It only takes a few minutes to get everything planted, and requires minimal watering. There’s enough flavor in the following project to add some homegrown love to any meal, and it can grow wherever there is sunlight. This portable garden can be thrown on a patio, a balcony overhang, or even inside a kitchen window, and it works as a thoughtful and eagerly received gift.

With this guide you’ll learn how to construct the miniature garden, and how to maintain and harvest the herbs inside of it.

Keep in mind that this project can be customized; the size of the window box can be increased to fit many herbs and other vegetables, or minimized to hold a single plant of your choice, but the basics are all here.

Let’s get started.

You’ll need a handful of supplies:

• A container to grow the plants in. Any garden center or home improvement store sells these containers for less than $20.00. Make sure it has drainage holes! Be mindful of the weight of the container and where it is being placed. If you’re hanging the container from a railing or balcony, consider purchasing brackets to hold it securely in place.
• The plants you want to grow. This project uses cilantro, basil, rosemary, sage, and chives. These can also be purchased at any garden center for about $3-5 each. They can be found growing in either a plastic cup or a biodegradable container. Either option is okay!
• Potting mix. For this project, you need to use a soil that is designed to be lightweight and provide good drainage. Any bags that say “Potting Mix” or “Container Mix” should work well. When in doubt, ask an employee at the store or search the internet.
• Your own two hands. The soil used for container plants is usually sterile and clean, and the plants are similarly safe to handle with bare hands. A pair of gardening gloves could be purchased if going bare handed isn’t for you.
• Water. This could be as simple as a glass from your kitchen, or you could buy a small watering can.
• Optional: Fertilizer. Fertilizers help to produce healthy plants. Organic fertilizers work best. I use Espoma Garden Tone for my herbs and vegetables.
• Optional: Mulch. Mulch is a great addition to an herb window box because it helps the plants to conserve water and helps eliminate weeds from sprouting up. Unfortunately you can typically only buy mulch in large bags.
• Optional: Trowel. A trowel makes scooping easier, but it can only scoop about the equivalent of a handful of soil.

Step 1 – Fill up the container with potting mix.

To make for an easy clean-up, place a garbage bag or newspaper underneath the container. Most containers have a lip on the inside that designates where the top of the soil level should be, about an inch below the top of the container. Don’t fill the mix higher than that line!

Step 2 – Prep your plants.

This is the fun part. Herbs will be available in one of two containers: a plastic cup, or a biodegradable pot.

If you purchased a plant inside of the biodegradable container, simply rip or cut off the bottom of the container and place it into the soil.

If you purchased plants inside of plastic pots, carefully remove them (hold the plant upside down and slide the container off). Plants grown in these containers are likely to be root bound, like the picture to the left.

To ensure the plant grows well, you’ll need to rake apart the roots. Don’t be afraid of hurting the plant! Working your fingers into the soil and between the roots, separate the roots gently as if they were knotted together. It should look like the picture to the right.

Like people, roots can learn bad behavior.If they are left in their tightly coiled state they can effectively choke the plant to death. Break them apart like the image to the right, so the roots are free to grow down.

If the plant is not root bound it is not necessary to loosen it like this!

Step 3 – Get To Plantin’

Align the plants inside your container. The only guidelines here are to give the plants a bit of spacing away from each other (an inch or two should do). For this project I staggered the plants so that three plants were in the “back row” and two were in the “front row”. Press the rooted soil of each plant gently and firmly into place. When they’re all in place, carefully fill in any low spots with potting mix. The soil should not be any higher than it was in the plants original container.

It’s easiest to use a hand for this part, but a trowel works too.

Be mindful of the plants here! Try not to break too many leaves and stems.

If you purchased some mulch, now’s a great time to add it to the container. It doesn’t require much, just a light coating. For this window box I used five or six handfuls of mulch.

Step 4 – Water!

Drink up, little plants! This is the first time you’ll be watering these little guys. One day at the end of the growing season you’ll look back and remember this first planting wistfully.

Most growing mediums are bone dry, so when watering they bubble up and actually expel water, so take it easy and add a little bit at a time. Chances are that at this stage, you’ll see some of the plants have their lower leaves buried in water and potting mix. Simply lift the leaves out of the mixture and gently remove the bulk of the soil.

