New found glory.
I pulled my cat back out...
And my car doesn't rattle anymore. What a good feeling. It seems so miniscule, the task of swapping a cat with a test pipe. But I didn't feel like doing it. Now that it is done, I am proud of driving my car again.
My crappy little S-10 rattles and shakes and is rusted to hell. I don't mind driving that though, because I don't look at my truck and see it as an extension of myself. It is just a truck.
My car, however, is an extension of myself. Years of hard work and re-work have gone into it. When someone says something bad about it, they might as well have been talking about me. That is how I take it. So that little rattle from the cat actually made me ashamed of my car, of myself. I didn't realize it until I took the cat out though. Once it was gone, my whole mood changed. Instead of thinking of selling it, I'm thinking about cams, and suspension, and /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif paint?
I've never thought deeply about painting it, but I am now. It is weird.
And this car still gives me chills, butterflies, an adrenaline rush, whatever you want to call it. When she is up and running, full spool, clicking gears, and I know it is all because of me, my work, I am still amazed. When I got this car it was a couple weeks away from a trip to the scrapper. Now I have people that I respect telling me how good of a job I've done. And people I've never met flagging me down just to talk about and look at my car.
It is odd for me to deal with people who want to give me praise over my car. It doesn't have anything special done to it. In fact, there's many more cars here and elsewhere that are far more deserving of praise then mine. Mine is dented, scratched, has bad paint, and is currently two different colors. It would be three if I'd ever get my front bumper put back on. My seats are dried and cracked and coming apart at the seems. The carpet is stained and faded. I'm missing a bunch of little clips and fill panels in the interior. The vents have a bunch of broken fins. The rear defrost has never worked. The car leaks water in two different spots when it rains or when I wash it.
But it is mechanically sound. There isn't a single loose or worn out suspension part. The motor and trans are fresh. The rear is a 4-bolt. Everey little aspect of the "workings" of the car has been upgraded or inspected and deemed ok.
Is it possible for onlookers to recognize the effort put forth in a vehicle when the only things that have been upgraded aren't even visible without crawling underneath it? I don't know. I frequent a couple shows in the Denver area and I walk right by some fairly regular looking vehicles not ever knowing if they are actually stock or if they just appear that way. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif
Anyhow, I know that I love my car. Thats about it for my Thursday night ramble.
Oh, and I finally put a BOV on it.
I pulled my cat back out...
And my car doesn't rattle anymore. What a good feeling. It seems so miniscule, the task of swapping a cat with a test pipe. But I didn't feel like doing it. Now that it is done, I am proud of driving my car again.
My crappy little S-10 rattles and shakes and is rusted to hell. I don't mind driving that though, because I don't look at my truck and see it as an extension of myself. It is just a truck.
My car, however, is an extension of myself. Years of hard work and re-work have gone into it. When someone says something bad about it, they might as well have been talking about me. That is how I take it. So that little rattle from the cat actually made me ashamed of my car, of myself. I didn't realize it until I took the cat out though. Once it was gone, my whole mood changed. Instead of thinking of selling it, I'm thinking about cams, and suspension, and /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif paint?
I've never thought deeply about painting it, but I am now. It is weird.
And this car still gives me chills, butterflies, an adrenaline rush, whatever you want to call it. When she is up and running, full spool, clicking gears, and I know it is all because of me, my work, I am still amazed. When I got this car it was a couple weeks away from a trip to the scrapper. Now I have people that I respect telling me how good of a job I've done. And people I've never met flagging me down just to talk about and look at my car.
It is odd for me to deal with people who want to give me praise over my car. It doesn't have anything special done to it. In fact, there's many more cars here and elsewhere that are far more deserving of praise then mine. Mine is dented, scratched, has bad paint, and is currently two different colors. It would be three if I'd ever get my front bumper put back on. My seats are dried and cracked and coming apart at the seems. The carpet is stained and faded. I'm missing a bunch of little clips and fill panels in the interior. The vents have a bunch of broken fins. The rear defrost has never worked. The car leaks water in two different spots when it rains or when I wash it.
But it is mechanically sound. There isn't a single loose or worn out suspension part. The motor and trans are fresh. The rear is a 4-bolt. Everey little aspect of the "workings" of the car has been upgraded or inspected and deemed ok.
Is it possible for onlookers to recognize the effort put forth in a vehicle when the only things that have been upgraded aren't even visible without crawling underneath it? I don't know. I frequent a couple shows in the Denver area and I walk right by some fairly regular looking vehicles not ever knowing if they are actually stock or if they just appear that way. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif
Anyhow, I know that I love my car. Thats about it for my Thursday night ramble.
Oh, and I finally put a BOV on it.
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