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With some help from Rambler Marlin-racin' Cadillac Bob and his trailer, my latest Hell Project has now arrived in the garage. Once I started taking stuff apart, I got a vivid reminder of how incredibly uncomplicated Detroit trucks once were. More »
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Much as I hate working on the daily driver— where's the fun in that?— the warped rotors on my much-traveled '92 Honda Civic got to shaking enough to detach my pineal gland. Next stop, Lee Auto Supply! More »
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Through the magic of technology, the 1986 Chrysler New Yorker could to talk to its driver. Similarly, the Speak & Spell children's learning toy could school you with a mechanized voice. This is what happens when you put them together. More »
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When your rings go bad and crankcase pressure starts a-buildin' up, you'll get oil a-gushin' out of any escape it can find: dipstick tube, filler cap, wherever. Cars dumping oil on a race track get in trouble. What to do? More »
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We've been led to believe that the driver's seat on street cars should be one side or the other, but why? Team Mid-Drive Crisis converted their LeMons Mirage to mid-drive, and we can see that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. More »
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The sub-$20 theft-proof stereo installation works pretty well, but let's say your local crackheads aren't desperate enough to bust your windows to steal a factory AM/FM radio, yet they will steal anything nicer? How will you listen to your MP3s? More »
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The first BumperCam, an ancient Kodak bolted to the rear bumper of a LeMons Volvo, took good photos but its large size made it vulnerable to crash damage. Not so with BumperCam II, survivor of three punishing races! More »
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You say you're tired of paying the gas company for natural gas to heat your shack while at the same time throwing away perfectly good, energy-laden hydrocarbons every time you change your engine oil? Problem solved! More »
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More than two years have passed since I built the car-battery-powered Turbo II, Junkard Boogaloo boombox, and finally some other masochist innovator has decided to experience the headaches joy of a homemade boombox afflicted blessed with genuine Jaguar components: Catbox! More »
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Those of you who read my posts about easy Honda speedometer replacement and hellish Ford window regulator replacement know my oft-repeated rants about German over-complexity, Detroit quality corner-cutting, and Japanese cheap-but-well-thought-out engineering. Where do I get my facts? The junkyard! More »
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Never mind that the Angry Hamster Honda Z600 finished in 140th place at the 2009 Arse Freeze-A-Palooza, because the team took home the coveted Dangerous Homemade Technology trophy and generally knocked us on our asses with their car's awesomeness. More »
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Since I'd already fixed an annoying problem in my Crown Vic, I figured I might as well fix an equally annoying problem in my '92 Civic: when the temperature dropped below about 50°, the speedometer stopped working. More »
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Your crappy 1977 Ford Pinto with the serious-looking six-point roll cage wants to race in the 24 Hours of LeMons and ChumpCar. Jalopnik is here to help you pass tech in each series. More »
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A couple weeks ago, when I debuted the Ghost Ride The Whip Box at the '09 Arse Freeze-a-Palooza LeMons, I decided I needed to roll my Crown Vic's balky driver's window down all the way… and heard a terrible CLUNK! More »
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Much as I like to get my parts at the junkyard, I tend to feel a little uncomfortable using junkyard brake hoses. Anyway, there's been a real Spridget drought at my local self-service yards. More »
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After hearing the Datsun 710 Theme Song yesterday, I remembered that my old industro-noise band, Murilee Arraiac, recorded a song entitled "Chrysler New Yorker." More »
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You're at the junkyard pulling some parts, and you toss all the fasteners into your toolbox. Next time you clean out the ol' junkyard toolbox, you'll move all those nuts and bolts and washers to… where? More »
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As you know, I like building dumb projects using junkyard parts, particularly when they're all about safety! This tale of building your very own Skull Brake Lights has more than the usual twists and turns, so buckle up! More »
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We've been doing the Engine Of The Day series for a couple of years, so it's time we put all 74 EOTD honorees together! More »
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You like to shoot race photos, but those uptight track officials won't let you get out on the track in your '89 Olds and get some up-close shots of the action? No problem! More »
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You see a lot of budget-challenged repairs and modifications on Crusher-bound vehicles; along with adding a handful of Little Trees, a car's final owner often performs some last-ditch fixes in order to stay mobile. More »
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There's a sequence in the 1991 movie Slacker in which a couple of Texas gearheads score a GM electronic-ignition distributor in the junkyard. More »
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When you're stranded in the Moroccan desert with ten days of rations and a basket-case 2CV, do you give up? Hell no! You do what Emile Leray did! More »
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Having owned British cars prior to taking on the '67 Sprite Hell Project, you'd think I'd have learned my lesson about Lucas Electrics: always remove every last trace of the Prince Of Darkness' evil works! More »
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Seeing all the comments on the Found Junkyard Tools post reminds me of the eternal junkyard question: Do you bring every tool you own or the bare minimum when hitting the junkyard? More »
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When you spend enough time at the junkyard, you're going to find free tools on a regular basis. Some are in the cars when they get scrapped, while others get lost by fellow junkyard dogs. More »
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Remember that Fiat tachometer I scored at Junkyard Half Price Day? Well, it and many other scavenged pieces have found their way into my Toyota-engined '67 Austin-Healey Sprite. More »
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When I stopped by my local self-service yard to photograph the Crusher-bound '49 Ford on Friday, I discovered that I'd walked into Half Price Weekend. Might as well do some shopping! More »
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Let's say you park your car in an area frequented by urban entrepreneurs who gather intoxicant-obtainment resources by harvesting car audio equipment from vehicles… yet you still want some tunes in your ride. More »
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The Datsun Maxima voice warning box, with its tiny phonograph record, just radiates awesomeness… but I was having a helluva time getting the thing to work. Problem solved, thanks to one of my henchmen! More »
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One of the biggest problems that we encounter while judging at 24 Hours Of LeMons races is whiners! More »
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Why have so many cars blown up, broken down, or crapped out? Nobody can say for sure. Whatever the reason, we've never seen so many dead cars at any LeMons race before. More »
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I thought that finding a copy of Let's Call It Fiesta for a buck at my favorite teetering-walls-o-books used bookstore was a serious score, but bzr may have done even better with this find. More »
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Certain high-end Datsun models of the Late Malaise Era came with a seriously science-fictiony feature: the car talked to you! That's no big deal nowadays- $1.29 worth of silicon- but back then it took hardware.
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I headed over to West Oakland last night, to check out the Boiler Bar May Day Party, featuring a slew of art cars and a few of the contestants from the Escape From Berkeley race. More »
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Want to check out the Golden Mean, a fire-belching Volkswagen Beetle-based giant snail that seats six and packs an 800-watt sound system inside its shell? With snake charming to boot? Head to Oakland tonight! More »
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Last year's LeMons South Index Of Effluency Winners, the Tunachuckers '66 Volvo Amazon team, had to come off the track just before the People's Curse began. Things looked bad: seized engine! More »
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When I was writing shop manuals for transit buses, the only fun illustrations I commissioned were nixed by my boss. That didn't happen with these Chrysler Master Technician pamphlets of the 1940s and 1950s! More »
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Ex-Jalop Señor Bumbeck is twice the wrench and three times the photographer that I'll ever be, so weekend Jalopnik readers oughta be overjoyed to hear that he's back in action with a new site: Clunkbucket! More »
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I visited the secret laboratories of Evil Genius Racing last week, to see what manner of madness they had cooking. While there, I encountered a couple of track-car projects that presented quite a dilemma. More »
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