Category: News

  • Mini Project Retrospect

    Mini Project Retrospect

    Every now and then we get a chance to bring cars in that maybe aren’t getting the full build treatment, or may not need as much love as others. Many of those projects don’t really warrant a full blog post, but were cool enough that we decided to throw ’em all together in this little compilation post! Some of these projects were more recent than others, so don’t be surprised if the scenery changes as we go along!

    1935 Huppmobile 518-D

    This one happened upon us just by chance. The car had been family owned almost since original, and had some work done, but not in a long time. The client wasn’t looking to create a show piece, but wanted something a bit cleaner to keep around the house. The car was covered with cobwebs and scratches, and had a fair bit of surface rust underneath.

    Considering this car is almost 100 years old though, it’s surprisingly clean, a testament to the family keeping it in a garage instead of a field. One of the wheel bearings needed to be replaced, which was a fun challenge. Along with a few other items (it arrived without functioning brakes), and a thorough cleaning and polishing and the old Hupp was ready to drive back home safely under its own power. It won’t be a surprise if this is our only ever Hupp, with them being as rare as they are.

    LS Swapped Chevelle

    Add another one on to the ‘LS Swap The World’ list! The goal here was to add a little bit of power, reliability, and ease of driving. The car came to us with a LS1 and a manual transmission mated to it. It left with a LS3 mated to a 6L80E!

    This thing really makes some jam now, and is an absolute handful!

    MGB Bomber Seat

    This was an interesting little project! We were tasked with building custom ‘bomber’ type seats for this MGB, with a specific styling in mind. We were able to find a prefabricated bomber seat that was the right size, and from there cut, shape, and weld it to the form we were looking for!

    Along with a little bit of carpet repair in the interior, the seats were installed to give this MGB comfort and style unlike any it had experienced before!

    Z28 Refresh

    For this project, the client was actually the owner’s family! The plan was to have the car freshened up as a surprise for a milestone celebration, and we were happy to oblige. It was maybe not the roughest Z28 in town, but was certainly in need of some love. In particular, the interior had been lived in by mice for an extended period of time, so the smell was pretty bad.

    Some of the changes may be subtle, but really make a difference with this car! A new hood without the big crazy scoop/bump, new wheels, lower stance, and cleaned up engine bay really go a long way! Along with that, a fresh coat of paint ties the whole thing together nicely. Last but not least of course, the carpets were replaced, and the seats were recovered to get rid of that mouse stank. All in all, great success!

    And that’s it for our little collection of mini projects! We’ll get a few more stacked up again and maybe post another one of these blogs in a few years!

  • BMW (S)2002tii – Honda F20C Swap Part 3

    BMW (S)2002tii – Honda F20C Swap Part 3

    We’re back with Part 3 of our S2002 build. Our last post about this project showed us just getting started on metal work, so let’s dive right back in!

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  • Back From The Dead – AE86 Restoration – Pt. 4

    Back From The Dead – AE86 Restoration – Pt. 4

    We’re back with the final chapter in this restoration series. If you didn’t catch the beginning of this story, it’s definitely worth getting caught up. This poor little old Corolla was in pretty rough shape when we first got our hands on it, but things are finally starting to look a lot more solid.

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  • SAVAGE Z – RB30 Powered 240Z – Part 2

    SAVAGE Z – RB30 Powered 240Z – Part 2

    Welcome back! In the first part of this series, we introduced you to the RB powered 240Z autocross machine, as well as getting started on some minor improvements. This time around we’re getting a bit more in depth! Let’s dive in!

    • More downforce adjustment was required…
    • Time for a new spoiler!
    • Real estate is pretty tight up front, and we want to find space for another cooler!
    • Engine and transmission are out, which means…
    • …that it’s time to clean up this messy engine bay! We fixed the wiring, but there are lots of other bits to tidy up.

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  • SAVAGE Z – RB30 Powered 240Z – Part 1

    SAVAGE Z – RB30 Powered 240Z – Part 1

    We’ve worked on a few Datsun Z cars over the years, but this one is by far the most powerful. This car came to us with a storied racing pedigree under its belt as a contender in various autocross series. As with any race car, there’s always room for improvement, and that was the task we were given!

    • Classic race cars!
    • There is a lot of stuff jammed in there, that’ll need tidying
    • Often a byproduct of messy engine bay wiring….
    • …is messy under-dash wiring.
    • Inside the glovebox is not the greatest place for an oil pressure gauge, so we’ll move that
    • Loom those loose wires!
    • Too many things fighting for one piece of real estate
    • Hearing your driveline rub and scrape things is not the most reassuring thing in a race car

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  • Back From The Dead – AE86 Restoration Pt. 1

    Back From The Dead – AE86 Restoration Pt. 1

    It has been a while since we’ve featured an AE86 restoration on the blog (the last one was the Project 86 build, which you should go look at if you haven’t already). This could be for a couple of reasons: in part because there are very few left around here at this point which haven’t already had work done to them….also in part because as the years go by and parts become more rare, doing a factory style restoration on one of these vehicles is becoming significantly more difficult.

