July – December 2018
Ever since watching the 1st season of Roadkill, which included a Ranchero roadtrip and an El Camino engine swap, I’ve been captivated by utes and rusty muscle cars. After finishing college I finally had the time and money to dive into a car project.
El Camino’s 305 cubic inch V8 produced only 150 horsepower in 1984, still enough to do pegleg burnouts, but a far cry from an actual muscle car. Aftermarket support of the small block Chevy engine and the 5th gen (G-body) Elco is extensive so I figured this would be a decent starting platform to learn on. Any patina this rusty car once had was covered by layers of Bondo and blue paint, hideous blue paint. Right after painting, the seller left his car outside in the trailer park, where it got rained on. The entire body had a scaly texture that was visible from at least 20 feet away. The giant eyesore of a paintjob is how I bought a running and driving ute for $2200. Little did I know how many hours would be spent on paint prep and body work…



Despite a spongy brake pedal, I had a pretty uneventful 70-mile voyage home in my new hooptie. Note that the license plate is on the tailgate instead of the rear bumper. Hypothetically, this makes it easy to drive around without up-to-date registration stickers or without tags altogether. Hypothetically, this will also render toll road cameras, redlight cameras, and schoolzone cameras powerless! Now I would never exploit this design quirk, but it's almost like the mullet of cars encourages degenerate behavior.


Look closely and you’ll notice that the rear tires are larger than the fronts. They also have all-terrain tread. This was the previous owner’s winter beater! Luckily road salt hasn’t damaged the frame, but there is a football sized hole in the driver’s side floor.

The dash had several big cracks, the seat was torn on the driver’s side, and the Dollar Tree-looking aftermarket radio didn’t work, but in general the interior was functional and comfy to sit in. It’s truly a couch on wheels, complete with a Malaise era staple, one-finger steering.
There was a bonus ice scraper on the dash when I bought the Elco! After baking in the hot July sun it was deformed to the point of being useless.


Another goody I found inside the cab was can of Aircraft Remover, which made quick work of the paint covering the bumpers. Usually I’m not bothered at all if automotive chemicals get on my skin. Brakleen, coolant, brake fluid, carb cleaner, even Jasco “premium” paint stripper are all weak sauce compared to Aircraft Remover. This really stuff burns, enough to make me stop wearing flip flops around it, but the name cracks me up. I always picture soldiers spraying it into the sky to take out enemy bombers and now you do too!
Most of this first summer and fall with the Elco was spent just cruising around quiet Pennsyltucky roads, occasionally with a friend or two in the back. Rear passengers, including yours truly, were more than happy to overlook that the Elco was slow and ugly due to the laidback open-air experience.
A couple mechanical issues were addressed in 2018. I replaced the power steering pulley because it was bent and wobbling. The car would shudder when braking hard or at highway speeds due to warped rotors. A new set of front rotors and pads fixed this problem. While things were apart, I regreased the original wheel bearings since they were still in good shape. The rear brakes are drums and to this day I haven’t had to mess with those.

To close out the year I installed a reproduction grill and headlight bezels. They’re fake chrome because 80s car, but they still do so much to improve how the front of the ute looks.

April 2020 – December 2020
As the days became longer and warmer, I began laboring on the El Camino’s panels again. Sanding all of the corrugations while sitting inside the pickup bed was awkward and tedious, but I had nothing better to do at the time. It was the summer of 2020; anti-social behavior was strongly encouraged so I continued having no life other than prepping my car for the paint shop. Overall, the bed was in good condition, it just had a few dents and pin-holes that needed attention.


