This past weekend, I found myself in Chicago with a few hours to kill. I chose to spend my time with the Klairmont car collection, and I have to tell you, this was time well spent. This auto museum houses one of the most amazing group of vehicles I have ever had the pleasure to […]
The preservation of automotive patina is a growing topic in the automotive enthusiast community. For years the accepted standard of restoration has been to bring a car back to new, or better than new, condition and frequently, with an eye to originality. However, lurking in the background there has always been an appreciation for well-worn […]
In the last post, we covered the installation of the rear end. In this post, we get the front end assembled and installed. For this little round of work, we hosted one of Dave’s friends from Colorado, Ben. Ben is a longtime 4WD hobbyist and knows his way around trucks and tools. He is a […]
For the most part, your Volvo’s AWD system is sophisticated yet simple and fairly robust overall. It does however have a few foibles to keep an eye on, especially in salt belt areas. One of the failure modes of the system involves the angle gear collar/sleeve. Your AWD Volvo has a transverse mount engine, which […]
Gosh, it has been way too long since we gave you an update on the Bronco project. Lest you think the project is completely stalled we have actually made a bit of progress. As you know, we had selected the 2.5″ lift kit from Tom’s Bronco for the project. Before we installed the suspension we […]
Well, it sucks…always ruining a good thing. The makers of WordPress, the template for this website, included a nice feature to allow people to comment on posts/blogs. Well, I have to turn off this feature. There will be no more comments allowed an the posts for this page. You see the Russian spambots are set […]
An electric blue, all-wheel drive, 6 speed manual, pocket rocket. This is a project car that slipped through the shop while no one was watching. It came from a local shop where it had been relinquished by a college student that managed to severely overheat it, eventually causing head gasket failure. Gary and I hauled […]
Gary was pretty clear about his position on the business in his last few years. He described it as being on the off ramp to retirement. He was convinced that with an injection of some fresh energy and a little elbow grease, Star Motors would pop back to life. I think he was right, and […]
I recently took a little summer vacation to Kellogg, Iowa. A perfect COVID retreat for the family to an Iowa country farmhouse replete with it’s own swimming hole. While there, I took the opportunity to meet up with Dave at Doug’s Wheelers in beautiful, nearby Pella, Iowa. Doug’s junkyard is just plain awesome! Tons of […]
I bought my dream car October 18, 1996. I was just four days shy of my 20th birthday but I was already a homeowner and something of a 4×4 enthusiast. I had been driving the family hand-me-down ‘81 Jeep CJ7 since I was 14 (school permit!) and had already experienced quite a few epics out […]