Maintenance and Harvesting

Watering is very important, but also very simple. Follow these simple tips:

• The hotter it is, the more these guys will need to get a drink.
• Remember the 3 W’s: Wilting, Weight, and Withdrawing. Plants with leaves that are wilted or with dropping stems probably need a drink. If you pick up the container and it weighs very little, it probably needs a drink. And if the soil is withdrawing from the edges of the container, almost shrinking in size, it definitely needs a drink of water.
• When watering, aim to get most of the water into the soil and not on the plants.
• The water should soak through the soil.
• Watch for water to run out of the drainage holes on the bottom of the container.

As for harvesting the plants, leave some of the leaves and stalks in place for a future harvest. If you notice the plant start to flower, pinch off the flower head right away or it will finish its life cycle and die! Here’s a quick look at what you want to do:

• Basil- Pinch off the leaves, harvesting about one third of the height of the plant. Remove the now bare stem above a pair of leaves. You can harvest again in a few weeks!
• Rosemary- Cut off a few stems and hang to dry.
• Chives- Cut the chives, leaving about half an inch of green at the bottom of the plant. It will grow back within a few weeks.
• Sage- Remove individual leaves, or cut a stem at a time. Allow them to dry before use.
• Cilantro- Harvest individual large leaves or a few stems at a time. Cilantro is best when fresh.

Finishing Up

Pretty fun, huh? Now you can spice up your meals with freshly grown herbs when guests arrive, or present a unique and handmade gift. Most importantly, it got you outside again and into the sun. Probably dirtied up your hands a bit, too. Now that’s a good day.

And chances are, you’ve got some extra potting soil lying around now. Better put it to good use, and start some more planting.

The post Growing Some Herb: An Introduction to Gardening appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

That’s right, you could go through the hassle of changing your oil the same amount of times per year that you have to celebrate your Aunt Veronica’s birthday. This miraculous development, coming from the labs of ExxonMobil called Mobil 1 Annual Protection, might be the best thing to come along for cars since fuzzy dice or those family stick figure stickers.

Now I know what you’re thinking – if I wait an entire year (or 20,000 miles) to change my oil, my engine is going to explode! I feel you homie. But the team in white lab coats have created this fully synthetic oil to do one thing and to do it extremely well – to last 12 months (or 20,000 miles – whichever comes first) in an active engine and keep all your shiny bits gliding along smoothly. Even if you don’t believe them or me, ExxonMobil is willing to throw a limited warranty behind their Mobil 1 Annual Protection motor oil that covers the lubricant and critical engine parts lubricated by the motor oil. That’s pretty crazy, and tells me that they really mean one full year between oil changes. You can read the full details on the warranty here.

How in the world did they pull this off when all other motor oils require a change every three to six months? Some sort of fairy magic I would assume, mostly because I’m not a petrochemical engineer. Also, they wouldn’t tell me since it’s kind of a secret and I’m a known tattle. As if doubling the life of most available motor oils wasn’t enough to prove that they firmly own the cutting edge of technology, ExxonMobil is also hooking you up with a Virtual Reality cardboard viewer and an exciting VR experience.

If you pick up 5 quarts of Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil at your local auto parts store before 6/28/2107, ExxonMobil will send you a free cardboard VR viewer, and they’ve also got several videos for you to enjoy on your new future viewer. So if you’re tired of changing your oil as often as you get a haircut, and you’ve yet to jump on the VR bandwagon, this is the perfect time to be alive for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go change my oil for the last time till 2018.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of ExxonMobil . The opinions and text are all mine.

The post Mobil 1 Annual Protection is the Cutting Edge of Oil appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

I am a man of routines. Of many routines in fact. From my morning routine (writing, breakfast, news, work) to exercise (start the week with legs, end with arms), to weekly meal-prepping every Sunday night – but we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about my oil change routine, aren’t we?

Now I hope you’re already on a routine of regular oil changes to keep your car or truck running right and true. You know I am, and you better believe I have a routine that goes with every oil change. It starts before I ever get dirty. First stop is to recycle the oil from my last oil change and at the same time pick up my new oil and filter from the auto parts store. Not only does this leave me with an empty oil receptacle, but the trip warms up my car enough to start draining the oil. The next steps are pretty standard fare – drain the oil from the sump or reservoir, then change the filter, and finally top it off with a high-quality oil.

