Daily driver?

Hey everyone, we talk a lot about our tractors, but never about our cars (to speak of). So lets make a thread showing off our daily drivers and the story behind them (if there is one). Ill start off with my 2000 chevy impala base. Grandpa bought it new in 2000 and hauled @$$ from PA to IN to see me be born and mom wouldn't even let him in the room So he got to take me home in it instead hehe. Future plans for the car is a built supercharged 3.8 from the junkyard, SS roll bars, aftermarket struts, and maybe some slightly darker headlights. Here is a quick vid of how she sits as of today:



Sorry for the vertical format, I keep forgetting to turn my phone sideways

Well I'm bending the rules here. I don't have my licence yet but I do drive this nearly everyday around the yard, so it technically is my daily driver

Here she is; 1994 Land Rover Defender 2.5L 300 TDI Pick up. Bought for £6000 last summer as an unfinished project.

Haven't done much to her so far except replace the power steering pump and interior mats. Clutch master cyl. has a slow leak and the doors are rusting/paint bubbling. Plan is to put Dinitrol (rust prevention) around doors and tailgate, and also replace rubber around the doors.

Thats pretty cool! Ive only seen the full size SUVs, never any with that short of a wheelbase

It is a Land Rover 90 (93 inch wheel base). You can get a 110 and 130. 109 inch wb and 127 respectively.

MatthewD wrote:

It is a Land Rover 90 (93 inch wheel base). You can get a 110 and 130. 109 inch wb and 127 respectively.

Ah cool. Learn something new every day!

OK, My turn, HAHA!!!


               84 Jeep Grand Wagoneer

This has a long story behind it. I kept it running for one of my customer/friend when he owned it so his daughter can get to work. One day she drove it to work, parked it and clocked in. The next thing she new the fire department called her, told her to come outside to the parking lot because it caught on fire. After the fire, they towed it home and called me, LOL. Asked me if I could fix it. The engine compartment was totally burned out but the interior was fine. They don't call it a firewall for nothing, LOL. I told them "Sorry, I can't, would take too long". Then asked me if I wanted it. I said "OK". Dragged it home with my car on a chain using only the E-brake. My friend was in it and slammed into me about 3 times trying to stop. That was, well probably over 17 years ago.

Took 2 years to tear it down, redo everything on the body, paint it, rebuilt the engine, and got it legal to drive. 2 weeks of driving it, I got T-boned by a Cablevision van. Had to total it out meaning get a salvage title so I could get the money and was able to keep it with the salvage title. Drove it still banged up till the plates went dead. So it sat in my driveway for a year or so to get it legal again which involved changing the rear driver door (the red one), and pulled out the door jam down to the kick panel. Got it reinspected and got it legal again. By then, It was rusted up pretty bad and lost interest in doing the body work since the driver side was all dented up. Drove it off and on for a couple years when I needed to. Kept it running while it sat. Had to change the motor 2 more times. Never blew the motors but always was an issue with the oil pressure dropping to almost nothing at idle when hot. After putting new main, rod, cam bearings in last motor and reground the crank .010 under, still oil pressure problem. I eventually gave up on fixing the oil pressure problem. Drove it for another 10 years. It would have great oil pressure when cold but as soon as the engine would heat up it would drop to 5 psi. So I would run 20W/50 in the engine, pulled the thermostat, and put an all aluminum race radiator in it with a hi flow waterpump. All that brought the oil pressure up to a solid 10 psi at idle when hot, that is if it ever got hot, LOL. Sucked in the winter time because it NEVER kicked out any heat, barely defrost the windshield, and had more holes in it then swiss cheese. I just recently found out that it was the timing chain cover/oil pump housing that was causing the oil pressure problem.

