This was an enormously ambitious project to start, especially for a 16 year old boy with no real car or engine knowledge. But I did it, I learned a lot of skills from YouTube, and I managed to swap the engine and fully restore the car, its my daily driver now. In the end, it took me more than 2 years start to finish, mostly due to the fact that I had to learn everything. This project has taught me that the succeeding of a project does not necessarily depend on if you are capable of doing it, but more on how much effort you are willing to put in to learn. This is really motivating to me. Today I am still wrenching on cars and engines. In the past years, I bought several classics, most of which eighties audis. Also, I bought 2 seventies american speedboats with 2 friends of mine, which we restored. During this restauration, I got the opportunity to teach my friends how to rebuild engines. All of this has made me very handy with my tools, and quite insightful in solving problems that occur when building or repairing stuff, which helps me a lot in the Technology and Realization expertise area in Industrial Design.
Wrenching on old cars, and engines in general is something I get a lot of joy out of. I started when I was sixteen, two years away from being able to drive. But I wanted to try and buy a car to work on, which I could restore, and drive when I was eighteen. My car of choice was an Audi 100 2.3 fivecylinder, from 1987, for its eighties look, supposedly nice drive and low tax. And the best part about it: my parents were crazy enough to let me buy it! It was a good car, but the paint was rather ugly. A few months later, I found another Audi 100 on the internet, with excellent paint, but with expired inspection and a blown head gasket. Also it had a 1.8 fourcylinder and an automatic transmission. I bought this one as well, with the intent to put the fivecylinder engine and transmission from my first audi 2.3 in it.