You might think that’s the end of your oil change, but my routine is not yet done. Fresh oil keeps my engine’s internal parts moving smoothly (side note: did you know that in a properly working engine, none of the moving parts ever actually touch each other? Your oil is there to create an extremely thin layer between all the pieces of metal and prevent them from ever touching. Neat!), but my car does not run on oil alone. No, it needs fuel. Gasoline to be precise. And you can buy quality gas all day long, but you’re still going to accumulate deposits and contaminants in your filter & pump, inside your injectors, and on your valves and pistons. So as long as you are cleaning up your ride’s oil system, you better believe you should clean up your fuel system too!

I use STP Ultra 5-in-1 Fuel System Cleaner with every oil change to keep my dino juice flowing freely and all my components deposit-free. I like STP because it’s an American company that has been innovating in the petroleum industry since 1954. Also Richard Petty rocked that sweet STP car back in the 70’s. Who doesn’t want to feel like the famed NASCAR driver? I also use STP because it’s been proven to remove an average of 60% of harmful deposits from engine parts and restore 95% of original injector performance. 95%- that’s basically like new.

After a good oil change and fuel system clean, I always cap off the routine with a good carwash so I know my car is as clean outside as it is in the engine. Also, don’t forget the air freshener for a fresh scent. And that’s the full process until it’s time for the next oil change. Cleaning your fuel system doesn’t add any time to your oil change, and it will make sure your trusty steed will stay trusty for years to come. After all, some routines are called relationships…

The post Clean Your Fuel System with Every Oil Change appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Okay, maybe one more.

This apparent difference between boys and girls has wormed its way into the collective consciousness of social media and continues the nasty mission of castrating all that is masculine about tending your own chunk of land. After all, what tugs more at the heartstrings of men more than growing something, more than shaping the land with your own two hands and cultivating your own sustenance? Whether it’s a single window box on your balcony or a multi-acre affair, a man’s place is in the garden, and it’s time we take a step back into the sunshine and reclaim that.

The core tenet of gardening is to grow something. That’s what it’s all about, and that ought to be enough to get somebody riled up enough to march to a local garden center and pick up a flat of pansies.

But enough about my weekend.

Nothing strikes so centrally to a man’s identity as his ability to grow. It doesn’t matter if it’s growing as a successful entrepreneur, stacking on some mass at the gym, or doing that weird thing the Grinch’s heart did in How The Grinch Stole Christmas. We’re meant to challenge ourselves and reach new limits. To be in a garden is to be surrounded by living, growing things, each one pushing upwards and battling a host of obstacles to reach its destination.

Sounds like good company, if you ask me.

Ducks swim in water and men work with tools. They’re everywhere we go, from physical equipment to digital instruments and even the implements to cope with unexpected tragedy, like why they cancelled The Muppets again. The staple tools in the shed are the same ones mankind has been using since the agricultural revolution, stuff like shovels and picks and the trusty garden ho. The reason swinging a mattock feels so invigorating is because it reconnects us to those first bad-asses who needed to dig a hole, to plant a seed, and to make sure their food grew so they didn’t starve.

Working a shovel forces us to use our hands in a way that we’re growing increasingly distant from. Take a look at the Google Image Search results for “gardening” and you’ll see lots of produce and flowers and, yes, floppy sunhats. What’s missing from these pictures is the effort that goes into making a chunk of land viable for gardening. It’s like looking at all of those pictures of successful business owners with smiling faces and pressed suits that never pay attention to the tremendous effort they went through to achieve that success.

Before that corner of the yard is a garden, it’s a rocky and untended chunk of compacted soil requiring hours of labor to prepare. Lugging out heavy stones, breaking through and digging out decades of compacted soil, and remediating the area with healthy soils and material can be a drawn out process.

But there’s a beauty in that. When gardening, there are no deadlines to worry about. The land is worked at any pace, and the gardener is encouraged to take their time. It’s a place of focus and of relief, even with the physical effort that goes into it. When I’m in my garden, I put away my phone and crack open my beer and get to work. And sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it’s a place of respite where I don’t do a damn thing but relax and take it all in.

All of this applies to smaller and more urban gardens. Even a cityscape balcony can be a garden escape (remember that first picture I linked to?). Hanging window boxes, moving in clay pots and containers, and mixing soil in an enclosed area is as much a challenge as breaking ground on a 4 foot by 10 foot garden bed.