    That said, “difficult” does not mean “impossible”. That would actually be a pretty good descriptor for this AE86 restoration: “Difficult but not impossible”.

    If you’ve never seen a totally rotten AE86, now is your opportunity. This vehicle was actually purchased brand new by the current owner and created lots of memories back in the day as a fun family car. Once it was time for retirement, this car moved up to the cottage for storage. Of course, as anybody with old Japanese cars should be well aware of, parking one of them in anything other than the most dry, climate controlled environment possible will inevitably end up disintegrating the car. We’re not exactly sure what the cottage storage looked like, but it was most assuredly neither dry, or climate controlled. This is easily one of the most rotten AE86s we have been asked to restore to date.

    As you can see, it’s in pretty rough shape. Every single nut and bolt is seized, and every surface has varying levels of rust. The rockers are toast, and there’s more rot on that floor than is visible, since it’s hidden / being held together by undercoating.

    In most cases, we would likely recommend the owner to strongly consider finding a new project to have fun with. Fixing this level of rust can get really expensive, and is generally not in the cards for most folks. It’s tough to put a price on sentimental value though, and this car was getting passed on to the next generation, so they wanted this one, and not another one. Of course, there’s always the option of just removing as much rot as possible and slapping some metal bits in for the “good enough” repair, which technically does the job but doesn’t insure longevity. That wasn’t the goal with this one though, they were wanting a factory style restoration, which means that all patch panels would have to be formed to match what would’ve been there before, just without the rust. Though it would be a challenge, we decided to see if we could bring this AE86 back from the dead.

    • Though it may look okay from this angle, rest assured it is not okay
    • No surprise, this vehicle became a home for some small animal…
    • …the animals got so comfy they made a nest.
    • Actually, make that 2 nests

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  • The Targa Truck – 1971 GMC Truck

    The Targa Truck – 1971 GMC Truck

    Anybody who is familiar with us here at Cyrious Garageworks is probably also familiar with the fact that we tend to enjoy a challenge. A challenge is exactly what we were presented with when Mark brought us the Targa Truck: a 1971 GMC Truck being repurposed from moving lumber from the hardware store to tearing up the streets of Newfoundland during Targa Newfoundland. Though Mark had already ripped the truck at the Targa rally, he felt there were some changes that needed to be made. In short: we needed to convert this already modified truck into a purpose built, mid-engined truck that should hopefully handle like a race car. We said it’d be a challenge, right? Let’s wind this thing back and see what we started out with.

    The Targa Truck came to us with some pretty big modifications already under way. The rear frame and roll cage were completed at Four Star Motorsports, a renowned local rally shop. The engine was also roughed in, with the firewall completely removed along with some of the body. It’s a good start, but there’s a pile of work to do. Between getting the drivetrain properly fitted to the chassis, and otherwise finishing this into a proper racing beast, we’ve definitely got our work cut out for us! Let’s dig in!

    • Measuring, adjusting, and measuring again to get the drivetrain just right.

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  • FJ40 Restoration – Clean Off Road Machine – Part 2

    FJ40 Restoration – Clean Off Road Machine – Part 2

    The adventure continues with our FJ40 project! In our last post, we were cleaning up parts that were salvageable, as well as doing metal work and getting started with mechanical bits. Let’s continue where we left off! Rebuilding antique transmissions, differentials, transfer cases, steering boxes, and engines, as well as assembly!

    • Not something you usually see on a carburetor: a piece of glass to make visual adjustments. An option for high-altitude FJ40s.

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  • Why does bodywork and painting cost so much? Hemmings.com breaks it down

    Why does bodywork and painting cost so much? Hemmings.com breaks it down

    We stumbled across a fantastic article that goes into great detail about why custom body and paint work costs as much as it does. If you’ve ever gotten a really expensive quote for custom paint and bodywork and wondered how it could possibly be so expensive, this may be worth a quick look! Follow the link to Hemmings.com and give this awesome article a read!

  • Paint Booth In Action!

    Paint Booth In Action!

    Unless you’ve had your head under a big boulder somewhere, you probably heard that we had expanded our operations to do all paint and body work in house. We haven’t actually posted very much about our bodyshop since then, but rest assured that we’ve been slugging away, and we have the pictures to prove it! Let’s have a look and see some of what’s been sprayed so far!

    Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser – Patina outside / fresh inside

    • You can see that each piece is masked meticulously to leave the original patina finish on the outside, while allowing for fresh paint on the inside

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