- If you're watching this channel,
you probably like cars.
(cars revving)
And if you like cars
you've probably dreamt
about having one as a project.
Well what's stopping you?
Maybe you thought
it was too expensive of hobby.
Or maybe you thought
you didn't have the skills
necessary to have one.
Or maybe you thought
you weren't cool enough
to join the club.
Well, I'm here to you
that none of that stuff is true.
It doesn't have to be that expensive.
It's really not that hard,
and our threshold for what's cool
is actually really very low.
Today, I'm gonna you five reasons why you
can and should have a project car.
And once I've successfully convinced you
I'm gonna give you my top three picks for project cars.
I'm Zack, and this is Money Pit.
(thunder crashing)
All right.
So you guys might be wondering
what makes me qualified
to talk to you, aspiring mechanics, about project cars.
And I guess really my qualification is just that I am
about as afflicted as it can get.
I have a project car problem, if you will.
I don't think it's a problem,
but everybody else does.
About six months ago, I moved to Ohio to LA
to work at Donut.
I sold all my cars in Ohio,
and drove an RV to LA.
I lived in it for about four months,
and I now have four project cars,
and an RV in the back yard.
So I guess that's my qualification.
I keep buying junk
in various states,
if running or not running.
I think that's cool,
and if you're kinda in the same boat
and you have a project that isn't running,
that you haven't been working on,
I hope that you use this video
as inspiration to get back into the garage
and get working on it,
and not be like my roommate Syrone
who bought a perfectly good project car
about three months ago,
took up the only garage space with it.
That broke.
And hasn't touched it in three months.
So don't be like Serone.
Be like me. Turn some wrenches.
Okay, So cars can be scary and daunting
and like super complex,
especially these days.
But, once you start to learn how
to work on your project car,
it sets you up very well
to be able to work on any car.
It's kinda like learning a language.
You start to figure out how to pick up on the trails
and the breadcrumbs.
Okay, you hear a sound.
Now that you kinda know how to work on your car
you know where to go for that sound.
You know how to find the source
of the sound, and fix it.
It doesn't only apply to cars.
Say your washing machine breaks
in your house.
You can probably fix that now
because you know how mechanical stuff works.
But be careful people will catch wind of that,
so all of the sudden you're fixing
everybody's cars in the neighborhood.
And they want you to do it for free.
Charge them like half price,
and then bam you're making money.
That's a business plan.
All right, so now that we got you
all hyped up and confident thinking
that you can fix anything in the world,
sorry we gotta reel it back a little bit
and be honest with ourselves,
you're not always gonna be able
to fix everything.
It's inevitable that
you get confused or you get stumped
on a problem with a car.
It happens to me all the time.
But so what do you do when that happens?
You turn to one of the other biggest reasons
for getting into cars, which is the community.
(music)
It's your family.
The family that you've been building.
The family that speaks this language
that you've been learning.
It's like you and your friends
dirty and tired in the garage
at like two in the morning.
You gotta this engine back into the car,
but thing after thing after
problem after issue is stopping you, slowing you down,
chipping away at your confidence.
It happens. I've been there.
But through hard work
and perseverance,
you and your boys
get that engine back in.
You get the job done
and you always do when it comes down
to you and your friends working on stuff.
You actually don't always get it done.
That's a misdirection.
Sometimes you're not gonna get it done.
This language that we've been talking about
transcends whatever language you speak.
I have had so many interactions
with people from all over the world about cars
because we all kinda understand,
even if we can't quite understand
each other's language,
we understand the car language,
and that is so cool.
- That was really good man.
That was really good.
- Thanks buddy.
Okay so you kinda understand
that there is this language now,
and I think I've harped on the
community thing hard enough.
So now I think it's time to start talking about
the elephant in the room.
Money.
It's honestly probably what's kept you out of this game
thus far.
But it's okay.
We'll get through it.
Let's talk about it.
When you're getting into any hobby
you're gonna end up spending some money
and this is no different.
I think a lot of people get hung up
on wanting to have expensive tools,
which yeah expensive tools are nice sure,
but cheap tools will get the job done.
And I've made a list of the tools
that you need to get started.
Here it is.
The list starts with sockets and ratchets,
like these.
You're gonna want to buy metric sockets
because pretty much all car stuff
is metric these days.
Though it does depend on what you're working on.
You need a set of screwdrivers.