A large rust hole in front of the driver’s side rear wheel presented an opportunity to practice my welding skills. First, I prepped the metal in the work area…
…next I created out a patch panel from scrap metal I had laying around…
…then I welded the patch panel onto the car body.
After that I used my grinder and a flapper disc to get the weld beads level with the panel. Finally, I applied a couple layers of Bondo to fill any imperfections in the surface. In conclusion, my skills are second to none because I am an expert jerry rigger metal worker.
The final boss that I battled was the massive hood. It was nice to work on it inside my tiny garage / large lawnmower shed during the rainy weather that was very common in late summer. I even painted the hood hinges because of extreme boredom. The underside of the hood had some intricate portions that were difficult, but I persisted and achieved Victory! The top of the hood already had a lot of body filler from a major dent repair, more evidence of the Elco’s checkered past I guess. Installing a big, heavy hood by yourself can be challenging. If you’re doing this alone, a jackstand strategically placed under the front is super helpful for holding the hood in place while you’re reinstalling the hood hinges. I also used some foam mats to protect the windshield in case things really went south. After summer sanding round 2, and all the 2020 nonsense, I was ready for a relaxing vacation. Speaking of going south, my friends and I decided that the Outer Banks was a great place to avoid large crowds and chill out. Since it was mechanically and aesthetically sound, I took the Elco on its longest journey yet; from Pennsyltucky down to Newport News, Virginia. The car did great during the 5-hour cruise to my friends’ house and I stopped at the halfway point for a “picnic”! Java Monster and a Sheetz burger is the lunch of champions. The whole squad arrived at the rendezvous point, but a wrench was thrown into our plans. Due to a hurricane pasting close to the coast, a crapload of sand made the only road into the Outer Banks impassable so we waited…and waited…and waited for the road to open. For 4 straight days our routine consisted of consuming copious amounts of carbohydrates to recover from the night before, packing tons of food and drink into 2 Suburbans (the news said OBX grocery stores were empty due to the road closure), getting salty when the news said the road is actually still closed, unpacking the Suburbans, cruising around Newport News in a Miata, Toyota mini-truck, and my hooptie ute, followed by day-drinking, cornhole, and Magic the Gathering. Not the vacation I planned for, but a great vacation nonetheless. The mountains of sand were eventually moved and we got to spend a couple days at the Taj Mahatteras. Everyone agreed that this part of beach week felt like a fever dream: we had inflate-a-couch on the beach, a sand dune in our swimming pool, and a McMansion of a house that included a sauna, hot tub, and a broken home theater. Just as we were getting used to these extravagant surroundings it was time to pack up and return to reality. Despite the brief Outer Banks time, my spirits were high as I headed back home towards the paint shop! Hey wait, why the hell it is gray?!?! I asked for a purple-ish blue color, and thankfully had the paperwork to prove it. Somehow Maaco mixed up cars and also forgot to paint the underside of the hood. The franchise owner agreed to fix their mistakes at no cost to me, but the wait time to do this was ridiculous. This debacle was finally resolved, just as winter rolled in. I can’t remember the exact Maaco name for this color (Magnetic Pearl? Majestic Pearl? Electric Pearl?). Anyway, it’s single-stage urethane paint that has held up well. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed in myself for missing low spots, which are visible at some angles, but I’m generally happy with the overall results. The color choice is very flamboyant and gaudy so I think it fits the character of the ute.

Back in May 2013 a 2004 Jeep Liberty became the first vehicle I ever owned. At the time I was looking for a 4WD or AWD vehicle that could get me to and from college without guzzling too much gas and handle the icy roads during winters in Morgantown, WV. The MD state inspection detected no issues with this 80K mile Liberty and it enjoyed an entire summer of problem-free driving. This was great news for me because I knew nothing about working on cars at the time. The first impression was definitely the best impression it made. After 6 years and 75K miles of driving I’ve formed mixed opinions about Jeep Liberties and learned a fair bit of basic automotive maintenance.

The interior storage space inside a Liberty is decent so I was able to haul many small furnitures from apartment to apartment during college. However, one deficiency that always bugged me during moving time was that the Liberty’s rear seats don’t fold flat.

