Post by title1parent on May 22, 2008 6:12:15 GMT -5
Class project
May 22, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
Sam Ristich's ride is still far from pimped, but thanks to the effort of his Neuqua Valley High School classmates and his auto shop teacher Mark Gizler, it is hardly the bucket it was when he bought it earlier this year.
"None of the tires spun," said Ristich, a senior at Neuqua, of the 1970 Dodge Challenger he and his classmates have been restoring this year. "It just had dirt all through it. A bird's nest in the glove box. No motor. No nothing. It was just left for dead in a field in Kansas City."
That is until his parents allowed him to haul the rusted-out muscle car all the way to their Naperville home so he'd have something to "tinker" with. Soon enough, he'd tinkered with the car about as much as he could in the confines of his own garage using the sparse equipment he had at his disposal. He said his parents weren't too thrilled by the thought of him welding within their garage.
ยป Click to enlarge image Sam Ristich, a senior at Neuqua Valley High School, works on his 1970's Dodge Challenger for his Auto Servicing Class independent project at the school in Naperville Tuesday.
(Jonathan Miano/STNG)
So Ristich asked Gizler if his fixer-upper could perhaps become a class project. Gizler loved the idea.
"It's not every day where someone has a vehicle like this that keeps (students') interest," he said. "A lot of times we work on cars that are other people's cars, teachers' cars, outside work. So sometimes it is hard to keep the students motivated to do the work because it is not their vehicle. But something like this, a project on something you won't ever see anywhere else, it gives them the opportunity to do all of these cool things and learn on something they like."
Ristich had all of the old paint stripped and rust removed before he brought it in. So he and his classmates have been filling in the holes left by the sandblasting. And they've been installing new sheet metal floor panels to fix the whole "Flintstones" type of deal that was going on. They even had to do some custom fabrication to fix some holes in the frame brought on by the rats' nests that had been made within it.
"They're basically just tearing the car down to do a complete restoration," Gizler said. "They're taking the car down to nothing, seeing what they've got to work with, replacing what needs to be replaced, and repairing what needs to be repaired."
It's work Ristich simply couldn't do at home.
"When he was at home, he was kind of at a standstill because he was so limited in the things that he could do," Gizler said. "He'll learn a lot more doing what he is doing in here rather than being at home and not having the tools and the equipment and the time and the space. This lets him do all of these things, and do it the right way, like a professional would."
But that work ended Wednesday, Ristich's last day as a Neuqua student. He'll graduate Sunday, and go to Purdue in the fall. He said hasn't figured out how he'll continue to work on the car while he's there, but, looking at the glossy photo of what he wants the car to someday look like, he's certain he doesn't want it to "just sit."
Dodge didn't make many 1970 Challengers. Maybe 70,000. And the company produced even fewer Challenger TAs, or Trans-Ams. This car wasn't one of them, but Ristich intends to restore it so it looks and runs like one of the 2,000 or so Trans-Ams that rolled off assembly lines that year.
"I've kinda decided to do it the professional way," Ristich said.
May 22, 2008
By Tim Waldorf twaldorf@scn1.com
Sam Ristich's ride is still far from pimped, but thanks to the effort of his Neuqua Valley High School classmates and his auto shop teacher Mark Gizler, it is hardly the bucket it was when he bought it earlier this year.
"None of the tires spun," said Ristich, a senior at Neuqua, of the 1970 Dodge Challenger he and his classmates have been restoring this year. "It just had dirt all through it. A bird's nest in the glove box. No motor. No nothing. It was just left for dead in a field in Kansas City."
That is until his parents allowed him to haul the rusted-out muscle car all the way to their Naperville home so he'd have something to "tinker" with. Soon enough, he'd tinkered with the car about as much as he could in the confines of his own garage using the sparse equipment he had at his disposal. He said his parents weren't too thrilled by the thought of him welding within their garage.
ยป Click to enlarge image Sam Ristich, a senior at Neuqua Valley High School, works on his 1970's Dodge Challenger for his Auto Servicing Class independent project at the school in Naperville Tuesday.
(Jonathan Miano/STNG)
So Ristich asked Gizler if his fixer-upper could perhaps become a class project. Gizler loved the idea.
"It's not every day where someone has a vehicle like this that keeps (students') interest," he said. "A lot of times we work on cars that are other people's cars, teachers' cars, outside work. So sometimes it is hard to keep the students motivated to do the work because it is not their vehicle. But something like this, a project on something you won't ever see anywhere else, it gives them the opportunity to do all of these cool things and learn on something they like."
Ristich had all of the old paint stripped and rust removed before he brought it in. So he and his classmates have been filling in the holes left by the sandblasting. And they've been installing new sheet metal floor panels to fix the whole "Flintstones" type of deal that was going on. They even had to do some custom fabrication to fix some holes in the frame brought on by the rats' nests that had been made within it.
"They're basically just tearing the car down to do a complete restoration," Gizler said. "They're taking the car down to nothing, seeing what they've got to work with, replacing what needs to be replaced, and repairing what needs to be repaired."
It's work Ristich simply couldn't do at home.
"When he was at home, he was kind of at a standstill because he was so limited in the things that he could do," Gizler said. "He'll learn a lot more doing what he is doing in here rather than being at home and not having the tools and the equipment and the time and the space. This lets him do all of these things, and do it the right way, like a professional would."
But that work ended Wednesday, Ristich's last day as a Neuqua student. He'll graduate Sunday, and go to Purdue in the fall. He said hasn't figured out how he'll continue to work on the car while he's there, but, looking at the glossy photo of what he wants the car to someday look like, he's certain he doesn't want it to "just sit."
Dodge didn't make many 1970 Challengers. Maybe 70,000. And the company produced even fewer Challenger TAs, or Trans-Ams. This car wasn't one of them, but Ristich intends to restore it so it looks and runs like one of the 2,000 or so Trans-Ams that rolled off assembly lines that year.
"I've kinda decided to do it the professional way," Ristich said.