One Day in the Shop

Stories and images from a career in vintage motorsports and restoration

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Bugatti's De Ram Shock Absorbers, Part One - One Day in the Shop

Inside the innovative engineering of the De Ram shock, a hydraulically operated friction damper used on Bugattis and other exotics in the '30s

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The Green Drakes Came to Party at the Ranch Opening day on the Railroad Ranch came and went, another year passing by with not much good to say....

The Green Drakes Came to Party at the Ranch

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Welcome to One Day in the Shop After nearly ten years online, Traveling With Tools is undergoing a major overhaul to get ready for the next decade and beyond....

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Opening Day on the Ranch, 2026 Last year on June 15, the fishing was tough on the Henrys Fork through the Railroad Ranch.... https://travelingwithtools.com/2026/06/13/opening-day-on-the-ranch-2026/

Opening Day on the Ranch, 2026

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A Duesenberg Model J Crank

Almost two months have passed without an update here. This is a tiny refresher for the front page while major remodeling continues in the back of the shop. Pictured is a Duesenberg Model J crankshaft, as I file the stubs off the counterweight bolts back in 2009. I don’t recall exactly the circumstances… I think we prepared the crank and line-bored the babbitt main bearings, sending it back to…

A Duesenberg Model J Crank

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You Won't Believe What I Found Down This Trail in Florida!

I hate clickbait. I really do. But I’m working on a major site redesign, and I haven’t published any content at all this year. This post is just to say, I haven’t gone away. I’m working really hard. Really! Traveling With Tools is going to split off and focus on traveling and fly fishing. The car content is moving to a new site, One Day in the Shop. It has been in progress for several weeks…

You Won't Believe What I Found Down This Trail in Florida!

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Putting 2025 to Bed

There was a lot a variety in 2025 to keep things interesting, with new-to-me projects as well as changes to my personal rolling stock. I started the year with a Jaguar XKE engine, a 4.2 liter for a vintage racing E-Type. The previous engine that came with the car blew up early in the new owner’s possession, and I rebuilt it with a completely new bottom end… block, crank, rods, pistons, sump. It…

Putting 2025 to Bed

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Last Chance Ghosts

I’d spent the last several days staring at the surface of the river. I was on the Henrys Fork of the Snake at Last Chance, Idaho, and I’d been there for two weeks. The Harriman Ranch stretch of Henrys is world renowned as a dry fly fishing paradise. On opening day, June 15, you can expect to see a crowd of dry fly purists searching the water, looking for the noses of big rainbow trout. The fish…

Last Chance Ghosts

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Henrys Fork Brown Drake

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Fly Fishing Scenes, August in Montana

I started the month down on the Crow Reservation, on the Bighorn river below Yellowtail dam. Cottonwood camp was the base for the first few nights, then I moved to the Bighorn access point downstream. A nasty thunderstorm blew in and threatened the huge tree I was parked under, so I beet feet up to the campsite right below the dam, snatching the last open spot on a Friday afternoon. (click any…

Fly Fishing Scenes, August in Montana

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Scouting the Gardner River from the North Gate of Yellowstone

I wrote last summer about my visit to my old favorite honey hole on the Gardner river in Montana, and this year I decided to hike into the park from the North Gate in the Town of Gardiner. The old road through the park from Gardiner to Mammoth Village was destroyed by the flood of 2022, and the new road is way up on the hill above the river. The Old Stagecoach dirt road was quickly paved and is…

Scouting the Gardner River from the North Gate of Yellowstone

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One Day in the Shop... August 25, 2009

A brief look at one of the more unique cars ever to come through the driveway at Phil Reilly & Co, on the day that Jay Eitel brought his Ford hot rod by for the crew to ogle over. Jay was an engineer and inventor, best known for creating the cherry picker, those trucks with a bucket on an extendable boom that are most widely seen working on utility lines these days. This project had been started…

One Day in the Shop... August 25, 2009

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Labor Day Fish Tales from Montana

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks on Hebgen Lake, near West Yellowstone, chasing callibaetis-eating rainbows and browns. Today, on my last day on the lake, I found an honest to God “gulper”, a fish that’s eating bugs on a steady tempo… about one every three seconds. That allows you to predict where to place your fly, so that the fish might take it on the next gulp. In all my previous visits,…

Labor Day Fish Tales from Montana

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July in Montana, Broken Bikes and Brown Trout

My last post had me dreaming of dry fly action on the Henrys Fork, and sad to say, it was a two week exercise in “hope springs eternal”. Maybe tomorrow the bugs will come out and the fish will start looking up? Apart from a few nights of substantial brown drake hatches, where I at least landed a big drake-eating whitefish, the trout just did not cooperate for me. Other anglers? Seems like the guy…

July in Montana, Broken Bikes and Brown Trout

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A Bugatti Cylinder Block Repair

Working With Iron and a Cautionary Tale Several years ago, I went through a Type 40 Bugatti engine that had had a hard life. Its recent days hadn’t been made any easier by the chap that took it apart, using a dead blow hammer to break free the joint between the cylinder block and the crankcase. Not a crazy idea, to use a soft hammer to shock the iron block to break the seal. Modern RTV silicone…

A Bugatti Cylinder Block Repair

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Dreams of June on the Henry's Fork

The clock is running down on my stretch of work in 2025. I’ve got a date with a river in Idaho, opening day on the Railroad Ranch, at the little fishing community of Last Chance on June 15. Looking back, I think I’ve only hit the opener once, in 2021. Lets see, in 2015, my first year on the road, I was stuck in Reno sorting out issues with the then new-to-me Funmover. I didn’t get to fish the…

Dreams of June on the Henry's Fork

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2006 Fun Mover 31C For Sale

108,000 miles, $17,500 OBO, Willows, CA A hard to find toy hauler in a class C format with a ten foot long garage in the back. This Four Winds Fun Mover has been my full time home since 2015 and has faithfully carried me from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast and back every year without fail. It is fantastically useful to be able to carry all your stuff around the country in a relatively…

2006 Fun Mover 31C For Sale