Repost if you think Ike is awesome! Or you want to see the life force drain out of the US Supreme Court

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My wife 😻

Grima Wormtongue whispering in King Theoden's ear

It's like this, but there's no redemption to be had

An engine crane, left, suspending an engine in front of a car's engine bay, right.

Engine is out!
I wanted to do this in a day, but ran into some complications with the crane that set me back.

I snuck in right at the end, but thank you for having me!

Wrapping up the inside of my Brat, thought a little before and after would be nice

Here's what it sounds like

The inside of a motorcycle exhaust, showing the silencer plug that the manufacturer welded in. It's a cylinder with a bunch of little holes, which forces the exhaust noise to slow down and become more muffled as it exits. In the background is a blind rivet gun, which is used to permanently attach two pieces of metal by clamping them together through a hole.

The same muffler tip, this time with the holed-cylinder removed. Now exhaust pulses can travel more freely, though are still required to go through a baffled piece of metal. The cup shape on the inside of the muffler causes turbulence as the gasses exit, quieting the noise slightly. Also, the muffler itself (not pictured) is packed with insulating material and is designed to attenuate sound, so it won't be thunderously loud.

The new motorcycle exhaust still sounded a bit like two weed wackers running at the same time, so I made a quick mod

A view of the roof from below, showing how the new cables peek through the cable run cavity. Cuts have been made to accommodate new holes. The original light used two screws on mirrored sides of the holes. The new light has two holes on the same vertical plane, but they are diagonally opposed.

The new roof light mounted.

I also found out that a dome light from a 1999 Forester is a good upgrade from the original one.

A picture of a dashboard, showing how chunks of neoprene foam were added to a cavity. A hot glue gun is on the right, demonstrating that the chunks were held down in the cavity.

The same dash, now with the cavities filled with dark teal Bondo - a two part hardening body filler, reinforced by short hair glass fiber.

The same dash, now with a pre-cut fabric dash cover. The roughest spots of Bondo are not visible, but the two cracks that were very obvious are now much less so.

Big fixes! Chopped up some neoprene to fill in the gaps, then covered that with more Bondo. It wasn't perfect, but after a little sanding and painting, it looks much better than before.

It was pretty bad before, here's a closeup

Had an idea last week to use foam filler to repair the cracks on my dash. I spent about three hours prepping, because I needed to put tape in a very tight area, and that ended up cutting my hand up. I feel at this point that the foam was working well though, it was very firmly stuck in place and I had started shaving it down to the right shape - no more cracks on the dash.

Then I added Bondo, but had to throw away a bunch of it because it had started crystalizing in the can. I shouldn't have left it on the shelf for a year I think. Filled in the little gaps of foam, finalized the shape of the dash, and it's looking ready for *glazing putty*. I didn't realize though, that the putty was going to start dissolving the foam I was so happy with.

So now we're here, with the red glazing putty on top of the blue body filler. I had no reason to suspect that it would eat the foam, but now there are three huge divots where there used to be foam. Luckily it stopped before it ate all the way through, and now I have a platform to add more body filler on top of.

Rollercoaster of a weekend working on the car. Check the alt text, but the long story short is I need more Bondo

The camera cover I designed, which is in the shape of a trucker hat with the text "Foxy Grandpa" on it. Guest starring my daruma.

@foxwithtacos.bsky.social: "hey, can you make a front camera cover for my phone"

Why yes, and I already have the perfect idea

The interior of a Subaru Brat, seen from the perspective of the passenger side. I've added carpet - a loop pile shag, in a color called Saddle. It stops halfway from the back, so the part where people's feet go is still bare. I want to verify the front isn't leaking before adding the carpet there. There are a few interior plastics added back in, but no seats yet.

The inside of a Subaru Brat, at an earlier stage. The dash has been put in, but it isn't fully mounted, causing it to hang forward slightly. Since taking it out, I've cleaned all the AC vents, rebuilt the wiring harness, and blocked rust holes. There are still cracks on the top, the result of sun damage.

It turns out just deciding to go for it was what I needed. There were a few months of what felt like zero progress, but here we are with a clean cabin, some filled holes, and a refreshed wiring harness.

Maybe what I really need is to just drive the dang car

Alright, so. There's so many problems I won't be able to fix on this car that I don't feel like it's worth the effort to polish the stuff I can. I decided that I'm just going to clean up what I can and put it all back together. Maybe someone else will be able to take it all the way to the finish.

Some huge clouds just rolled in and it smells like smoke, so there's probably a controlled burn happening. Thankfully, already wearing a mask

A look inside the fresh air ventilation duct under the windshield of a car. This is where fresh air gets sucked in, then cooled by the HVAC system. Along the seam where the duct was welded to the firewall, so much rust is apparent that you can see through into the driver's foot well. The rust has currently been cleaned, and is undergoing etching before it will be painted with a rust-killing paint.

Back at it on the project car... Again finding more rust.

Unfortunately, here's where I think I'll have to stop with the rust and water prevention. Sometimes you just have to stop and ask if the effort is worth what's left, and all the other problems with the Brat stem from how it was designed. I don't think I'll ever truly stop the water from coming in.

A brushed DC motor, used to rotate windshield wipers. It's a mass of copper and magnets, a circuit board on the bottom, and three graphite "brushes" on the bottom. These brushes contact the electromagnet in the rotating mass, completing the circuit, and allow the mass to rotate. They are contained within three gold colored housings, and each have a small spring to keep the contact snug. DC motor brushes do wear out over time, but this motor in particular does not rotate enough to warrant replacing, even after 40 years of service. The part where I think I don't have together correctly is not pictured, but it has to do with the clocking of the plastic gear.

Just another day of working on an old car. This is the wiper motor, I took it off to have better access to paint under it. While I have it off, I decided to pack more grease and I somehow ended up with the housing off. Cleaned up the whole thing, now I'm not sure if I have it back together right

There's the rest of the paint

A bit ambitious, just got the initial painting done. Going to do the rest tomorrow

The firewall of an old car, seen above from the engine bay. This is where the Subaru Brat holds a spare tire, and the platform itself is spot welded in a few places to the firewall. This configuration allows water to flow underneath the platform, where it gets sandwiched between two plates of metal - eventually causing the lower portion to rust completely away. Around the seam that formerly allowed water to seep in, pale blue body filler has been added to potentially keep water out.

Today's work: Finish sanding the bondo in the engine bay, clean it up, then paint it with POR-15. Sand, clean, etch, paint on the seam behind it. Clean up leftover adhesive on the passenger side port hole, then wrap it and plug it.

Once I figure out the inside, then I want to pull the engine and replace all the gaskets I can and do that part of the wiring harness. And after that, suspension. Then done? I think? I can paint it after that

I would also like AC actually... need to put all those parts back

Sticking to the inside for now, the next things I have to do are figure out how to seal up some holes in the floor, install a new roof light, paint and refresh the plastics, then reinstall everything

The interior of an old car, stripped down to the metal. There are spots where rust has eaten away - these came from areas where water was allowed to pool due to the design of the car. The engine bay has a spot where the spare tire sits, which became a shelf that does not allow water to evaporate quickly.

The old subaru has more than a few rust holes, but I think I can manage them. I sealed up where the holes in the engine bay were, so I don't think it'll get worse.

A single 20 sided die, black in color with glitter embedded. There is flashing from the mold on an edge, and several voids are present where air bubbles stuck to the mold. The side numbered 20 is face up.

I wanted to find a way to reuse my 3d print purge waste rather than just throwing it all out. Here's a test die to find out how to resin.