The 5-speed automatic hunted for gears basically any time the Jeep traveled up moderate hills. This wasn’t too annoying in my central Maryland hometown, but I-68 is quite mountainous (at least by east coast standards) so I would turn off Overdrive during the steep climbs. This kept the transmission in fourth instead of letting it play musical gears with fourth, fifth, and third. Other than that, I had a scenic and pleasant drive out to college.
Sadly, the honeymoon phase ended a few weeks into the semester with a dead battery and a locked-up AC compressor. The first issue was easy enough for my friend and I to fix in the parking lot, but the second one left me stuck in the middle of a busy road. Liberties don’t have a separate belt for the AC compressor so when it locked up the crank couldn’t turn. These failures prompted my friends and I to nickname my Jeep “Lemon the Liberty”.
Lemon redeemed herself by being a fantastic snow car though. Morgantown didn’t get many multi-foot snowstorms, but a lot of the narrow country roads and side streets in town didn’t get salted so they became pretty icy. The Jeep’s short length made it easier to fit in tight parking spaces and being seated higher than I would be in a car helped with visibility. Hey, wait a minute…as car guy I’m required to turn my nose up at crossovers, but I see why they became so popular. The Crosstrek is probably the most common vehicle in Morgantown these days because they work so well for the environment they’re driving in.

Speaking of crossovers and Liberties, Craig Love, vice president of Jeep engineering at the time of the Liberty’s launch said it will have superior off-roading capabilities when compared to “cute utes” that are flooding the compact SUV market, and yet will have better on-road quality than bigger trucks.
Those were always the goals for the Liberty, but based on my experiences with Lemon Jeep was only kind of successful at meeting them. Here’s why:
Garden variety Liberties had 8 inches of ground clearance, while the Renegade trim had 9 inches and apparently some off-road packages included a locking rear differential. Combined with good tires, that certainly provides more capability than “cute utes”. My specific Liberty, even with its open diffs and all-season tires, was able go on the same trails as my friend’s lightly modified XJ. I had to be rescued more often than the XJ, but getting stuck and then unstuck is part of the off-road experience. Right after graduation I treated Lemon to a set of General Grabber AT2 all-terrains that significantly improved traction. The ability to just go for a drive and explore the less-travelled roads of a wild and wonderful state was a nice benefit of owning a 4x4, even a less capable one like Lemon. Although I didn’t take issue with the Liberty’s off-road performance, I think ride quality and durability are the areas where it’s most lacking.
The claim that the Liberty has better on-road manners than bigger trucks/SUVs is debatable. Sure, Lemon didn’t wallow through corners like a large truck, but the ride quality was just as bad as one. Unless loaded up with furniture, multiple passengers, or bags of mulch, Lemon rode as smooth as the Chevy Kodiak flatbed I’d drive for work.

The 2004-2007 Liberties had a major recall for rear control arms rusting then cracking. Fortunately, Lemon had those replaced a year before I bought her. Back in the early 2000s Jeep purists were up in arms about the Liberty’s independent front suspension. There are many cases where IFS holds up just fine for stock and lightly modified vehicles, but the 2002-2006 Liberties had a recall for front lower ball joints failing. I guess I got lucky because I didn’t even know about that recall until doing research for this post. The Jeep pictured below in Dirt Every Day’s Cheap Truck Challenge cracked a lower A-arm after a few minutes in an off-road race that was admittedly a bit harsh for a budget 4x4. Still, cracked A-arms didn’t inspire confidence for enthusiasts who might have been considering a Liberty for a cheap off-road build.
But the worst failure of all involves the “Trail Rated” decal Jeep gave the Liberty: mine fell off because Chrysler.

On a more positive note, working on Lemon was pretty simple and straightforward. In my opinion the 3.7L V6 engine is the best part of the Liberty and for the minor tasks I had to do it was easy to service. Anything on the front suspension was a rusty PITA, but that’s probably true for most vehicles in the rust belt.
Learning how to do basic maintenance started with an oil change, which could be done without jacking up the vehicle. Next, I had to replace brake rotors and pads, a job that’s much friendlier to new DIY mechanics than drum brakes. The air filter, sensors, and spark plugs were all easy to access, the only unconventional step was unbolting the coolant reservoir and moving it out of the way to reach the number 4 and 6 plugs. Over the next several years my enthusiasm for working on Lemon gave me the confidence to tackle increasingly difficult repairs and eventually this snowballed into owning a 38-year-old project car that’s slowly eroding my sanity.