Just get yourself a big ole combo kit
with flatheads and phillips,
you'll pretty much be set.
And you're also gonna need some pliers.
Again, just a combo set of piers,
get a little bit of everything,
you'll be in good shape.
You'll need a set of wrenches.
Again, metric.
And I recommend getting an
adjustable wrench to.
Get you a good combo set,
and you'll be in good shape.
And then you need
a digital multi-meter
to handle all the electrical issues that you may have,
and this.
This is kind of a complicated tool
but we'll learn how to use this later on.
If you're working on cars that are OBD II,
which means from 1996 or newer,
you're gonna wanna have a code reader,
a scanner,
so you can see what your
check engine light is on for,
what's actually going on
in the computer of your car,
a indisposable tool.
And of course you're gonna need
a jack and jack stands
so you can lift your car, get it off the ground,
and safely work under it.
Speaking of safely,
you also need some safety equipment.
I like to go with the 1982 version
of safety glasses to keep your eyes
in perfect condition.
You're also gonna need a hammer.
This is one of the most indisposable tools
in the garage.
You bang stuff on, bang stuff off.
You don't know.
And then honestly I think having a pry bar is nice
so you can, you know, pry stuff off.
But that's about it.
That's not to bad.
And I actually, I went tot harborfrieght.com,
who does not sponsor this what so ever,
and I put all this stuff in a cart.
You can do all this for less than 400 bucks,
which is not bad.
- [Friend] And if you can't afford that
just do what everyone else does.
- Steal.
- Steal one from your friends one by one tool at a time.
- And if you can't afford that,
do what everyone else does
and just borrow them from a friend permanently.
At the end of the day with a project car,
the only thing that matters is what you like.
You get to build a project car to your taste.
For your own satisfaction,
and to flex on other mother******s.
Regardless of what aspect of cars you think is cool,
you can do that, there are no rules.
I mean if you want it to be street legal,
there are kind of some rules.
But you know what I mean.
So no matter what your thing is,
what your into, you can use your project car as a way
to further express that.
And honestly,
its on of the coolest ways you can express yourself
that I can think of.
We get to play with machines.
These are varietable machines.
Pretty much any car on the road can do
like 100 miles an hour or more.
And that, when you think about it,
is crazy.
You get to drive a machine that can do 100 miles an hour.
And there is no better way to express yourself
than by building and driving something like that.
Okay so, you get to learn how to work on cars,
you get to join a really cool community,
you get to spend all your money and time
in a really cool way,
and you get to express yourself
through the coolest medium I can think of.
So what next?
What next on this whole
gear head journey that were talking about?
Picking out a project.
So let me give you my top 3 picks for a project,
as of early 2020.
Each pick is gonna be for a different facit of motorsport.
If you want to call it that.
Okay so if drifting is your thing,
if that's what your into.
In my opinion you should pick up an E36.
325i
or 328i.
Their abundant, their cheap,
their pretty darn reliable,
and they make enough power to get you sliding.
You really don't have to do much.
If your a drift kinda person,
get you an E36, like the one in the garage.
Come steal this one!
Syrones not doing anything with it.
So if off roadings your thing,
I think my pick has to be a Jeep.
Ideally a Wrangler,
and ideally with a four liter inline six.
Its got enough power to get you anywhere,
but it can be hard to come by those for cheap.
So you go with a Wrangler with a 4 cylinder,
or you can also find Jeep Cherokees
with that 4 liter inline 6 for really cheap.
So I'd probably do that.
And that brings me to my third pick,
which I guess is actually my first pick,
because I actually bought it.
I bought a Miata!
I've been itching do some auto crossing and track dang,
and hit all the beautiful canyons out here in California.
So what could be better to do that in,
than a Mazda Miata.
Their cheap, their reliable,
their abundant, and most importantly their good.
It is a 1994 NA
so its got the popups.
James said I couldn't have one without the popups.
And It might not look like much right now,
but I assure you this thing is an absolute gem.
A diamond in the ruff if you will.
And throughout the life of this show,
we are going to wrench on every little part of this car.
And I'll show you how it works,
and how you install stuff,
and what it does and everything in between.
Thanks a billion for watching.
We're about to take a huge journey with this car,
so I hope you stick with us.
Follow me on Instagram @zachjobe,
follow Donut @donutmedia,
follow our new YouTube channel for out podcasts,
Donut Podcasts, and of course as always.
Subscribe to the channel.
See you guys next week.