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
Continue improving all 3 important priorities you mentioned. And you’ll find these will remain a lifelong pursuit.
(With an extra special something for the patience “Elise” extended to you…)
I know I’m late to this particular party and you’re likely not reading the comments anymore, but regarding the oil stains on your driveway and back patio pad:
My father took a lot of pride in his yard and the appearance of our house and I drive a lot of beaters in high school and college that did not contain their fluid components well or often.
The best way to make your family members happy(er) is to use cheap, powder laundry or dish washing detergent. Sprinkle it on the stains during days of low wind. Let it sit for a day or two and it will absorb most of the oil. If you’re worried about it contaminating ground water or runoff you can get your shop vac out but you should not be using much. Well, maybe you will with the large area…
This will make pressure washing so much easier and the results will be much better.
Oof, she was really steamed, huh? 😉
That text exchange kind of makes me want an article from Elise about this whole project too. Sounds like she’d be an entertaining writer.
I, too, would appreciate Elise NHRN’s perspective. It might be therapeutic for her to vent (and collect a writer’s fee).
I love your Jeep Comanche pickup David. Yes, your gold and black i3s is nicer I suppose, but the boxy goodness and steelies of the Comanche makes me feel… things. 😉
I’ve said it before…your wife is a SAINT.
Not with those burns. She’s more of a SAVAGE.
Maybe she doesn’t want to turn a wrench in favor of turning a phrase.
I must have picked up my tool/workspace organization skills in childhood, watching Dad. We didn’t have a garage or proper shed, just a tiny utility closet off the carport that he had converted into a workspace. Tools and other materials were always put away, and debris properly disposed of, at the end of each work session simply because there was no room to leave things lying around. 🙂
I’m pleased to see all these cleaning tips; for some reason, I didn’t think to have the garage floor sealed before moving into the new house, and 19 years later two Jeeps have thoroughly marked their territory in there.
The worst I’ve ever done with clothing was wearing my nice office clothes to visit a diesel engine component testing facility. Their injection pump testing rig was pretty much misting the surrounding area with test fluid (Viscor); the laundry detergents I had on hand at home barely made a dent in the smell.
There’s no way that backyard degreasing didn’t run afoul of some California regulation somewhere
Good thing we ain’t snitches around here. Right?
For professionally cheap bastards Costco is the best and only place to shop for clothes.
I just looked down and realized (a) I’m wearing a shirt from Costco, and (b) it’s inside out. Thanks for making me check my look before m’lady gets home.
I’m sure your LA neighbors love you
The stained concrete feels like the worst physical damage; grass can grow back. I tend to use a lot of plastic totes for cleaning things because they contain the chemicals/grease but that might be too large for something like an axle!
162 comments, so I guess you’re doing something right, but how many more times are we going to see the headline: “I did x, and now I’m fucked”?
@David Tracy, your technical articles are WAY more interesting than these tales of turmoil. More of those, please.
counterpoint: tales of turmoil humanize the writers behind the technical excellence. Without these, it’s just Wikipedia for car/RV/train/airplane nerds.
This! These tales of turmoil are why many of us started following David at the old site and followed him and Jason here.
Right. That’s the issue with writing all the technical deep-dives; I start to seem like a robot. Instead, here’s a bit of humanness/stupidity to show that I’m just a person like you and me.
Costco clothes are not bad, but there is a cycle to get to that point.
First, you’ll look at them with disdain. “No way I’m buying a pair of pants off a pallet.”
Then, you’ll read about something being “as good as” something that’s insanely overpriced (a brand that start with Lu), but the Kirkland brand is very economical at Costco. You’ll see said item on you next visit and it’ll be so cheap, curiosity will get ahold of you and you’ll buy a pair.
You wear said item, find that it is indeed decent quality. Then you start buying clothes off pallets.
I clean up after every project (not during) but mine tend to be pretty quick, like brakes, struts, ball joints, wheel bearings… Nothing like building a vehicle from a pile of parts!
And, fortunately, my shop is in the barn so concrete stains are not an issue. There’s more stain than concrete at this point.
That is one of the few things I miss about the cracked, un-level floor in my barn. Dumped a bunch of transmission fluid on the floor? Oh well, I’m sure it will get soaked up by all the dust kicked up from the surrounding fields. 😉
I was fixing up a damaged log splitter I bought last year and blew a hydraulic hose testing it. It must have sprayed a gallon of oil before I could shut it down. Didn’t care so much about the floor but it hit walls, workbenches, and tools too. Took a while before the shop looked “normal” again.
Some unsolicited (and heartfelt) advice: Prioritize working the hardest now on your marriage and your relationship with your son. Once those are gone, they are gone.
