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September 2017 Newsletter

30 Aug

August 28, 2017

For the full newsletter click here, or click the image below. If you’re just interested in one topic, click the image or “read more” link and you’ll be taken directly to that part of the newsletter on EricTheCarGuy.com.

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Past newsletters and the ETCG Blog can be found here.

Almost to the Finish Line

I am one stupid little ignition part away from firing up the Fairmont. The part in question is the magnetic pick up inside the distributor of the engine. It tells the ignition box when to fire the coil. I found out the one I have is bad, and it looked tampered with. If memory serves, I don’t have a new MSD distributor. Just after completing the engine build, we wanted to get to the dyno for testing. At that time I don’t think we had the correct distributor, so Kevin Frische, the engine builder, threw one in that was lying around his shop.

Last weekend I ordered a new ignition pick up to replace the bad one. Turns out the new pick up was also bad. To be fair, the packaging looked as though it had been tampered with, possibly something someone had previously returned. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but getting 2 bad parts back to back sucked.

I couldn’t find another one in the city, so I ordered one that will be here tomorrow morning. Hopefully, that will be a good part. If it is, I’ll fire up the Fairmont for the first time in more than a year. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I’m very excited. On the other hand, I’m a little sad that the project will be over. At least the build part of it will be over. Well, almost over.

Even after I start the engine for the first time, I’ll still have a little more work to do. I have some interior components that will need to be installed. I’ll also need to mount the fenders, hood, and doors. Then it’s off to the exhaust shop to get the exhaust fabricated. After that, the alignment, a few other adjustments, and I’ll be able to drive it on the street again. In summary, if I start it up tomorrow, I should be on the road by the weekend. I hope…

This extra time has allowed me to reflect on the whole experience of the build. As I’ve stated a few times now, this project went way farther down the rabbit hole than I had originally intended. It also took over my life and my YouTube channel. I never suspected when I brought the car back to the shop after buying it that things would turn out this way. See last months newsletter for details on that.

I think the main take away is that it was a great learning experience. I’ve been a mechanic for more than 20 years now, but nothing has taught me more about cars than building the Fairmont. It’s one thing to take something that’s broken and fix it. It’s quite another to look at something, have a vision of how you’d like to change it, and then spend a couple years making that vision into a reality.

I’ve been going to car shows my entire life. I’ve been going to SEMA since 2014. In that time I’ve seen a lot of customized and restored vehicles. In fact, I’ve seen so many, that I started taking them for granted. Never again. I’ll never look at something someone has built and not appreciate the time and effort that went into making their dream a reality.

On the flip side, I’ve never seen anything like the Fairmont at any of those shows. Sure, I’ve seen some fast Fairmonts, but nothing like what I’ve built. I’m proud of that. I’m also excited to see what the public at large thinks of the car I’ve built. Will they stay and look, or will then just keep walking onto the next one down the line? I suppose I’ll find out.

I’m sure the question will come up after the previous paragraph, “will I be taking the Fairmont to car shows?” Why not, you get better parking. I also plan to test it’s limits at the race track and the drag strip at some point. Do I expect it to do well at everything? No, but it would be nice to see what it can do. In the end, I want to have fun with this car. For me, that was the point of the build in the first place. That, and to see if I could actually pull it off.

Thank you Corey and Cody Miller!

Sure, the Fairmont is my vision, but I haven’t done it alone. There have been plenty of people and sponsors that have helped me along the way. However, I want to give a special thank you to Corey and Cody Miller who drove 3 hours from Indiana to help me install the roll bar in the car. Without their help, I wouldn’t be firing up my engine tomorrow. It was their efforts that put me over the hump and made it so I could go into final assembly.

Like I’ve said for years, I have some of the best fans ever. Thank you guys. I owe you big time.

EricTheCarGuy.com Gets a New Server

In late August we migrated the server for EricTheCarGuy.com. I’m now with Endlayer and they are awesome. Kevin Resendes is a fan of the show and offered to help with server costs after I commented in this video about how much hosting was costing me. My contract with the previous server company ran out last weekend.

The site is so much faster now! I can hardly believe it. We’re still sorting out some of the bugs, but for the most part, we’ve migrated over and things are working as they should.

If you have difficulties accessing pages on the site, try clearing your cache, your browser may be holding on to some stuff from the old server causing issues. If you have other issues with the site or memberships, please contact support@ericthecarguy.com.

Premium Member News

I regret to report that I only posted one video for Premium Members during the month of August. I had plans on shooting a couple more videos to post before the end of the month, but because I wasn’t able to get the Fairmont running, those videos didn’t happen. Given that things worked out that way, I hope to make it up with extra videos in September to even things out. My apologies for missing that goal last month.

The one video that Premium Members did get “ETCG Gets Another Car!!??? (Exclusive Video)Car!!??? (Exclusive Video)”, contained a bomb shell I don’t think anyone saw coming, including me. I’m not going to reveal what car it was here, but I’ll be doing an ETCG1 video about the car soon.

Let’s just say it’s a car that I’ve wanted to add to my collection for more than 15 years. Not only is it special and rare, but it’s probably the best looking car I’ve ever owned. Let me put it this way, I spent 2 days washing and waxing it to bring the paint back. That’s something I never do. In fact, I might wash the rest of my fleet about once a year just to put things in context for you.

In Closing

This has been a challenging year, and it’s not over yet. However, I can say that I’ve gained valuable experience and knowledge from what has transpired in 2017 so far. Some of those challenges almost broke me, but I suppose you have to be broken, or almost broken, to know your limits.

Now that things are winding down with the Fairmont, I’m starting to think about my return to posting videos to my EricTheCarGuy channel. The more I think about it, the more I don’t want to go back to the way I used to do things. Obviously, that wasn’t working. Therefore I’m working on new ways of producing my videos, and new strategies for presenting them.

YouTube has changed since I started posting ETCG videos 8 years ago, I’ve changed too. I need to take both of these things into consideration going forward. I don’t want to waste my second chance, or your valuable time.

If you’re reading this newsletter, I don’t think I need to worry about your support. In fact, I thank you for it. It’s people like you, Corey, Cody, and everyone else that’s helped me get here that keeps me going. You inspire me to do more, to make better videos, and to find new ways to help you with your automotive issues. For that, I thank you.

I hope next month I’m reporting about how awesome it is to drive the

Fairmont. I’m also hoping that I’ll be talking about the new ETCG videos.

It’s been a nice break, but I think it’s time to start getting back into the ‘game’. With the Fairmont complete, or as complete as a project car can be, I feel it’s time to start thinking about what’s next.

No matter what I write about in the next newsletter, I want you to know that I’m very grateful for your support, now, and in the future.

The Solution to Losing Motivation on Project Vehicles:

Losing Motivation With Project Vehicles:

How I Became an Entrepreneur:

The Labor Shortage:

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Video Title: September 2017 Newsletter -EricTheCarGuy Video Description: Welcome to the September 2017 Newsletter. Here you will find information on what is happening with EricTheCarGuy and his videos. Projects include The #FairmontProject,Almost to the Finish Line, Thank you Corey and Cody Miller!, EricTheCarGuy.com Gets a New Server, and Premium Member News. Thumbnail: https://www.ericthecarguy.com/images/newsletter/Sept/2017/September-Newsletter-Placeholder-850.jpg