And finally we touch upon the profound satisfaction of man producing something tangible. It can be something you eat, like a tomato or pepper, or maybe an herb used to spice up that mojito or pasta sauce, and still yet it could be a pleasant and aromatic arrangement of flowers bowing in the wind. These are all things the gardener grew, fostered, and harvested from their own effort.

The best tomato is the one you grow yourself. Guests are intrigued that the basil in the pasta sauce is from your own window box, and those flowers growing outside the window? Well, they’re just beautiful and something to be proud of. Gardening provides a man with a sense of satisfaction, achievement, and gratitude in a way nothing else does.

My garden is my domain. It’s a place where the outside world cannot bother me, it’s a sort of sanctuary from the craziness of a modern lifestyle. My tomatoes will fruit and the cucumber will too, and I will listen to the chickadees and the robins doing their thing while I weed between the planted rows. I breath deeper in the garden because I know how much work went into designing and constructing it through my sweat and my time. It stands as a testament to my work ethic and what I love the most in this life. It keeps me connected to the outdoors, a connection that many of us have neglected.

Grab a trowel, crack open a beer, get those hands dirty, and give gardening a shot.

The post A Man’s Place is in the Garden appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

I’ll come right out and say it: upholstery and interior work isn’t really my forte. It takes me a fortnight to wrap anything in leather well enough that it doesn’t look like a prop for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Planning all those little triangle cuts you make to wrap around edges and avoid folds and creases – my brain just doesn’t seem capable of working in a way to predict them. That’s why, after much trial and error, I decided to send the Porsche Backdate Project’s interior off to be done professionally by an adult with an actual attention span.

So while that little failure still tasted of ash in my mouth, I tackled installing the headliner. This is the so-called toughest DIY job on a Porsche 911 coupe. Half that difficulty comes from the fact that said DIY restorer needs to remove the glass, the upper upholstery, the sunroof, the dash, etc. – pretty much the entire interior above the carpet. “Lucky” for me I bought a very trashed donor car with no interior anyway, and I’ve already removed everything else for the paint job. So all I had left was the second half of this impossible job: stretching it perfectly and symmetrically across the interior roof without a single crease or fold.

Honestly, for all the paragraphs written in all the books, blogs, and forums about how tough it is to do the headliner at home, and that you DEFINITELY need an assistant, I found it relatively easy to tackle myself over three days. If you are doing this yourself in a classic car, just work slow and be prepared to start over several times. Beyond that, it’s truly not a bad job to do. Headliner done, as well as gluing in all the sound proofing and insulation panels, it was time to move on the actual biggest project for our backdate interior – a little something custom I had cooked up in a fever dream when I first got the car.

Looking at how dainty the rear seats on a classic 911 are, and how far I need to have my seat back to fit, the two rear seats were clearly going to be useless. Years ago, as an awful 25 year old with spiky hair and a love of dubious fashion, I owned a third-gen Mazda RX-7. It was a two-seater with little storage compartments where rear seats would go. In four years of ownership I only needed more than two seats once, and that was an emergency. I was and am confident that I would not miss rear seats in this car. But alas, all the rear seat delete/storage compartments you can buy or build yourself were either ugly or more money than my paintjob, and all of them opened the “wrong” way – from the front like a glove box rather than the logical top. So clearly, I had to design and build my own custom solution. Because this project isn’t already one year and $10,000 over budget…

I’ve always liked the look of interior-matching car luggage held down by belts. It is just instant old-school cool. So my dumb idea was this: make a rear shelf with top-mounted storage bins, and have a pair of custom suitcases be the lids to those compartments. I know what you’re thinking: I’m a genius. Or an idiot.

Over the course of two days, I mocked up my idea in cardboard, then in very thin plywood, and finally in ½ inch wood pieces. I determined along the way that this would be the optimal place to put the subwoofer of my over-enthusiastic stereo I ripped out of my RX-7. Once every edge of the shelf was massaged to fit and allow room for being upholstered, it was sent off to the professionals because, as I’ve already said, fabric wrapping is beyond me.

Also sent off were my very sorry and very cracked dash and miscellaneous cabin pieces all needing to be matched to the dash. Dropping everything off at the upholstery shop, it was discussed and determined that vinyl rather than real leather would be the best option for longevity. I was fully prepared to go full leather (aren’t I always?), and have seen arguments for and against, but at the end of the day I’ll take the recommendation of the expert.

