As I leaned over the fender, scraping an old cork valve cover gasket from a V-8-cylinder head, I got a momentary sense of déjà vu, no doubt triggered in part by the familiar scent of aged motor oil and years-baked sealant. The recall was clearly drawing back to my high school days and tinkering with old cars in a driveway—either the one at my parents’ house or one of my car-guy friends from back then.
Those sorts of reminiscences to days of youth and old friends are usually pleasant, and it’s common to be left with a wistful desire to go back to that place, but on this particular day, I was actually feeling fortunate to be right where I was, and with the people accompanying me on the project we were tackling.
There were three of us in the shop that evening here at Hemmings, hanging around after hours to get a project car back together so we could maintain the schedule of a video shoot. This effort was similar in scope to the Camaro IROC we did last year, which we covered here in HMM—the video series can be seen on the Hemmings YouTube channel. This time around we were working on a Fox-platform Mustang 5.0, and once again, we found ourselves with a two-week timeframe to get all the work done. Evidently, we’re gluttons for punishment.
The relatively tight turnaround time is a function of having a video crew on hand; each time we do this, we plan out a series of upgrades to be made, and then set to work with cameras rolling. If you think this sounds like a recipe for disaster, you’re right. Automotive projects almost never play out as smoothly as anticipated, so when a running, driving car is expected to be ready for its closeup at the end, the potential for project failure is very real.
I think we were on day 8 of the 12 we had to work with as I scraped away at that gasket. There was no issue with that menial task, but there’d already been plenty of challenges that had arisen by that point. Encountering those sorts of surprises is what often makes any of us who play with cars question our choice of pastime, especially when the issues reveal themselves at night, and maybe on a weekend, when everything is closed and it’s too late to reach out with a “lifeline” call for assistance.
Photo: Daniel Strohl
But on that evening, I was working with two friends who’d probably have been the lifeline calls I’d have made if I was on my own. One is David “Junior” Nevison, our shop manager and chief wrench here at Hemmings. Junior has been working with us full time for nearly a year; back in 2022 he was a hired gun on the IROC project. He’s a seasoned mechanic with a broad background of experience that has left him able to tackle whatever is in front of him, whether he’s seen it before or not.
Also joining us was Glen Sauer, another “car guy” who usually has a few projects rolling at once; he also helped out on the IROC last year. Glen is more skilled than the average gearhead when it comes to fabrication and has a shop in his home garage that looks like some sort of industrial facility, which he’s able to put to good use.
That can be especially useful when things don’t go as planned on a project, and both Junior and Glen are exactly the type of people you want around when there’s a problem that needs to be solved. On last year’s IROC project and again on the Mustang more recently, we encountered unforeseen obstacles that could not be overcome with mere wrench turning. In such situations, where a remedy is not so straightforward, at least one person on the team must be able to see a way through—to conceive of a feasible resolution. Of course, that alone won’t bring it home, so the plan must then be carried out—almost always far easier said than done.
Both of the guys in the shop with me that night are skilled at coming up with a fix and then executing, which was invaluable as we had a few instances that required custom machine work and/or semi-intricate fabrication. And the clock was ticking the whole time, with appointments amid our two-week video shoot for dyno sessions and track tests.
During my teens, encountering obstacles as we tried to make our way through car projects often brought things to a halt, turning fun to frustration as we faced the lack of skills, tools, and/or funding to move forward. Today, while my own experience now enables me to better avoid getting stuck, on this Mustang project, I had a far greater sense of security in knowing we’d get the car back together and functioning on time, thanks to the presence of hands more capable than my own. As a bonus, that boosted confidence enhanced the overall enjoyment of a few nights in the shop turning wrenches with a couple of friends.
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