The List of Maintenance and Repairs (Oil Changes were done every 3-4 thousand)
82K Battery, AC Compressor
100K Coolant Temp Sensor, Front Rotors and Pads, Bank 1 Post-Cat O2 Sensor
105K New rims to replace the original rusty rims
110K Spark Plugs
114K Front Rotors and Pads
120K Passenger CV Drive Axle
121K Front Passenger Window Regulator
122K Rear Rotors and Pads, Rear Wheel Bearings
122K New All-Terrain tires, Yay!
124K Lower Ball Joints, Sway Bar Links, Front Wheel Hubs
124K Front and Rear Driver’s Window Regulators
130K Driver’s Rear Brake Caliper (sticking)
131K Rear CV Joint of Front Driveshaft
137K Rear Shocks, Tie Rod Ends, Upper A-arms, Front Strut Assemblies,
Bank 2 Post-Cat O2 Sensor
138K Front Rotors and Pads
145K Front Passenger Brake Line (a fitting on the soft line rusted out)

There are a couple items that I want to elaborate on to emphasize why I wouldn’t consider the Jeep Liberty a reliable vehicle. One of the original rims that Lemon had from the factory rusted through, preventing that tire from holding air pressure. Their design includes a lip where water, mud, and road salt can get trapped. If anyone has a Liberty with those 5-spoke steel rims, learn from my mistakes and clean them out regularly. I replaced mine with nicer-looking aluminum rims that don’t have a lip from another Liberty in a junkyard.
The window regulators in 3 out of 4 doors failed, but in an amusing way. I don’t know why the rear passenger side regulator survived. Less usage? Replaced before I bought Lemon? Under Lord Uppu’s protection? Anyway, the original regulator design uses a worm cable that travels inside a plastic tube as the motor turns in order to move the window up or down. When the plastic becomes brittle the worm cable escapes from the tube and slithers out of the door panel. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any videos of the mechanical worm on the move. Aftermarket regulators use a more conventional pulley and cable design instead of this worm cable.


Liberty production ended after 2012, but even in 2022 there are a couple reasons you might consider a Liberty for purchase.

1. You need a cheap older SUV/crossover with 4WD that can handle winter weather, burn less fuel than a big truck, and provide enough space for some passengers and cargo. In this role I think the Liberty’s direct competitors are the CRV, RAV4, Forestor, and Ford Escape. Based on the anecdotal evidence I’ve collected from friends who’ve owned these vehicles, any of them will require less repairs and have better ride quality than the Liberty. Car prices can vary wildly based on when and where you’re searching, but here’s what I found at my current 4-dimensional location: CRV and RAV4 reliability is very well-known and as a result they’re both priced higher than Liberties in similar condition. Mandatory timing belt replacements and the perception that all Subarus still blow head gaskets seems to be keeping Forestor prices below the CRV and RAV4, but still a little higher than Liberty prices. Escape prices are on par with Forestor prices. The Escape, along with its Mazda and Mercury siblings, seem to fly under the radar in terms of reliability, I don’t hear anything really great or terrible about them. On the topic of fuel economy, Lemon got 15-16 mpg in the city and 19-20 mpg on the highway. I think all of the Liberty’s competitors could do better than that. My recommendation would be to avoid buying a Liberty unless you’re mechanically inclined or find a good deal on one from a roadsalt free area.
2. Another use for a Liberty: Low cost + decent capability + poor durability = a disposable hooptie for doing yee yee things on the Gambler 500!
   

