Hot Rods Who else does NOT enjoy working on your cars?

Gotta be in the mood to work on anything for sure. My 60 and my 56 haven't been touched in over a year due to money, time and desire to work on them. I get the urge sometimes but it always ends up when my daily ot truck needs an oil change or routine anything.


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My car buddies know me pretty well. We can be sitting at the Sunday morning coffee cruise-in and one of them will ask me "How are the trucks coming?" If I don't respond fast enough, one of the others will give him my standard answer "Any day now."

 

LOL I got to go put tires on my tractor. Not my favorite thing in the world to do but it has to be done. Guess I have put it off long enough, well maybe another 5 minutes.

 

I think collecting the parts and "roughing" a car in is one of the most fun things a person can do. Once it get's to things like paint and wiring and upholstery, it's a total drag. After the current 31 roadster project is done and we wrap up the 57 chevy pickup project which is next, from then forward, I want to focus on just roughing in projects and never care if we finish one again.

 

I would rather build them than drive them. The fabrication is the best part!

 

Like raising children. Not always fun, but once you start you gotta' finish it right.

 

The stiff hands and sore back are sucking the fun out of it. But I pick my battles and don't hurt myself too much. But I am looking at finishing three more and then maintaining them, getting one more to tinker with, and drive the boogers.

 

Let's git'er done. Lol. Like previously said it like eating a elephant. But if you find a consitancy to put in a hour or 2 after work everyday and get a small job done or start on that major part. It will get some were. And take a couple day breaks in between if you got to. I've heard some guys say it took them 6 years to get a paint job on there rides. Body work and sanding is not the desired part I guess. I sure don't like it but end results when your some were with it and you get a comment from some one or a Kid even it will all pay off.

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Thanks for all the great advise, this is a fantastic forum ! It does make a huge difference having someone to hang out and work with. My closest "car friends" live between 100-150 miles away so that never works out, my neighbor is a professional mechanic and a good friend, he has helped me out on the takes-two-person stuff, but he has 5 kids and owns a busy shop so we don't get to hang out in my shop too often. I live in the middle of nowhere (which I love) but doesn't help in finding more car buds. My love for the hobby hasn't changed, just my tolerance for working on stuff. (especially broken stuff) I don't even wrench on my wife and my daily drivers, I just drop them off at my friends shop. I still love going out in my shop, I love my tools, and I love my cars, I just wish I could afford to have a shop finish them ! I always wanted a 64-66 Mustang Fastback 4-speed. After looking at rusty junk I could afford/justify for years, I stumbled upon a nice, done, clean, '65 A-code 4-speed fastback and just figured out a way to buy it about 6 months ago. One of the smartest things I have ever done. I get to drive it whenever I want and it probably cost 1/2 of what I would have spent restoring one, plus I get to enjoy it now, and not wait 10 or 12 years! Maybe I should do the same thing with a 32' ?

 

With the Ford I hit a turning point at the 1-year mark, it started going together instead of coming apart. I made progress in leaps and bounds. I did the wiring 100% myself, the entire car wiring is new. I'm proud of that. But it was close to another year before it was drivable. Set backs like the weather, waiting for parts, cut and try sessions, having the flu slowed me up. I maybe missed 6 weeks total on the car out of 104 weeks... 94.2% average staying on project.

I have my brother around when his wife lets him out. My wing-man down the street is always around. I work on his cars too. He's a huge help. I'm beat up physically with a back injury, may be going for a morphine pump down the road. The late 2016 heart attack/bypass only slowed me down. I worked on the car around last Xmas, took off January, worked some of February and was back full swing in March. Did the rear, rear springs, front sway bar even though it was cold out.

 

Ha! If my O/T was as slow as a tractor, I would have gotten rid of it a long time ago.

 

Nice thing about a tractor is that you don't have to have a valid driver's license to drive one.

Once when I was in high school I had a "Hardship" license. I could drive two and from school, to and from work and to and from the store basically. I had been caught driving enough that they were going to pull it if I got caught again. I had a date to the drive-in and my Ag teacher loaned me the FFA tractor so I wouldn't loose license. It would only go 45 flat out but it wasn't that far to the drive-in.

OK for those of you who are easily offended I took it off the rails. But I didn't charge you a dime for the story.

