Assembling a WWII Jeep from scratch took a toll on my body, my marriage, and my house, and I’m working to improve all three. Since I don’t want to show you photos of me working out or going on dates with my hot wife, I’ll focus this article instead on my house, which has been a dumpster fire for over a year thanks to my ambitiously awesome Jeep project.
I’d never categorize my wrenching style as particularly … neat. I’m meticulous and organized in the ways that matter (you can’t complete challenging projects on a tight deadline like I have unless you’re organized), but my workplace often looks like a disaster zone.
Here’s what I mean; this is the worst my suburban LA home got during my brand new-WWII Jeep project:
The thing you see a lot of is blue shop towels. That’s because I was dealing with lots of components that had to be very clean — primarily bearings and brake parts. Grease on brakes or contaminants in bearings can lead to performance/longevity issues, so I was wielding blue towels a lot. Should I have trashed them as soon as I was done using them? Yes. As they say in the popular Hulu Series The Bear, “clean as you go.” I did not.
But I did get the job done while maintaining high standards for quality, so I guess it is what it is.
Laurence and I had to erect a tent at one point when it started raining:
This was the view from our bedroom:
My wife, Elise, loved that.
Eventually, that tent did come down after things became way too hot in there:
And eventually, I completed the Jeep and slowly started cleaning up, revealing the oil stains on what was a brand new concrete deck pad/driveway:
Will those stains ever come out? Probably not. I’ll pressure wash the driveway, but the concrete deck pad (the left side of the photo above) I’ll have to cover with a shiny new wood deck. Elise is excited for that.
I recently gathered a bunch of metal scrap from the build and threw it out. “We’re rich!” I told Elise. “I made $15 on scrap!”
“How much did the gas cost you to get there?” she replied.
She had a fair point.
Still, things are looking better these days. The insane number of boxes from all the parts I ordered off eBay are gone, as is the big pallet on which the Jeep body tub arrived, as are all the wood planks that were shrink-wrapped to the frame to protect it during shipping:
I also managed to sell off a bunch of stuff locally. This big shed that stored my motors and other parts?
It’s gone:
My spare WWII Jeep axles? They’re out of the driveway and went to a local Jeep nut, for free:
The Red Cross Camp that was on our back patio has been dismantled, and I sold it for $40:
In addition, I managed to sell my reference Jeep and my spare engine. After buying them all for a total of around $4000, I sold them as a package for $6000. Not bad; I made The Autopian a couple stacks:
So what does the driveway look like today, with the shed gone, the tent gone, the axles gone, the metal scrap gone, and the reference Jeep gone? Lemme ask Elise to snap me a picture:
So much for that.
The lawn is still toast from all the degreasing Laurence and I did there.
And many of my clothes are ruined forever.
So there’s still work to do. Elise bought me a bunch of clothing for a white hot deal at Costco (Costco’s clothes are somehow … not bad?), and the driveway is clearer than it has been in months. But there’s still a ton of junk on it. I need to clean it all up, because my son is now not only walking, he is running, and he has never once gotten to play in our backyard.
So folks, I’m in the doghouse, but — with the help of my power washer and a bunch of deckboards — I plan to soon make the back area look better than ever. I just need to find time between running a media company and running after a toddler. Hmm …
All photos: David Tracy/The Autopian
You missed an opportunity to upcycle those pallets and boards into a rustic suburban deck.
Not trying to be mean here, but… yikes. This doesn’t look much better than your old yard in Troy, IMO. Smaller scale, but it’s also a smaller lot. Your wife must be a saint, because I can tell you right now that mine would be putting her foot down if I let our property get to 1/10 of that. Not that I would, because if anything I’m the one that’s overly obsessive about the yard being nice.
That project was awesome and I’m glad you were able to do it. In the future though, I’d advise doing one of the following:
Bottom line, I would not do another project like this at your home again. Your wife may joke about it now, but if it becomes a regular thing it could definitely lead to resentment. And as you said, it’s not really fair to the rest of your family for your only outdoor space to be unusable/unsightly for extended periods of time. I’d also argue that it’s not a great way to stay on good terms with your neighbors. I try not to be overly judgy but if I lived next to this even temporarily, I’d have opinions and possibly be calling code enforcement. If you are gonna give yourself these crazy projects with impossible deadlines that lead you to work like this (I know you said it won’t happen again but we’ve heard this before), best to do it elsewhere.
Honestly, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and ultimately, given the many constraints/obligations I have in my role, I think I managed the whole thing as well as I could have. It was an epic project, and a truly amazing opportunity for this company. The fam and neighbors are doing great!
You owe your family a much cleaner (and safer for the little one) home than this David. You are not single anymore mate. You are lucky you are not divorced. Time to become a much more tidy wrencher.
When Clarkson would describe British car manufacturers “working out of a shed”, this is close to what I immediately pictured. And possibly more organized (and with a lot fewer empty alcohol containers).
So, yeah, it’s a factory in at least one tradition.
I’m pretty sure like half of my clothes came from Costco. Decent quality, better prices, I just wish people didn’t give me such weird looks while trying on the pants.
I wish you the best of luck on this whole finding time thing! I’ve got two toddlers, don’t run a media company, or any company for that matter, and outside of my 8 hr a day job and most importantly that irreplaceable time with my kids, I still can’t find time to do much beyond basic home upkeep. The comment in your July 4th “…WWII jeep…almost broke me” article about your son not understanding why he couldn’t be with you while watching you from the window hit me squarely at home. Trying to balance work, family, and hobbies is really tough. Trying to explain to my 3 year old why he can’t come with me to work while he’s holding on for all he’s worth is hard, I can only imagine how hard it was when work was right there at home in full view, but still couldn’t include your little one.
Despite my best intentions at making time for hobbies I’ve only driven one of my projects, a 70s vintage D100, a total of 15 minutes this summer. I haven’t even done the first cut on a floor pan project I’m chomping at the bit to dive into. I have had some recent sucess sneaking in little “bite size” parts of projects into my time with the kids, having them hold relatively benign small parts and tools while I inch towards a goal, but can’t in good conscience start running things like a cut-off wheel, grinder and welder while there’s even a chance they could wander into the area. I’ve really got to get my stuff together if I’m going to make meaningful progress and I’m optimistic I’ll find a way, but it isn’t easy…