Certainly, remediating your home environment is important and will show, at least your wife, that you are serious about making things better. But that’s secondary. With care, the cement will look ok again. The grass will grow back.
They didn’t sign up for this project. Don’t take on another of the intensity required for this one. You may have underestimated how much together time and energy this one was going to require. But, please, don’t do that again.
Work/life balance is a thing. I know this the hard way. Not wrenching on a project vehicle, but other work that I let consume me and take me away from what really matters. I have regrets.
/unsolicited advice
Best wishes.
your relationship with your son. Once those are gone, they are gone.
This, these are the golden years. Not when they learn to drive, or attempt working on cars (that gene didn’t carry to my kid) but from walking to grade school. I think that is where the foundation is poured, from there unless teenage vices get in the way it’s hard to break. I was just telling my kid (on Father’s day) that there are very few fun/happy times from the previous 30 years that didn’t include him. The best were the twice a day drive to/from school.
They didn’t sign up for this project
I have only once piece of relationship advice, marry your best friend and only get into relationships with people that were happy with themselves, (OK that’s 2) I did it right the second time but my son’s mother wasn’t happy so there was nothing I could do about it. She also knew damn well what she was getting into, so any issues with that were not on me. I’ll say the same about David, there’s no way he could have hid who he was. So in that respect she did sign up. I’m sure she knew David the car hoarder and what that looked like.
Transmission in da dishwasher
Where did you get that cat tree?
Elise is now officially her real name? No disclaimer?
After some back-and-froth with the state, a small fee, and some paperwork!
Back and froth, you say?
After all the work David did on the Jeep, it was the Elise she could do.
Elise-to-own?
That’s not allowed anymore.
“And many of my clothes are ruined forever”
Weird. I’d have thought Autopian brand clothes were sold pre-stained with paint, grease and oil like those ridiculously expensive high fashion distressed jeans.
Semi-unsolicited driveway cleaning suggestion: I have it on good authority that LA’s Awesome Cleaner is a great de-greaser. Better still, it’s cheap, fairly safe to work with, and I’m unaware of it murdering polar bears or strangling salmon. Don’t know if it does anything to grass (and even if it doesn’t, the grease you’re cleaning up might), but living in the American southwest, killing grass might actually be a benefit.
Get any sympathy points for coming in bleeding? Surely there was a number of bloody towels and bandaids in the mix somewhere.
If you’re wrenching and not bleeding, you’re not trying hard enough!
So you sold the leftover stuff on Facebook Marketplace and not eBay?
Good point!
Ouch!
What if you just used more oil to stain all of the concrete completely? It’s cheap and would look uniform afterwards.
Or, just throwing this out there, paint it in a unique pattern that hides the stains!
And maybe dip the clothes in that same oil to dye them uniformly?
1: Use a soiled shirt or two as mops to spread oil over the driveway, and use the others to soak up the mess.
2: Sell soiled shirts on Autopian store.
3: ????
4: Profit!
My wife would, and I’m not kidding or joking at all, thrown my personal property on the front lawn and changed the locks on the house if I’d done this.
Then she would have hired a guy to haul away every last bit of my mess to the dump.
Did you clean all of the empty spaghetti bowls out of the shower?
I think he installed a garbage disposal in the drain like Kramer did…ha ha
Plenty of good ideas for cleaning the oil stains off the concrete here. Just know that there’s one more thing sort-of working in your favor — the good ‘ol sun beating down on you with a vengeance will also bleach them right out over the summer.
Here in the upper Midwest, where we’ve been getting “high UV” weather warnings pretty much daily for the past several years, my old diesel Dodge’s former Superfund site has steadily bleached away to a shadow of its former petroleum-soaked glory for the past few months. I’d thrown down some oil-dry and scrubbed the worst off with a stiff push broom, then sprayed the worst with just a hose. The sun and the weather has been doing the rest to render it pretty much just like the rest of the concrete around it. It’s kind of scary, because I grew up in this region, and the sun did not bleach oil and grease stains nearly that fast when I was a kid. (I know this because I was given the chore of scrubbing the driveway whenever the Jeepster Commando marked its territory every time it was left parked outside the garage for too long back in the 70s…)
Given the rather alarming rate the at which the sun has been steadily burning away at the oil stain, I’ve taken to wearing one of those floppy sun hats while working in the yard a lot more regularly.
Given that the ozone layer is healthier now than 20 years ago, might it also be possible that the makeup of the liquids generating the stains in the first place have contributed to the bleaching changes?
Oil-Dri is marvelous stuff. That may have had a greater effect than the sun.
Everything about this stresses me out. What a pigsty.