 

At 66,I've been spending a lot of time thinking about all the truly Great Cars I got to work on back in the 1970's at a Restoration shop, it was a lot of fun. Never wanted to "test drive" any of them, even rolled them on trailers rather than a short drive on. I NEVER wanted to be the guy behind the wheel when something broke. This must be part of the reason I see no reason to finish any of my projects. Driving them causes them to brake, and of course there is the ball of flame that burns your project to the ground when the wiring job shits the bed. FUN part for me is finding the parts, doing the mockup, finding better parts. Funding all of this has been a lifelong project, and the projects do get covered up with crap I pick up to flip. Lots of other parts of the hobby are fun and keep me happy. You can't miss something you never had, I have saved a bundle on insurance and registration costs on cars I never finished. Bob

 

The part I really don't like is the finish work. I have done the deed and finished show quality cars but my old heaps seldom get past the going fast stage. I may paint the A but only because I should own at least one nice car in my lifetime.

 

I often tell people that I shouldn't be allowed to own a wrench, much less attempt to use one. I won't bore you with why, use your imagination.

Really, I just wanna drive the stuff.

I bought the Falcon in 2008 for a bit more than it may have been worth, but WAY less than 10K. It runs good, stops fine, and the top goes up and down.

When people ask me what it cost, or say they wish they could afford an old car, I tell them the car was cheap (it was) and a ball to drive.

In 9 years I've spent maybe $1,000 on repairs and nothing else other than gas and oil. Not ever going to be a show car but it is cheap fun and I don't have to worry about a door ding.

We call it our "Ice Cream Car", guess where it takes us ...

 

Well you know what they say, "If it aint broken fix it 'til it is."

 

I just always pour myself a big glass of Fukitall, and walk away for a spell. It looks a lot better later on.

 

I agree 100%. I really like the figuring things out part. Once its together and going, that's it. there may be things to redo, or make better, but I'm not into making things look good, just to make them look good.

 

Someone up there said just let it leak and drive it. As an overarching philosophy, it's great advice! We have been trained that our cars have to be perfect specimens, with zero defects. These unicorns are not the cars I started out with or that my family drove when I was a youngster, and that was perfectly acceptable.

I started my car obsession before I could walk, started building one under a tree when I was 11. Built like a madman until I was 29, and just stopped to raise kids, build a career, be married, do other stuff. I had become obsessed with cars to the point of unhealthy and just had to stop.

Fast forward 15 years or so and my wife starts hinting about getting back in. Turns out she missed it. I had kept the tools, so why not. I jumped back it.

Now that I'm here I realize that it was easier 15 years ago, that I had more time and less money then, and that I'm as particular, but much more "refined" in what I want and expect from a car. I don't have to drive my project, so I work on it when I feel like it. Mostly I'm just glad to have an old car (or three) around. It's soothing and very *not* like being at work. I don't have anything to prove at this point... the cars I build are for me, everyone else can stuff it.

I don't need a show car, I've done that. I don't need a race car, I've done that. I just want to build a car and drive it when I'm done without worrying about it. The go to ice cream car is just about right.

 

Some of you guys really worry me. In the last few years I have seen build thread after build thread turn into "I don't like to work on them", "I don't trust driving them anymore" and some various "Get off my lawn" threads.

The day I read one of Ryan's blogs that reports he would rather drive an Escalade and spend more time gardening is the day I have to print-out all of my posts, burn them, make an urn out of my alliance tags and bury it in the yard by the garage like the old man did with his major award. "I thought that I heard taps being played, softly".

Man up, tool up, start them up and drive the hell out of them before we take the final ride in the back of the caddy.
Bandit, East bound and down.

 

It's 105 degrees over on this side of the river Billbo.
Hows about you roll that bare metal beotch out in the sun for an hour, get in, lay your arm over the door like the hip guys do and tell me how much you want to drive that roadster!

 

105 in Oregon. Tucson here, 105 is almost sweater weather.
Youre not wrong though, that's the Tucson salute. Lifting your left arm sharply and saying damn.
I'm suffering burn out.
The garage door opener broke, I had a crap landslide by the tool boxes and the lights quit working. All in a week.
I reached up to tap the light, and it fell down supended by the wires.
Rum n Coke time.
3 weeks from now, it should be in the mid 90's and I'll roll one out to banzai and finish it.
Could be too many projects, and nobody to play with.
I'm done sniveling now.

