10 Years of Tastes Like Petrol

Wow, time really does get away on you. It feels like only a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in a restaurant having dinner with my now wife, talking about how I should start a website to put all the stuff I had been doing on cars, in one place. The wine was strong… A plan was hatched, and a name was settled on.

That was 10 years and about 7 days ago.

I originally started this site because I was getting frustrated with having to try and find information on work I was doing on cars, and the amount of information gatekeeping, misinformation or just a lack of specifics on certain tasks. I wanted to make a place where work I had done was documented, both in text and photos, so if anyone else needed to do a similar job they could, or heck, someone lacking skills or confidence could look at the work I have done, see it wasn’t rocket surgery, and hopefully give it a crack themselves. I still maintain anything I have done, anyone can do.

So on this day, 10 years ago, I posted my first post and the site went live.

When I started the site I wasn’t hugely confident in working on cars. The biggest job I had done before this site was rebuilding the vanos on the 523i, which was easy and went well, and then again, the vanos on the M3, which was a big undertaking did not go so well.

Before that, I changed some oil, and did the odd little job. I’ll be honest though, I got my first taste of fixing my own cars with my first Marina, where I learnt how to gap points, and replace a clutch slave cylinder.

It’s funny to think, I never really used to work on my own cars. I never grew up around cars, until friends started getting cars in our teens and I helped out with those a bit. I’m not qualified as a mechanic, it’s all self taught. I had a big string of cars, about 41, before I did the vanos on the M3, and most of those had just been buy and flip, without doing anything to them.

Effie was really where it all started to go… Wrong? Right? Depends on how you look at it, I guess. She is where I really started to get stuck into working on things. I finally had a “decent” (generous single) garage to work in, I was starting to amass a collection of tools, and more importantly, I was finding it difficult to find information on certain jobs I was doing.

Yes, for things like the throttle pot repair and calibration, the information is out there if you dig around various sites and workshop manuals, but at the time there was nowhere you could find it all in one place, with nice clear photos and information.

The Speeduino project really kicked things into another gear though. That was all uncharted territory, and man that was a fun project to do and something I miss. I’m hoping to do another one soon, since I still have a spare Speeduino board here.

Effie had a lot of pretty big jobs, and I learned a lot working on her. She also created a lot of resources for fellow SD1 owners, and even for myself later on, to follow.

The next few cars after Effie were an experience too. The MX5 was a fun little car to drive, but most of my time was spent just undoing horrible work and mods from previous owners, to turn it into a decent little car.

Never in my wildest dreams would I expect I would own two SD1s at the same time, let alone a proper Vitesse, the pinnacle of SD1s (except the Twin Plenum)

This is where I started to get even braver, pushing my skills, by buying a non-runner that had been off the road for about 4 years. Thankfully it turned out to be something simple (a dodgy distributor rotor and oil in the ECU MAP sensor), but I also spent a lot of time wrenching on the Vitesse, rebuilding the suspension and brakes, replacing the steering rack, and generally just making it a better car for the next owner.

The next project I didn’t really expect to do was a deregistered, barely drivable classic Mini with no brakes…

I went through that car with a fine-tooth comb, fixed all the issues, and even got it through re-rego without too much hassle. It was a great little car when I sold it. We won’t talk about what happened to it.

That Mini is actually where I got a welder, and that part of my life began too. To get the car, with no brakes, to my house, the seller drove it and obviously only relied on the handbrake, pulling it so hard he yanked the bracket off the floor

I bought a welder, the gear needed, and (booked in for) a night-class for welding, just so I could fix that bracket and weld it back to the floor. In hindsight, the welding was a bit rubbish, but it held. I could do a lot better now.

The real test was when I was offered the TVR. No photos, no information, the seller wasn’t in possession of the car (it was at a workshop, and he was on a different island), and it was a non-runner.

I bought it anyway, sight unseen, because by now I loved a challenge and I really like weird cars.

That turned into a WAY bigger project than I ever expected. Pretty much if it had something, it didn’t work. That included the engine, the brakes, the electrics, the carpet, everything.

What owning that car did though, was turn me, and this blog, into something of a KJetronic specialist. Back when I had the TVR, there was no good easy to follow information on how the Kjet system worked and how to test and configure it. Some good resources have come out since, but the KJet trilogy, are still the most popular pages on this site.