November 2019 - April 2020
One cool November morning I fired up the engine and immediately noticed it was running way too fast, about 2500 rpm to be more precise. Fast idle is normally around 1500 rpm so I knew something was definitely off. This was 3 ½ years ago so I’m very fuzzy on the troubleshooting process, but I do remember ruling out leaking/disconnected vacuum lines or a sticking throttle. I eventually took the Dale Gribble route, replacing the computer-controlled carb and distributor with more conventional late 70s units and the problem never showed up again.
On small block Chevys the distributor hold-down bolt is in an inconvenient location and this one hadn’t been loosened in many years, if ever. Pictured below is the combination of tools that helped me finally remove it. The replacement distributor is an ordinary HEI that I got for free from a Mopar guy who didn’t need it. I gave the free HEI distributor a good cleaning, replaced the rotor, pickup coil and ignition module, and confirmed that the vacuum advance canister held pressure. This was just slightly cheaper than buying a remanufactured distributor, but was still cool to see how everything inside works.
I continued my crusade against all smog-era equipment, targeting the catalytic converter while the remanufactured late 70s Quadrajet was in transit from eBay. Two-way cats were known to be restrictive and mine was causing an especially large flow restriction! The box of broken substrate also contains one end of a heater tube. The other end of the tube connected to the passenger side exhaust manifold. Somehow this was supposed to heat up the catalyst faster to reduce emissions during cold starts.
Speaking of heating things up, the HVAC blower motor stopped working on every setting except the highest. First, I tried cleaning the blower motor switch with fine sandpaper and electronics cleaner then I applied some dielectric grease, but that didn’t solve the problem. I consulted YouTube for advice and was directed towards the blower resistor, which was in good condition, unlike the electrical connector attached to it. After soldering in a new connector the blower motor worked on all speeds again. On to the next failing part: the starter motor gear was grinding against the teeth of the flexplate after startup due to the Bendix unit not springing back very well. While replacing the old starter I noticed rust covering the entire bottom side of it. I’m not sure if the corrosion was caused by road salt or a fluid (perhaps coolant), but either way the new starter doesn’t have any corrosion yet and at the time the only leak I could see was from the oil pan gasket.
All the aforementioned problems were fixed in time for the nice driving weather that spring brought. Rural Pennsylvania was quite a sleepy place to live, but it did provide scenic backgrounds and a lot of empty roads for cruising!

Izzy says "Good morning Oppo!" I've been fostering this goober while his real owner finds a pet-friendly apartment

May – October 2019
Part 3 consists of many pictures and fewer words than the first 2 chapters. This kind of work was very visually satisfying in my opinion, but tedious and repetitive. It was time to address the ugly elephant in the room: the scaly paint job.

As a trial run I started by sanding the fuel door. Encouraged by this successful first step, I was ready to take on larger sections of the car…much larger sections.

With Aircraft Remover in one hand and a beer in the other I began the paint prep process in earnest. Enthusiasm was high and brainpower was low!

The picture below is a great example of what not to do. Paint removal and body work on multiple panels at the same time is a terrible idea when your car lives outside.

As if I wasn’t already sanding too many sections at once, I also removed some paint in the pickup bed before the body panels on the sides were done.

At least the tailgate was taken out of the elements and completely prepped after one long weekend of work.

My process for each panel: apply large amounts of paint stripper, sand down to bare metal to remove any rust hiding behind layers of paint, add Bondo body filler to low spots/dents, spray with 2 layers of Rustoleum Rust Reformer, then spray with 2 layers of sandable primer.

My sanding unearthed white paint on the hood, driver’s side quarter panel, and the panel around the grill. This was different than the light blue paint on all the other panels so I concluded that they’re from a different car. I couldn’t find any records of accidents when looking up my VIN, but a front-end collision is probably what put this ute off the road from 1994 to 2016.

Having a pickup bed was great for easy access to the roof!

I broke up the work on each door into upper and lower halves since they’re pretty large. I got a fair bit of mileage out of that little sander from Wally World. Maybe it does deserve the name Hyper Tough.