 

LOL! It is hot today Doug! Left the drop-top Nova in the garage but drove the 442 to work with the top up and windows down. The roadster wont be on the road for a year or so. And the 69, it doesn't like the temps over 85.

As for myself, I have a tee time at Lewis River tomorrow and one at Rose City on Friday. Tee times are easy to get when everyone stays indoors.

On the sweaty side, I finished bleeding the nova last night in my 90 degree garage. I drank an tire 6er of Guiness and 2 quarts of water. I'll take heat over rain any day!

My moms 94, lives in Portland. I do worry about older folks in the summer heat. So stay in doors Doug.

 

I will quote @gonmad on this topic. "Old cars suck" LOL

This comes after spending the last month swapping out the flatty for a 283, in my stake truck, and discovering an undiagnosed noise in the clutch of the coupe as I was finishing up the truck.

I actually don't mind working on them, as long as I keep things broken down into specific projects and it's semi-decent temperature. This last month, working on the trucks engine swap kinda sucked the life out of me due to the heat and humidity.

 

I don't know why so many guys deal with a hot garage. A $300 window air conditioner keeps my shop in the low 70's on a hot day if I turn it on early in the morning. If you don't have an insulated shop, just partition off a stall and insulate it to do most of your work in.

 

I always considered myself a builder, not a buyer. But I have noticed recently at a similar age to the OP of 37 that my attitude is changing. We've had a lot of life altering events in the last year or so (an out of state move, a new job and function, parents getting cancer, dog getting cancer, etc) and I think that has had an impact on my thinking. Additionally, I went from a good sized shop down to an under-size 2 cars garage.

I used to want to do nothing but build, sell, then off to the next one. I realized like the OP that financially building makes way less sense than buying, but it was my mental "therapy".

Now, I don't feel like even touching the car I have. In fact it's for sale on here and it's a pretty dang cool car. For me, I'm pretty sure that I know the reasons:
1. The recent health issues in my family have forced me to take a good hard look at how I spend my time and whether being alone in the garage for hours on end is really worth the time lost with family or on other life opportunities.
2. The downsizing of my shop space. I feel my current project is too big to get started on with the space I now have to deal with. That frustrates me to the point that I don't even want to start.
3. My job function has changed and drains me. After 30+ cars I no longer feel like going home and sweating or freezing in the heat or cold of the garage and dealing with the body aches that now come with it.
4. I always used to go all out on something and work to the extreme rather than pacing myself, now I think I'm just burned out.

I still couldn't give up wrenching or tinkering for the mental therapy aspect, so I'm giving myself a brake from the cars and started playing with motorcycles for a change of pace. The work space it requires in smaller. The time investment is smaller, and the costs are smaller. It's been a good diversion so far. You might just try a different activity for awhile to re-frame your mind.

In the end it's about priorities and desire. If working on cars is not a priority or desire, it's no big deal. There's lots of folks that enjoy cars without building them. Somebody has to buy them so the builders can keep going......

 

Yep, same boat there too.

 

You must have decent Utility rates, heck, keeping the AC on in the house for 4 hours an evening at 80 degrees, pumps my bill up another 400/month. PGE isn't cheap

The heat is what demotivates me, like above, we'll hit 105 today, just zaps the life out of me these days, rather work when it cold, I can bundle up and piddle around.

 

Ok, I know what I replied earlier, and I think this might border on hypocrisy, but a bad day working on the hot rod is better than a good day at a 'regular' job. The thing is that nobody makes you do it, you do for all the right reasons for you. Lately the idea of buying something "done" would pucker my exhaust pipe a bit. Every car I've worked on in the past 10 years it seems they all got the memo about leaving most things loose. Don't tighten anything, and for fuck sakes DO NOT use an air ratchet or impact wrench! I'm not even being funny here I'm dead serious. If ever, Ever, EVER there was a WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT in the hot rod and collector car world that's it. Makes me want to find these mooks and drop a 2 lb hammer on their foot. "Step away from the (fill in the blank)!" I used to think it was only me but I've been hearing horror stories elsewhere too.

 

Do not sell the '32.
After a while we will get a thread on "Why did I sell my car."
There has to another guy in your area to hang out and motivate you.
There always is,just need to find them.Not everyone is outgoing.