Time and money are not everything

Being a bit retrospective today.

Whenever I talk to people about my project car, once comment I usually get is that I'm lucky I have the time and money to build stuff like this and given the same they'd do the same too. Same goes for skills, that I'm lucky I can do a lot of things myself. It's flattering to be honest, but in a way I also find it a bit off because I'm not really that different from everyone else.

Time and money. Sure, 8 years working on the car and probably enough money spent to buy a really nice new car is not nothing, but all of that was achieved within reasonable means.

I started working on the car when I was in college, doing whatever I could within my weekly allowance budget. It took me over a year to save up to get a 5-speed transmission and re-gear the rear diff to match. Things really started to move forward when I got a job starting as a call center agent and really got going when I got promoted as a manager a year later. I never had a huge budget to spend on the car. It's a matter of priority. No fancy cell phones, gadgets, tablet computers. No going to Boracay every year and not too many nights out. All that money got funneled into my project car. That's why all the pictures of my cars restoration are so crappy, I didn't have an SLR back then either. It's a good investment anyway, whatever gadgets I would have bought in the past would be either dead by now or worth nothing. The value of a classic car will only go up as it gets older. Not having too much budget is a good thing too. It makes you think very careful about everything you are going to do. I try to keep that in mind even now, because when you have too much budget you tend to do stupid things like buying a Turbo engine that you won't use.

Time too. Someone once said, we are all given 24 hours in a day and it's up to us to fit whatever we want to do in there. It helps in a way that I'm a bit of an introvert so I was happier spending time working on the car than going out and 'having to deal with people'. Even now, with everything that I do; working full time at our furniture company and running my Longboard business one the side, I still time to hang out with my girlfriend on weekends and put in a few hours of work on the car every week. It's just a matter of budgeting your time.

I too was once a newbie to all this. When I think back, if I met myself 5 years ago I'd probably laugh at me for being so stupid. Not having all the money to spend on having other people build your car for you really helps develop your skills. Lots of research and reading will go a long way. I read a heck of a lot of books and manuals. Taught my self to do things. Experimented. Talked to lots of tuners and professionals and most importantly did things and made lots of mistakes. That's how you learn. A friend of mine calls it tuition fee. I had an engine I built blow up after 1000km. That felt pretty bad and cost me quite a bit of money, but the experience learned is invaluable. There's something new to learn everyday.

The point I'm trying to drive at here, is that what i do, if you really look at it is nothing special. I maybe a bit crazier and obsessed than the average enthusiast but really, more than having the time and money in the world, all it really takes is some good old fashioned hard work to get things done.

Soldering wires 101

Recently, a friend of mine taught me how to properly solder wires together. It's not a big deal really, but being able to connect wires together and make it strong enough that I can pull them apart by hand was enough to give me confidence to tackle one area of automotive work that I've always tried hard to avoid doing my self. Wiring. It's something that I could do if I had to, but never at a level that I'd personally be happy about so I'd always just have someone else do it. but now, things are different and I've been happily redoing the wiring on the '79 myself for the last few days.

Anyway, I figured it'd be nice to do a write up on how to solder wires together properly.

But before that, check out his shot from my early days of working on cars... This is how I used to wire stuff together.

It's painful to look at, and in fact it looks downright scary, I'd call it a fire hazard (Remember to always have a fire extinguisher on board, no matter how well the wiring was done). The solder connections look like boogers, and if memory serves me right, had to be very careful handling this because it had a tendency to fall apart. haha.

Now, how to properly joint the wires together. It's pretty simple really. As long as you understand what the solder is supposed to do. Simply twist the wires together lightly, make sure it's snug, but there is enough space so that when you melt the solder it will flow in between the strands of wire to the other side and form a nice solid bond.

For this you will need a powerful soldering iron. What I use now is a 100w unit so that it heats up fast and quickly melts all the solder. Before, when I had no clue what any of this was, I was using a puny 25w soldering iron... It was so crappy that a roll of solder was actually more expensive than the thing!

With the wires twisted together, use the soldering iron to heat the wire itself, not the solder so that when you touch the solder on the wire it will melt and be absorbed into the wire all the way to the other side.

The finished product; 

After it cools, a good tug on the wire will confirm that the connection is solid. 

Using the same technique you can also solder on terminals, getting the solder to fill up where the end of the wire contacts with the terminal. 

It's a small thing really, but makes me happy that I get to learn something new once in a while. See how much my wiring has improved? 

Maybe someday, I'll learn how to do a cleaner wire tuck. :D