I had to stop by late October due to colder weather and shorter days. This how the Elco looked after the first summer of sanding and Bondo-ing. Summer Sanding 2: The Sequel would begin in May 2020.

January – May 2019
Six well-used tires were included with my El Camino purchase and by the start of 2019 only the all-terrains on the rear would hold air pressure. All 6 of the rims were really rusty so I splurged on complete set of 5 new wheels and tires. I’d recommend the General Altimax tires that I bought to anyone looking for decent all-seasons. I picked out these 15x7 Rally 55 wheels from carid.com that were $46 each, including the center caps. My only complaint is that the center caps started rusting after a couple years. They did live outside during this time, but I never drove the car when there was any salt on the roads.

Most of the lights in the instrument cluster weren’t working so I took it out and repaired the cluster. This involved replacing a few burnt out bulbs, bending some tabs so they make better contact with other parts of the circuit, and cleaning off corrosion with electronics cleaner and fine sandpaper. The Classic GBody Garage Youtube channel has a helpful video showing the process in more detail.


During that winter I noticed problems such as cranking a while before starting, smoking while engine was warming up, hunting for idle, and low power so I decided to rebuild the carb. Classic GBody Garage also has a video on this topic and How to Rebuild and Modify Rochester Quadrajet Carburetors by Cliff Ruggles has a ton of useful info and carb history. As with any carburetor rebuild things were taken apart, passages were soaked with carb cleaner, and things were put back together again. Here are some of quirks and features that are worth noting:

• The Quadrajet is well known for being a 4-barrel, spread-bore carburetor, which means 2 small primary bores and 2 large secondary bores. The theory behind the design is that when you’re putting around town or cruising on the highway only the primaries are needed to supply enough fuel and air. The booster rings in the centers of the primary bores also increase the vacuum signal, which promotes better fuel/air mixing and fuel economy. The drawback of small primaries (low maximum flow rate) is counteracted by the high flowing secondaries. Quadrajet fans like to point out that a distinct induction noise can be heard when the secondaries open.
  
• Starting in 1981 Quadrajets became computer controlled, to an extent. The idle air system and secondary fuel and air mixing are still completely mechanical, but the height of the primary rods within the primary jets is adjusted by a solenoid. Inputs that the computer uses to determine the correct primary rod height include coolant temp, ambient air pressure, oxygen content measured by a single O2 sensor on the driver’s side bank, and throttle position. It’s neat to see this evolutionary step between traditional carburetors and throttle body injection. This was a pretty high-tech system for 80s GM, complete with an OBD-I port. I can’t imagine the diagnostics were very sophisticated or trustworthy, but I’m only speculating. Do any Oppos have interesting stories about troubleshooting 80s OBD-I fault codes?
• Speaking of throttle position, the TPS uses a small plastic tab that’s pushed on by an accelerator pump arm to determine position. I broke this brittle tab during reassembly so I had to replace the original TPS.
• Another important task of the rebuild was to epoxy the base plugs. These plugs are pressed in during initial assembly and tend to leak as they age. This caused the fuel bowl to slowly drain when the engine wasn’t running, making it difficult to start the Elco if it sat for more than a couple days.
  
• Reinstalling the air horn is the most difficult part of this whole process. You’ll need to grow a couple extra opposable thumbs to gently bend the gasket around the power valve, hold the spring-loaded accelerator pump in place, hold a choke linkage in place, and make sure 4 emulsion tubes go into their holes when the air horn is lowered onto the main carb body. The air horn must be removed any time a float level adjustment, primary rod or jet change, or secondary jet change is needed. This is part of the reason why Quadrajets aren’t the most popular carbs.
  