While the interior pieces were out of the car, I laid out the stereo system amplifiers and wires in preparation for hiding everything under the carpet. Once all the wires were run, it was time to lay down the charcoal carpets I chose. This was relatively easy as all the pieces were pre-cut and edged – like a giant fabric puzzle. There was no diagram or instructions included with this RS carpet kit so I had to wing it and refer to online pictures to figure it out. I still have lots of extra pieces left over, but oh well…

With that done all that remained for the interior, and the whole car really, was just reassembly. Adult Legos. The project is going to move rapidly towards completion now as I bolt everything on. The end-game has begun.

If you would like to follow the nitty gritty details of this build, they are 
posted on a Porsche technical forum here.

The post Porsche Backdate Pt 9: Leather and Lace appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

For many men, the garage is not a happy or fun place to be. It’s crowded, dirty, too cold or hot, and lacks even the most basic cable channels. For the majority of garage owners, it is a space used for storage, parking a car or two, and base camp for yard work. But it doesn’t have to be this way.  With the slightest bit of effort and some decent forethought, you can turn your ground floor attic into a man cave.

Let’s deal with the junk first. You’ve got too much of it. I know you can think of something right now that you can throw away in there, but every time you actually reach for it you decide to keep it for some sentimental or future reason that doesn’t exist yet. Stop doing that. Throw things away, organize them so that if you’re keeping them, you at least know what and where they are. If you still have a crowded space after your purge, then it’s time to get as much of your items off the floor or counters as possible. Hang things up, install inexpensive cabinets from Craigslist to hold items, or put up some pegboard (so cheap!) and hang tools like a certified Bob Vila.

Now that you’ve de-cluttered and can actually see the cement floor, you’re probably noticing how dirty and stained it is. And let’s not even talk about your countertops or workbench. Soap and water isn’t going to cut it my friend. You need a cleaner that can break up the most common garage messes – grease and oil. The FactoryTwoFour garage has always used Spray Nine because A) it works, B) it comes in big bottle we don’t have to replace often, and C) it does the job of what we used to use three different cleaners for. Spray liberally, give it a minute to do it’s work (think of it like foreplay for cleaning), and then use some of those durable blue shop towels to wipe away what was previously an unsightly mess. Congrats, your garage is getting cleaner by the second.

Now that you’re organized and clean, you can sit back and decide what you want your garage to be. Do you want a workspace to tinker in, or a man cave, or just to finally fit in your family’s second car? There are no wrong answers (unless you turn it into a giant ball pit. That’s how you get on watch lists…), so take some time to really think through what your ultimate garage space looks like.

Finally, keep the mother clean and tidy alright? You just sunk a Saturday afternoon cleaning the place, take the three minutes a night it takes to put things back where they belong. If it’s tidy, you’ll be more apt to keep it clean and wipe up any grease spots. If it’s clean, you’ll be more apt to keep it tidy and organized. It’s called the Circle of Garage Cleaning, and we got it from a movie about animals falling in love.

We’ve got a bonus for FactoryTwoFour readers – Just Take the Spray Nine Challenge and get a coupon for $3 off a bottle of Spray Nine to try it yourself. That’s free cleaning product foo!

See what Spray Nine Heavy Duty can do for you.

Take the Spray Nine Challenge.

The post Clean Your Damn Garage appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

We’ve teamed up with AutoZone to walk you through how to do an oil change on literally any production vehicle (I’m daring you to point out some obscure Citroen on our Facebook page, and yes I’m aware of Tesla)

When do to an Oil Change:

The common rule of thumb is to change your oil every 3 months or 3000, whichever comes first. For most modern cars, this is simply no longer true. Many cars produced since 2000 can go 7000 miles or more without a change thanks to synthetic oils. Check your cars manual or simply google when your car’s scheduled oil changes are, but you can’t go wrong assuming 3 months and doing it early.