But YES, I loved this Monster. It has a 360 V8, 727 torqueflight trans and 3.50 gears in the axles. I would put car tires on it and would cruise on the highway at 3000 rpm at 60 mph. Plus the 360 I modified it. In stock form put out 175 hp, after modding it put out probably over 300 hp. I ported the heads with my stage 2 port job, took a month just to do both heads. They flow gobs of air. Put an aluminum edelbrock 4 barrel intake on, a 4 barrel 750 Q-jet, race camshaft that gave it a big lope to the idle, custom built race HEI, dual exhaust with Cherry Bombs and my mufflers that I built, shift kit for trans that chirp the wheels going into second gear, and a huge trans cooler. Never got around to putting a radio in it but on the highway doing 60, to pass someone all I had to do was stab the throttle a little and I was passed them in a second. Oh, I put water injection on it also. Never had the chance to tune it in to where it would work at 3000 rpm, but was working good at WOT, LOL. I drove it to work one day this spring and messed up the pump in the trans. I drove it all summer long on a bad trans pump and got so bad recently that I started to loose 3rd gear and parked it in November I think. So right now, it's been sitting in my yard, the body is too far gone to be driven to where it is safe so I will be stripping it and getting rid of it.......

Never fear, I got a spare, LOL.


Same year, engine, same option package. Only difference is it's gold and rust in color, LOL. Plus it has only 59,000 miles on it, as compared to the other one that has well the speedo quit working when I got it at 129,000 and that was over 17 years ago. There both on my You Tube Channel in a playlist. I'm still working on the gold one to get it driveable since it has been sitting for over 2 years plus however long the previous owner had it sitting.

Are you going to drop the modded 360 in the gold jeep at some point? And thats a helluva story lol, nice one

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

Are you going to drop the modded 360 in the gold jeep at some point? And thats a helluva story lol, nice one

Nah, but the aluminum intake, carb, ignition, duel exhaust, water injection and all the other parts I made will get transferred over to the young motor eventually. Keep the old motor stored as a spare block, it's tired, the cylinders has a little blow by. I'll buy a new cam and port out the heads on the young motor when I get the money, which means I'll be tearing down the young motor to freshen it up. Might even put better pistons in it but I kinda like my low compression motors more (8.5 to 1) for the low end torque. Can almost pull the front tires off the ground on a good launch. I'll drive the gold one for a few years till I get another car and park the gold Jeep to tear the whole thing down to mod it all at once. Got plenty of parts for it in my basement plus my old Jeep.

Gotcha. Have you seen the Toyota Land Cruiser with a turbocharged 2JZ making like 800 hp?

Well here's my HOT ROD, a 2005 Equinox LT. ( The LT stands for "leaves a trail" hahahaha!) Any way it was my Mom's car that she passed down to me. About six days after my Mom bought it, a lady pulled out in front of us and wrecked the front clip. Thank goodness for insurance! Nothing modified on it or nothing, I've changed the water pump once, new exhaust from the flange back cuz it rotted out, new plugs and wires once and new front brakes (calipers, pads and rotors) I think it's a real cool looking ride for an SUV and it's perfect for what I need it for.

Here she is:


It's got the 3400 SFI V6 engine, pretty much the same as CQ'S  Impala.

How many miles on that rig AK? Have the intake manifold gaskets ever needed replaced?

Almost 240,000km. Surprisingly no new intake gaskets needed yet! "Knock on wood" I know the SFI engines are brutal for having that problem (I've done two of 'em at work)  but I don't think the ones in the Equinox's where quite as bad, luckily. Also I forgot to mention that it has a remote starter installed which is pretty handy, and it has this super cool custom high performance decal on the dash:
Hahahaha!

prancstaman wrote:

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

Are you going to drop the modded 360 in the gold jeep at some point? And thats a helluva story lol, nice one

Nah, but the aluminum intake, carb, ignition, duel exhaust, water injection and all the other parts I made will get transferred over to the young motor eventually. Keep the old motor stored as a spare block, it's tired, the cylinders has a little blow by. I'll buy a new cam and port out the heads on the young motor when I get the money, which means I'll be tearing down the young motor to freshen it up. Might even put better pistons in it but I kinda like my low compression motors more (8.5 to 1) for the low end torque. Can almost pull the front tires off the ground on a good launch. I'll drive the gold one for a few years till I get another car and park the gold Jeep to tear the whole thing down to mod it all at once. Got plenty of parts for it in my basement plus my old Jeep.