So did the carb work fix the symptoms? Sort of! Cranking times were shortened due to the epoxied base plugs, there was less smoke during cold starts, idle speeds were still inconsistent, and the Elco was just as underpowered. I would find the cause of low power at the end of 2019. I’m attributing the rest of the blame to the nearly 40-year old computer and sensors because electricity is witchcraft and computers were advanced technology for the Big 3 during the smog era.
The next problem I tackled was a sagging driver’s side mirror caused by a broken rivet. Non-power mirrors seem to be really uncommon for 80s El Caminos so finding a replacement mirror wasn’t possible, but the repair was surprising easy. Gently pry off the glass with a plastic trim tool, insert a self-tapping screw, and reinstall the glass with a healthy amount of super glue.

Two other quick fixes were replacing the crusty dome light lens and upgrading to an actual battery tray with a battery hold-down instead of a ratchet strap.

On Memorial Day weekend, a good friend and I drove to Antietam National Battlefield and Gettysburg. Both locations were within an hour of my house at the time. 90 degree weather in a car without AC wasn’t great, but the trips were definitely worth it for the history and scenic views.

There's been some discussion on Oppo about what kind of technologies will propel passenger cars in the future. On a somewhat related note, I wanted to share what one medium duty and heavy duty OEM thinks the next 30 years will look like:
The full article can be found here https://dieselnet.com/news/2023/05sae-hdd.php
DieselNet is a gold mine for nerdy stuff about combustion engines and has some high level info on the world's energy consumption trends. Most of the info is behind a paywall unfortunately. Also, note that Volvo Group doesn't include Volvo Cars anymore; they're currently owned by Geely. I'm really curious to see how accurate this prediction is.

@jminer Looks like it'll be a rainy Sunday in WV so I'm gonna learn how to disassemble a manual transmission. I started taking apart this grimy Saginaw 3 speed yesterday.

@WhoIsTheLeader My thoughts exactly on the paint choices. I'm hoping to do an Appalachian Trail adventure this summer with a few friends. Finding a time that works for everyone AND getting the weather to cooperate will be like herding cats, but it's sure to be memorable.

@john-norris Yeah I liked it too.

April 2020 – December 2020
As the days became longer and warmer, I began laboring on the El Camino’s panels again. Sanding all of the corrugations while sitting inside the pickup bed was awkward and tedious, but I had nothing better to do at the time. It was the summer of 2020; anti-social behavior was strongly encouraged so I continued having no life other than prepping my car for the paint shop. Overall, the bed was in good condition, it just had a few dents and pin-holes that needed attention.