What you’ll need:

• Jack and jack stands
• Oil pan or empty bucket
• Wrenches
• New oil filter and possibly a washer for the drain plug
• New oil

How:

Here the process is always the same. Simply –

• Find and watch YouTube videos or read forums showing the process on your particular vehicle
• Drive your car over to a friend who has tools or run your car until the engine is warmed up but not hot enough to burn you. Or burn yourself – your call really.
• Jack up the front of your car and place it on jack stands
• Place the oil pan or bucket underneath your engine
• Locate and remove the big, obvious bolt sticking out of the lowest point of your engine. It won’t look like any other bolts around it. Any YouTube videos or diagrams should show you.
• Drain all the warm oil into your pan or container
• When the flow out has reduced to a trickle, you can remove your oil filter. This will likely be a brightly colored cylinder on the side or bottom of the engine. These sometimes require a special wrench to remove, but can often just be done by hand 
• Once the oil is done flowing out of engine, simply reinstall the bolt (often times with a new washer) just to snug and install the new filter – first rub fresh oil along the rubber gasket of the new filter to aid in creating a tight seal.
• Fill up the car with the required type and amount of oil (again in your manual or online forums)
• Drive to the auto parts store to dispose of the used oil for free, then check your new filter and drain plug for leaks and the level on your dipstick to ensure the oil level is within range
• Assume a smug face now that you’ve successfully done your first oil change

Why:

Doing your own oil change is the first step towards mechanical proficiency. Yes, it will likely cost you the same amount of money and time as it would to just take your car in to a oil change stand, but the sense of accomplishment, bragging rights, and empowerment are certainly not the same. There are generally only two reasons I hear for not tackling an oil change yourself – lack of desire and fear. While I can’t help with the first one, the latter should certainly be solved by the list above.

If you need any help with this or need a DIY garage in Los Angeles, check out Wanderwell Society in Venice. It is a great DIY social club that can help you fix your car, boat, or even washing machine!

The post The Power of the DIY Oil Change appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Get free stuff first!

I mean, does this need to be explained? When you’re trying to get your refund check to stretch as much as possible, free items and services are the obvious choice. Autozone offers:

• Loan-a-tool with 100s of tools
• Parts testing
• Battery system testing and charging
• ECM testing
• Battery testing
• Check engine light testing
• Engine light fix finder (in some states)

All of these help make any repair easier and less expensive. Almost all full service garages charge for these services (if they even offer them), so even if your is outside your DIY comfort level you can shave hundreds of dollars off your shop bill just by positively identifying the culprit first and then buying the replacement yourself. Which brings me to my next point –

Buy your own parts

Professional mechanics and dealership shops often buy replacement parts at a discount, then charge you a premium for them on your bill. This way they make extra on the parts as well as just the repair time. Save yourself this extortion by buying exactly what you need yourself and bringing it in to the shop. Yes, they will most likely charge you a flat fee or % to install “outside” parts, but you’ll still come out ahead by bringing them in yourself. And who knows, having all the parts in your hands might just inspire you to tackle that repair yourself…

Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty

If you don’t know the difference between a differential and a torque wrench, you might be shocked to learn just how easy maintenance like an oil change is! Trust me, if an acned teenager at a quick lube place can do it, you can too my friend. Between YouTube, forums, manuals, and handy-friends, there are few common jobs you can’t complete for the cost of parts (and maybe a six pack) alone. Beyond oil changes, new brakes and “tune ups” are some of the most common tax refund projects. You’d likely be shocked to learn just how easy it is to replace brake pads, and rotors are pretty basic too! As far as a “tune up,” let me let you in on a little secret: that phrase doesn’t really have a definition… It generally just means lumping all the basic service items together – air filter, oil, spark plugs, brake fluid, transmission fluid, steering fluid, and maybe maybe valve adjustment. And other than adjusting valves, all of those items are incredibly easy and inexpensive to do yourself.

If you’re still afraid to take advantage of free services, buy your own parts, or get your hands dirty, Autozone has been kind enough to give us a $100 gift card to give away to one of our readers to get them started. Keep your eyes peeled on all our social channels (FB, Insta, Twitter) for that giveaway!

This post is brought to you by AutoZone; the opinions are all mine.

The post The Best Ways to Spend Your Tax Refund on Your Car appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

In memory of driving a smoking car home, I can recall that the white smoke seeping out the hood was from the back of the bonnet closest to the firewall the day I drove it home. If you look back at the last photo from Part I, there was a coolant leak that streamed from somewhere behind the front wheels. After a few days of digging around the interwebs trying to figure out why I have a coolant leak, it seemed that this is a common occurrence in all Audi’s. I spent an evening taking off the engine covers and inspecting the leak and all the symptoms point to the rear coolant flange. Interestingly enough, this flange is isn’t visible at glance and is located in the back of the engine block. You see that red arrow? Well it’s under that rubber hose and a bunch of other shit right before the first firewall just for your inconvenience. Yes, I said that right, first firewall. This car has two firewalls because German engineering or something.