Be sure to share this process with us.

Hahahahahaha that sticker is awesome! Probably good for about 5 hp. The intake manifold looks different on yours than it does on mine. Must be a different induction design altogether. Same heads and block i assume though

Hahaha yeah i estimate 5-10hp give or take.Yeah the intake manifolds are the same, but I think the intake plenums are different. That might have something to do with it but I'm not really sure. I know on some of the vans they tucked the engines back too far and a lot of heat would build up on that side of the engine.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Hahaha yeah i estimate 5-10hp give or take.Yeah the intake manifolds are the same, but I think the intake plenums are different. That might have something to do with it but I'm not really sure. I know on some of the vans they tucked the engines back too far and a lot of heat would build up on that side of the engine.

Hmm...interesting. Course it probably doesn't help that the gaskets themselves are made of plastic

Yeah they're pretty crappy.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Well here's my HOT ROD, a 2005 Equinox LT. ( The LT stands for "leaves a trail" hahahaha!) Any way it was my Mom's car that she passed down to me.

I had a 2005 Equinox LS... it shook pretty hard in the front end when I braked. Never could figure it out. Replace a bunch of stuff (wheel bearings, rotor, brakes) with no luck. Got rid of it a few years ago and got a 2012 Impala. Still my daily driver. Took a west coast vacation a few years back and the crazy thing. I get about 30mpg, but in the state of Arizona going from New Mexico to California and back, "JUST IN AZ" I got 46mpg. Crazy, I averaged 34 in California and about 36 in New Mexico.

Dang! Makes me want a car of some sort... My jeep only gets about 15 or something stupid like that.

mightyraze wrote:

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Well here's my HOT ROD, a 2005 Equinox LT. ( The LT stands for "leaves a trail" hahahaha!) Any way it was my Mom's car that she passed down to me.

I had a 2005 Equinox LS...  it shook pretty hard in the front end when I braked.  Never could figure it out.

Almost sounds like traction control was trying to take over or something. Hmm.. Oh well, the wheel bearings in them are notorious for going bad regularly. This one has had all four done twice! And if the guy who put it in didn't use Anti-Sieze or anything, they are brutal to remove. You have to pound them with a great big hammer until they break loose, I've heard of guys breaking the steering knuckle while trying to break the wheel bearing loose!

AllisKidD21 wrote:

mightyraze wrote:

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Well here's my HOT ROD, a 2005 Equinox LT. ( The LT stands for "leaves a trail" hahahaha!) Any way it was my Mom's car that she passed down to me.

I had a 2005 Equinox LS...  it shook pretty hard in the front end when I braked.  Never could figure it out.

Almost sounds like traction control was trying to take over or something. Hmm.. Oh well, the wheel bearings in them are notorious for going bad regularly. This one has had all four done twice! And if the guy who put it in didn't use Anti-Sieze or anything, they are brutal to remove. You have to pound them with a great big hammer until they break loose, I've heard of guys breaking the steering knuckle while trying to break the wheel bearing loose!

Probably something like that. Since my impala is the base model, I don't have traction control. I can burn the tires off of it through the whole school parking lot....as long as it's wet

The only way I'm burning the tires off of mine is if it catches on fire haha. The Impala's are FWD yes?

AllisKidD21 wrote:

The only way I'm burning the tires off of mine is if it catches on fire haha. The Impala's are FWD yes?

Yep, FWD.

Olds alero 2004 4cly. Drive 160 miles a day for work. Original motor and trans. Been wrecked 3 times, caught on fire, still going with 356,000 miles.

Stretch44875 wrote:

Olds alero 2004 4cly.  Drive 160 miles a day for work. Original motor and trans. Been wrecked 3 times, caught on fire, still going with 356,000 miles.

Damn what a trooper. What engine?