, and how hard is it to shape?
• Can all this work be done in half a year?
• Are Toyota parts as reliable and inexpensive as everyone claims?

Why This Project?

My names Jared, I'm a senior at Compass this year and that means I have to do a senior project. For this project I've chosen to work on completing a 1988 Toyota Pickup that I recently picked up midway through the summer. I figure it will work perfectly because I didn't start making repairs to the truck until after school started.

The learning aspect of it will be huge as well, I've been wondering how hard it is to actually flip a vehicle (buy one for cheap, fix it, increase the sell value). Once we get the new engine swapped in the project should pick up pace a lot faster, having the truck be able to move (healthily) will be a huge step forward.

I had tried brainstorming some other ideas for a senior project towards the start of the summer but got a little stumped. I feel if I hadn't ran into this truck I probably would've taken a break from mechanic related projects and found a mentor for a career field that interests me like engineering or maybe even a technical job like electrician work.

 But I'm excited to see my dream truck become a reality and document the process on here.