my post-tercel vehicle adventures

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Petros
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by Petros »

DLB, building a house is easy compared to doing heavy car/truck maintenance. there are lots of you tube videos to show you all aspects of house construction. Two things I would advise against DIY, one is a poured concrete foundation, if you make a mess of that, it is very coslty to fix, so either get some help with it by a REAL experienced concrete guy, or hire it out. If you plan on building a post and peir foundation, that is an easy DIY job, and easy to change, or correct. It just depends on how larger a home you want to build. The other is installing kitchen cabinets, lots of little tricks and special tools the installers use to make it go fast and all of the fit properly, and all doors and drawers work correctly.

Of course the other issue is your time. If you enjoy building it yourself, than by all means, nothing to be intimidated by. But the time spend is usually not worth the savings since skilled tradesmen have better tools and can usually get it done is short order (hire carefully, the wrong guy can make a mess and cause you lots of delays and headaches). For example, we built our "guest" house first on our properly, than later built the main house. for the guest house I did not want to spend any more than necessary, it was our temporary dwelling. I hired out the foundation, rough framing, and a few other items, but did most of the rest myself. I had a bid to hang and finish 95 sheets of the gypsum wall board of about $2700 (this was back in 1992), I figured I could do it myself for about $800 in materials, so it seemed worth the savings. I hired some part time help for the heavy lifting, but as we went along, I kept having to go back to the hardware store to get more supplies, some specialty tools to save some time, more wall screws, etc. etc. and it took two months worth of my weekends. I added up my costs when done: about $2000. for the amount of time I spend I would have been better off flipper hamburgers on the weekends and had a contractor install it all and been done in 4 days. it delayed moving in my 2 months, it was a bad decision. One thing I learn no it, for a smaller project like ours, I can hire skilled craftsman, with their own tools, on the weekends for cash who do it as a side job. they typically work all week for a big general contractor or cabinet company, but are happy to make extra cash income on the weekends. But make sure you check their work, many boast of skills they do not have (had that happen more than once, had to find someone else, and throw out all the trim they buggered up).
'87 Tercel 4wd SR5 (current engine swap project)
'84 Tercel 4wd (daily driver, with on going mods)
'92 Mazda MPV 4wd (wife's daily driver)
'85 Tercel 4wd DLX auto(daughter's daily driver)
'01 Honda Civic (other daughter's daily driver)
Fudd
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by Fudd »

I’ve had two RAV4’s now. A first gen and a late model hybrid. Wonderful little vehicles until you have to work on them.
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Petros
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by Petros »

all of the newer cars and trucks are like that.
'87 Tercel 4wd SR5 (current engine swap project)
'84 Tercel 4wd (daily driver, with on going mods)
'92 Mazda MPV 4wd (wife's daily driver)
'85 Tercel 4wd DLX auto(daughter's daily driver)
'01 Honda Civic (other daughter's daily driver)
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BlackStraw
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by BlackStraw »

I'm just up the highway near good ol' Duncan. Did you manage to find an X-trail with manual transmission? That is one vehicle I might consider down the line....I seem to have much better luck with 20-30 year old cars than ones where the year starts with a "2". I was looking into X-trails a few years ago and still seemed really expensive, people were wanting $10-$12000 for ones with over 200k on it. Rust issues notwithstanding, I have heard the engineering and drivetrain on the xtrail is supposed to be top-notch.
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dlb
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by dlb »

BlackStraw wrote: Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:14 pm I'm just up the highway near good ol' Duncan. Did you manage to find an X-trail with manual transmission? That is one vehicle I might consider down the line....I seem to have much better luck with 20-30 year old cars than ones where the year starts with a "2". I was looking into X-trails a few years ago and still seemed really expensive, people were wanting $10-$12000 for ones with over 200k on it. Rust issues notwithstanding, I have heard the engineering and drivetrain on the xtrail is supposed to be top-notch.
oh nice, another member in the valley. yes, my x-trail was a manual trans. i had been looking at them on craigslist and what for about a year and noticed just in the last few months that the prices for them really seem to have come down. i think within a year or two you could get lucky and find one for $2500 or so. their rear fenders are really prone to rusting out though, which is kind of surprising since newer cars generally don't seem to rust like the pre-1990's ones did. if i ever stumble across one that is in good shape for a great price, i would have a hard time not buying it despite the problems i mentioned in my first post in this thread. they're just so nice to drive.
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Mark
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by Mark »

