GOM wrote:
What are the vintage vehicles that you work on?
They're not "that" vintage. But where I live there is very little rust, so I'm not talking rusted heaps here, even 50 year old vehicles here are not rusted.
My daily driver is a 1988 Mazda B2200 Cab Plus truck, purchased in 1994 when my youngest was able to move into a toddler seat and crawl into it, and all I had to do was snap the safety bar in place. It has 209K miles on it now, does the jobs I need it too, but with 85 hp it does not go up Interstate mountain upgrades too well.
I also drive my 1971 VW Convertible, bought in 1976 for $1300 (yes, $1300 USD). It has in it now the 1835cc powerful engine I built back in 1986. In 2003 the stock original 1600cc engine had a 6mm oil stud vibrate out while Mrs. CPG was driving my daughter home from softball while I was with youngest daughter at LL baseball game; she was scared, kept driving with red light on and gauge at zero, until it stalled out. Next day, it still started after I added bolt and added oil, no knocking; but there were curved bearing slivers on the oil screen so I knew there was severe damage, but we kept driving it with no bearing knocking for next 4 years, until I just decided to install the not-used at the time 1835cc engine. This is on classic insurance, so even better now that I have no "work commute" for the insurance company to have in case they ever wanted to fight a claim.
Yes, Mrs. CPG decreased the lifetime of my 32-year-old engine!!!
I still have my original car, a 1970 VW I bought in late 1972 while in college, I retired that in 1993 with 260K on it because I had too many vehicles and the insurance was a big factor with little kids to feed. So to get that going I need to tear down and rebuild the damaged engine referenced above; if the convertible would ever want to be a show car, then considerably more valuable if that original number engine was in it.
I still have the 1998 Frontier regular cab I bought in 2004 with 100K for the kids to drive; sneaky, that made them learn manual transmission, and restricted them to 1 passenger. That all was planned, sneaky and I'm proud of it. It now has 206K on it and my kids are grown up and it has been returned to me, so Mrs. CPG drives it around town, and I take it up north when I drive by myself (more hp than the Mazda truck).
I also have a 2004 Frontier with 90K bought in 2011 from a departing co-worker, as "future replacement" for the Mazda truck.
I do 99% of my own maintenance and repair on these, worked as a VW mechanic in 1974-1975, has helped to do HPLC troubleshooting well, and similar. And likely helped me save $400 here, $300 there on every repair, and similarly has helped me learn washer/dryer/refrigerator repairs too (buy parts over Internet for those).