eclecticalan

  • 1977 Triumph TR7 Race Car

    We’ve had this 1977 Triumph TR7 Race Car in the shop before, and it’s been run locally in the VSCDA circuit for a few years now after the grandson of it’s original driver decided to pull it out and start racing again. This year’s project is all about safety. We’re going to update the roll…

    Read More

  • 1960 Jaguar MK IX – Arrival and Inspection

    This 1960 Jaguar MK IX arrived this fall from the other side of Michigan. It’s a beautiful car that has had some modifications done that the owner wishes to bring back to stock, including replacing the aftermarket alternator and power steering setups with an original generator and power steering pump. In addition, a GM T700-R4…

    Read More

  • 1954 Jaguar XK120 – Arrival

    The owner of this rusty but untouched Jaguar XK120 is doing much of the work himself. He’s trusting us with some of the heavy lifting. Here are some pictures of he car as it arrived for us to do some of the disassembly. The car was so rusty that the body came off in two…

    Read More

  • Adding water cooling

    A big issue with adding a Subaru engine to an aircooled Vanagon is the complete and utter lack of water cooling (obviously). We did some research and opted to install a later factory water-cooled Vanagon radiator in the front of the van. We didn’t have any of the mounting hardware, but we found one place…

    Read More

  • Securing the engine and digging into the project

    The conversion kit comes with a fancy new crossmember/cradle for the engine mounts which had already been loosely installed, but some adjustments had to be made. Due to the swap being installed on an aircooled vehicle instead of water-cooled, a custom plate had to be fabricated (using directions supplied by the kit designer) in order…

    Read More

  • Taking over the project

    This early aircooled Volkswagen Vanagon came to us with a partially installed Subaru 2.5l engine conversion out of a 2004 Forester. The owner and his helpers got it about halfway along and ran into issues, so we have been tasked with sorting and finishing the installation. The first step was to inventory everything we had…

    Read More

  • Stripping the passenger side

    Before we start assembly on the driver’s side we decided to strip down the damage on the passenger side as well. We found fiberglass in the outer rocker and lots of rust beneath.

    Read More

  • Beginning the sheet metal repairs

    Before the MGA can be painted, we need to take care of some rust and collision damage. This car was hit hard in the front left at some point in its past and we’ll be getting that all fixed up, along with the typical lower fender rust, rockers, doglegs, etc. The first step is to…

    Read More