Feeling confident I went ahead and purchased the necessary parts along with some of the items the previous owner’s mechanic recommended. Being that I didn’t want to spend too much money on repairs, I made sure to calculate my spending and keep it under $300 if possible. So off to the parts store I went. I purchased the rear coolant flange, mass airflow sensor, coolant, and spark plugs, at just shy of $220. As I was walking away from the store I remembered that the hood strut had a tendency to fail. My cheap ass was contemplating if I really wanted to spend another $30 on a hood strut, but I recalled working on a car in the past with a pole jammed into the fender supporting the hood was not a good idea. I shelled out the extra cash to prevent decapitation and a potentially expensive medical bill. This was probably the smartest idea I’ve had in the past few weeks.

Following with more smart ideas, when working on a car usually you want to get easy stuff out of the way first. So with the hood strut replaced I went to town on the engine starting with the mass airflow sensor (MAF) which is located somewhere in the intake box away from the major work I needed to do. Within a few minutes into working, it dawned on me why it cost so much to service these cars. Changing the MAF sensor on a Japanese car usually takes about 10 minutes with just a few screws to remove. This car took about 30 minutes. It he time to get to the part that needs replacing far exceeds the time to actually replace the part, it’s mechanical surgery at best.

With the mass airflow sensor replaced, I noticed that the area surrounding the valve cover was abnormally dirty and quite possibly looked like it needed a new gasket. My grease monkey senses told me to replace that as well, and good thing I did. Once removed, the old gasket looked like it was probably never changed and was crustier than a teenage boy’s sock. When replacing a valve cover gasket you’ll want to make sure that the back of the cover and the parts where the gasket lay is properly cleaned and degreased before you reinstall. This will prevent any possible leakage upon replacing. Also if you plan on tackling this job yourself, I’d like to point out that once replaced and you start the car, it is normal for smoke to rise from cover due to the excess oil drips in the surrounding area.

Now we come to the dreaded job to find this coolant leak. After removing about a thousand hoses and bolts to get to the back of the engine block including the coolant reservoir tank, I was greeted with a wet and faulty coolant flange. With the flange removed, I saw clearly that the bottom part of the plastic bracket that is responsible for holding the exit hose rightly tightly in place had a big crack in it. I’m pretty sure that has to be the problem. But before installing the new one a new problem arose. The new coolant flange had two holes whereas the stock one that only had one.

This is because all of the new aftermarket flanges that you buy from Autozone or Oreilly’s were created with the intent to also work for newer model Audi’s and VW’s. My patience was tested as I read online and found out that I would need to buy a dummy plug. I decided to just go straight to the VW dealer since it seemed like such a specific part and I didn’t want order online and wait a couple days. Little did I know that stupid fucking dummy plug cost me a whopping $27. It ain’t called a stealership for no reason. By this time I just wanted to get back to wrenching before the sun goes down and I didn’t feel like MacGyverering a makeshift plug because doing a job twice on anything, especially a car, sucks. If you can afford to do it right the first time around, do it.

Feeling good about this coolant flange swap, I plugged up the flange and started screwing the first two bolts connecting the rear coolant flange to the engine block. Except that after about 3 minutes of wrenching the top bolt kept on spinning. Something wasn’t right. I removed the bolt and saw tiny shreds of metal on it. The fucking screw stripped the hole in the engine block at the worst possible location. How did I manage to do this? I was wrenching hard to reach places with my gloves and must have miscalculated the angle of the bolt. Lesson learned, don’t ever wrench tiny bolts with gloves on again. The sun was setting and I was beyond pissed. As I aggressively unscrewed everything to pack up, the other bolt that was supposed to hold the flange dropped somewhere down the engine bay and never met the floor. Feeling defeated with a lost bolt and stripped engine block, I just left it at that and called it a day. So much for this car being ready to go in less than a week.

The post Will It Flip!? – 2001 Audi A4 Quattro – Part II appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

De-pill sweaters – It’s no good getting ready for a big night out and throwing on a sweater withthreadballs all over it. There shouldn’t be any kind of balls on your sweaters, period. If you don’t have a lint roller (and who does?), then skip over the whole use-a-piece-of-tape method and grab your razor. Simply drag the blade across your clothing and all that extra pilling will be whisked away. Start with the front breast, then the sleeves and back, and finally all the small areas like cuffs and/or collars. Congrats, you now look epic.