We bought a 1/2-acre lot on Gabriola Island a few months ago (pretty much the cheapest property in B.C. at the time), with the idea of building a 100 sq ft cabin on it. 10 sq meters or 108 sq ft is the largest you can build in most jurisdictions without needing permits or having to follow the building code. The property is a slope covered with huge sandstone boulders so building a proper house on it would be a nightmare and very expensive. So far I've mostly completed the outside (still working on the small deck) and am working on insulating and paneling the inside. It has a loft for a sleeping area, since lofts don't count towards the square footage. I'm going to build an outhouse-style cedar shower and an outhouse with a composting toilet (legal grey-area). It's not exactly remote, but I like going up there for the diving and the water in the Strait of Georgia is warm enough to swim in the summer so my wife and I go up there for that as well. I'm pretty much making this cabin up as I go along, having never done this before. It would be interesting to hear how you are going about it.
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Mark
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by Mark »

Not sure why most attachments say "unavailable".
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dlb
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by dlb »

mark, that's some crazy synchronicity. our timelines are pretty close but we're still just in the planning stage for our cabin so you're ahead of us. yours looks awesome. i'm going to pm you because i have a lot of questions.
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splatterdog
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by splatterdog »

Wow Mark, that is scenic. Is the hill stable? Boulders on a hill can be scary. Or funny- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI_mwhUvqHc
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Petros
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by Petros »

angular boulders are fine, stable. round boulders above your home, not so good.
'87 Tercel 4wd SR5 (current engine swap project)
'84 Tercel 4wd (daily driver, with on going mods)
'92 Mazda MPV 4wd (wife's daily driver)
'85 Tercel 4wd DLX auto(daughter's daily driver)
'01 Honda Civic (other daughter's daily driver)
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Mark
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by Mark »

According to a geologist's geotechnical report supplied by the former owner, where I'm building the cabin is the safest spot since any boulders rolling down the hill will (in theory...hopefully) be blocked by the large, stable boulders surrounding the cabin. Realistically, even the up-slope boulders are stable and would only dislodge during a strong earthquake (in which case, the cabin is screwed anyway). I'm more semi-worried about all the trees surrounding the cabin. I'm expecting to show up one day and see the cabin crushed by a fallen tree that was knocked over by a windstorm. Every time I visit, there seem to be more fallen branches everywhere. I put up with the risk since I don't want to cut down any trees. If I wanted a safe, sterile environment I'd build a cabin in my driveway and save some money.
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irowiki
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by irowiki »

Hey David!

Nice to hear from you, the house building sounds fun.


I'm not around much myself anymore, I might make a post one of these days.
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87 Corolla FX16, 105k
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dlb
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by dlb »

It's been a long time but we finally finished our cabin so I wanted to post some pics of it. Here they are.
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We are really happy with the end result but it was a ton of work, a lot of it grueling and lousy, and we boned up all kinds of things along the way -- nothing that will make it fall over in our lifetime but enough that if we were to do it again, we would either hire someone or do something much simpler like park a travel trailer, build a roof over it, and call that home.

I had big plans to make the loft much bigger, to have solar panels and batteries and rainwater collection and I forget what else, but we scaled back when we realized how badly we were struggling just to finish the damn thing. My wife had a heck of a time convincing me but I'm glad she did. All that other stuff would be fine for sure but it's stuff we can add in the future if we really care, and so far we are finding we don't care about that stuff at all. It's funny what you think you'll need, and realizing later how superfluous a lot of that stuff is.
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splatterdog
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by splatterdog »

Your "good enough" looks good enough! Time to kick back and enjoy for a while.
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NWMO
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Re: my post-tercel vehicle adventures

Post by NWMO »

Looks great David!
Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart"

In remembrance of my friend ARCHINSTL:

T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit."
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