A large rust hole in front of the driver’s side rear wheel presented an opportunity to practice my welding skills. First, I prepped the metal in the work area…
…next I created out a patch panel from scrap metal I had laying around…
…then I welded the patch panel onto the car body.
After that I used my grinder and a flapper disc to get the weld beads level with the panel. Finally, I applied a couple layers of Bondo to fill any imperfections in the surface. In conclusion, my skills are second to none because I am an expert jerry rigger metal worker.
The final boss that I battled was the massive hood. It was nice to work on it inside my tiny garage / large lawnmower shed during the rainy weather that was very common in late summer. I even painted the hood hinges because of extreme boredom. The underside of the hood had some intricate portions that were difficult, but I persisted and achieved Victory! The top of the hood already had a lot of body filler from a major dent repair, more evidence of the Elco’s checkered past I guess. Installing a big, heavy hood by yourself can be challenging. If you’re doing this alone, a jackstand strategically placed under the front is super helpful for holding the hood in place while you’re reinstalling the hood hinges. I also used some foam mats to protect the windshield in case things really went south. After summer sanding round 2, and all the 2020 nonsense, I was ready for a relaxing vacation. Speaking of going south, my friends and I decided that the Outer Banks was a great place to avoid large crowds and chill out. Since it was mechanically and aesthetically sound, I took the Elco on its longest journey yet; from Pennsyltucky down to Newport News, Virginia. The car did great during the 5-hour cruise to my friends’ house and I stopped at the halfway point for a “picnic”! Java Monster and a Sheetz burger is the lunch of champions. The whole squad arrived at the rendezvous point, but a wrench was thrown into our plans. Due to a hurricane pasting close to the coast, a crapload of sand made the only road into the Outer Banks impassable so we waited…and waited…and waited for the road to open. For 4 straight days our routine consisted of consuming copious amounts of carbohydrates to recover from the night before, packing tons of food and drink into 2 Suburbans (the news said OBX grocery stores were empty due to the road closure), getting salty when the news said the road is actually still closed, unpacking the Suburbans, cruising around Newport News in a Miata, Toyota mini-truck, and my hooptie ute, followed by day-drinking, cornhole, and Magic the Gathering. Not the vacation I planned for, but a great vacation nonetheless. The mountains of sand were eventually moved and we got to spend a couple days at the Taj Mahatteras. Everyone agreed that this part of beach week felt like a fever dream: we had inflate-a-couch on the beach, a sand dune in our swimming pool, and a McMansion of a house that included a sauna, hot tub, and a broken home theater. Just as we were getting used to these extravagant surroundings it was time to pack up and return to reality. Despite the brief Outer Banks time, my spirits were high as I headed back home towards the paint shop! Hey wait, why the hell it is gray?!?! I asked for a purple-ish blue color, and thankfully had the paperwork to prove it. Somehow Maaco mixed up cars and also forgot to paint the underside of the hood. The franchise owner agreed to fix their mistakes at no cost to me, but the wait time to do this was ridiculous. This debacle was finally resolved, just as winter rolled in. I can’t remember the exact Maaco name for this color (Magnetic Pearl? Majestic Pearl? Electric Pearl?). Anyway, it’s single-stage urethane paint that has held up well. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed in myself for missing low spots, which are visible at some angles, but I’m generally happy with the overall results. The color choice is very flamboyant and gaudy so I think it fits the character of the ute.

@Taylor-Martin Staying in town could be cool, hopefully worth the extra cost. You know where I live and I'm your codriver so:

@Taylor-Martin Yeah everything sounds good to me. Thanks for doing the planning

@CB I'd find the worst condition Chrysler New Yorker. This is what you mean by fuck it money right?

@pickup_man Ethanol made from sugar cane is huge in Brazil. I think growing sugar cane would be viable in parts of Florida so that would help the US move on from corn ethanol.

@415s30 Is the biodiesel at the station any cheaper, or more expensive, than non-biodiesel? I'm wondering how much it costs to make the bio on an industrial scale, and maybe the costs are subsidized right now. At a hobbyist scale I'd like to make my own some day. If you're running biodiesel, be aware that it's more likely to gel in cold climates, and pay VERY close attention to the quality and maintenance schedule of fuel filters. Bio tends to attract more water and bacterial growth. Older diesels with simpler injector designs should be more robust against poor fuel quality. Anyway, the idea of picking up cooking waste from local restaurants and turning it into something that powers a vehicle just sounds so fulfilling.

@dogisbadob Yes, and yep I agree https://www.electrive.com/2023/05/09/volvos-nova-bus-secures-massive-order-for-electric-buses-in-canada/

@amoore100 Garbage fleets in big cities can run their EVs during the night because no combustion roar, so they can avoid some of the congestion that garbage trucks currently have to deal with. It's Mack diesels in my neighborhood and occasionally I see the Freightliner diesel trash trucks in the area.
@jminer Maybe the fact that garbage trucks are shorter than tractor trailers is deceiving. Some brands are medium duty, but the Mack cabovers are heavy duty 11 liter trucks that can weigh up to 80K pounds when fully loaded. Yeah garbage trucks are a great application to electrify. Cement trucks would be fairly receptive to battery electric. It really depends how remote the cement trucks' job sites are.
@facw I think hydrogen, either in fuel cells or combustion engines, has more challenges to overcome than battery electric for 2 reasons.

1. The hydrogen infrastructure is even less developed than the battery charging infrastructure.
2. Hydrogen loves to leak out of everything.