Grate cheese – Like that ultra-thin shred for all your fish taco needs? Have more patience than sense? Then break off any lubricating strips or skin protectors and get to shredding. Maybe you’re more a fan of infintesimal julliened carrots – same principle applies. In some professional kitchens, the size of your shred can determine your place in the pecking order. Get a leg up by using a razor to blow everyone away. Head to your local Giant Eagle or such retailer, buy a razor, and get grating!

Defend yourself  – MacGuyver was a great tv show (not really, but stick with me…), what with all his invented gadgets and improvised tools. But Big Mac has got nothing on the imaginations of the men and women in our country’s penitentiaries. These crafty buggers can make pretty decent shivs out of a disposable razor, and that means you can to! That makes it a dual function tool perfect for your every day carry; shave your face, then ward off a mugger or Jehova’s Witness…

Create a tripod – Modern life is all about documenting every second and showing the world how Totally Awesome your life supposedly is. But it is no good if your sweet SnapChats are shaky or your 160 megapixel panoramas are tilted. But who wants to carry around a tripod? Well you don’t have to if you spare one pocket for 3 razors and a camera adapter. Set them up as stable legs and they will support your camera while you get that sweet pic that will get you 2000 likes for sure.

Enjoy a new movie – For realsies. Schick is currently running an offer to send you to your local cinema of choice! Just buy a razor (you need one anyway you hairy hippy!), then text a photo to Schick and you’ll get yourself 2 tickets for any new release! That there is what we used call a pretty good deal. Now I think the youth call it a “gordo” or some such nonsense…

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Schick® Men’s Shave. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post 5 Better Uses for Razors than Shaving appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

A new episode comes out the day I am writing this, which I will definitely torrent, but if I’m being honest last week’s episode still sits on my harddrive unwatched. I just don’t care that much. Top Gear is shiny and well produced, and features amazing metal in jaw dropping locations. But I’ve moved on to a show that is none of these things. I’ve moved on to a YouTube series shot either on a handheld camera or gopros. I’ve moved on to a show that entertains AND educates me. I’ve moved on to Mighty Car Mods.

Like many people, you might stumble across Mighty Car Mods as a YouTube suggestion if you are looking for DIY car projects or performance enhancing myths. If you’re smart enough, or properly bored enough, to click through you’ll find a pair of Australian twenty-somethings, both with full-time real jobs, no budget, no enormous crew, and occasional focusing depth problems. And they are killing it. The show’s hosts/cameramen/producers/composers/caterers – Marty and Moog – will happily take you through any modification to your car – from touching up wheel scratches to full custom turbo system installations – on real world economy cars using real world tools.

Marty and Moog have a great dynamic that matches anything from May, Hammond, and Clarkson of Top Gear. And you actually learn something from these quick 8min videos as opposed to watching an hour of the BBC’s  “car review show” that is featuring less and less actual content. And of course Top Gear is just entertainment at this, but Mighty Car Mods is doing that AND teaching. Edutainment at its best.

I’ve got an hour of Top Gear waiting for me right now that I can’t make time for, but I’m watching several Mighty Car Mods episodes a day as I work through all the seasons. And I’m very happy with that choice. Here’s a great starter episode to try out, all about how one achieves “street cred”:

The post This Show is Better Than Top Gear appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Defending Your Castle by William Gurstelle will teach you how to “build catapults, crossbows, moats, bulletproof shields, and more defensive devices to fend off invading hordes.” Yes, it said crossbows. While the book walks you through various defensive positions and weapons in the context of defeating ancient armies like the Mongols, Huns, Tartars, Macedonians, Crusaders, and Vikings I’m pretty confident a goddamn crossbow will work on a modern thug.

This is what a men’s self-help book should be. “You? You’re just fine. But here’s how to build a battering ram…” Defending Your Castle walks you through the history of ancient armies and then shows you the defensive technologies that either did or could have defeated each one.

It is a fascinating journey for historians and makers alike. Neither of these elements are too focused on, leading to a very balanced and fun read. Whether you’re worried about the zombie apocalypse, all those damn [insert ethnic group here], or just looking for a fun, weaponized Sunday project, Defending Your Castle is right up your alley, or maybe castle wall.

The post Defending Your Castle With a Catapult appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.