I also learned what inboard brakes are and how much of a joy they are

And I tried my hand at sewing some boots for the shifter and handbrake and replacing the manky carpet

That car was my first experience in 3D printed car parts too

It’s really just been non-stop chaos since that point. After the TVR I got the Marina, which has been a non-stop learning curve, but I’ll summarise that later.

I had fun building up the Corolla as a kind of track car, which never made it that far, much to my disappointment.

Unfortunately, as I bought the car in the rain, I failed to notice the aggressive rust in the A pillar. I did try my best to cut it out and use my newfound welding skills to fix it

I think I did a pretty good job of that considering

Sadly the rust just kept coming back, no matter what I did to treat it, so the car got reverted to standard and the good bits went in a Carib I sold shortly after, as it never lived up to the Liftback.

Next the Tomcat threw me in the deep end, with a gearbox rebuild

I did quite enjoy rebuilding that. The car made some great noises, and was fun to drive, but ultimately it had destroyed my bank balance and I was always worried something else was going to bankrupt me.

The next major side quest was Lucas. A car that was sold to me at a premium price, needing only some “TLC” and it turned out to have rust in the floor, which I fixed

Oh, and the engine was rubbish too, so that got yanked and replaced with a 3.9

That was yet another car in the line of cars that I have made significantly better in my ownership, ready for a new owner. I’ve been told by a friend I’m basically offering a public service at this point.

As I moved onwards the cars I got started getting more expensive, as did the modifications I did to them, such as the Alto Works. This started my obsession with finding sweet JDM parts and getting them from Japan.

But I could justify the spending; I got into doing track days and the Alto needed better brakes and suspension. I didn’t say it was a good reason, just that I had one.

I more or less pioneered the bolt on big brake upgrade on he HA36S using Chery rotors and Swift caliper brackets. To my knowledge no one has done that combo before, or if they have, they didn’t say what the rotors were deigned for.

Now my latest money pit is just hoovering time and money, but it should be worth it in the end. I bought this one knowing it’s rusty, and that the engine was ruined, so it’s my own fault. This is my first actual engine rebuild, not just replacing some external bits, and the first time dealing with things like boring blocks and buying pistons.

But despite all that, behind everything else (and in the background of all garage photos) for the past 5-ish years and 14 cars, there’s been the Marina.

A car that has taught me everything from welding in sills and floors, I did so much welding

rebuilding lever arm torsion bar suspension,

to tidying up the interior with new carpets,

and even casting new suspension bushes from polyurethane using a 3D printed mold.

I have learnt so much from this car, and there is so much more to learn in the near future too. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and I couldn’t care less. I love the car, and it’ll be a permanent fixture in my fleet. It brings me joy to drive it.

The Marina had been off the road for 29 years when I went for its first WOF back in 2024. That was the majority of its life at the time, and now its road legal, starts, runs and drives with minimal issues (it is still British), and is a joy to cruise around in. I’m gradually getting more confident taking it further and further from home, and it just keeps impressing me.

There isn’t a lot that scares me about cars these days. Rust? Can fix it, just don’t enjoy it. Stuffed engine or gearbox? That’s rebuildable. An obscure car that’s been off the road for years? Sign me up!

Having this site has given me the chance to own some pretty cool cars, do some work I never would have dreamt of when I started the site, and both entertain and help people all over the world.

In 10 years I have written over 500 posts, and there are over 16,000 images (some of which aren’t used, but most are). Each post takes a couple of hours to write, so it’s been a fairly significant undertaking. None of this, and I mean nothing, is AI. Reject AI, embrace old stuff and doing it yourself.

I want to thank everyone that has taken the time to visit this site and read my posts. I hope it’s a help to anyone that wants to give something a go, or wants to know how something works. People reading, and engaging (mostly on cross-posted forum posts) in what I do is what really drives me to continue. If no one visited the site, no one read what I posted, I just wouldn’t bother.

A special, huge thank you goes to everyone that has donated to the site throughout its life. It’s a fairly big cost every year to keep this site going, and although there are a some ads on select pages, I refuse to cover the site in ads, so it barely covers a small percentage of its running costs. All donations have gone right back into operating the site, such as hosting and security.
The button is over there –> *hint hint*

I’m not stopping here. There is heaps of content to come, from the Alto engine rebuild, to the Marina front suspension upgrade and twin carbs.