Anything that can, could have, or will go wrong, is going wrong, all at once. That's the day I had yesterday,I tried replacing the sway bar bushings that I bought for the '54 Ranch Wagon a while back. I had planned to install them several months ago and discovered after I had removed everything I had purchased the wrong size so I put them back in the package and tried to exchange them. The counterman says "Got a receipt"?,,"I can't find it but all I want to do is trade them for the next biggest size"..His reply was.."No receipt,no refund or exchange",,so I came back home and put all the old rubber bushings back on the sway bar and bolted everything back in place and tossed the new bushings in the top of the tool box and just continued driving the wagon. Yesterday I decided that I needed to try and make the new bushings work since I am planing on driving the wagon to the '54 Ford Nationals held in Michigan this August and that's just one of a handful of annoying little things on my to do list. At our weekly Thursday lunch my pal Gary suggested we use his Bridgeport milling machine,,,what would I be out if we screwed them up. Well, after figuring out how to secure them and they not spread apart while working to enlarge the hole the job went smoothly. I went back to the garage and started taking everything loose, both bushings and loosing the ends of the sway bar to get the new bushings back on bar,,finger tightened the 4 bolts and snugged up the ends of the sway bar,,I then started tightening the 4 bolts. Have you seen it coming yet? The very last bolt snapped when I was tightening it up,,,Dammit! Turned off the lights and radio...Monday is another day.. HRP
Had a similar day yesterday. Needed to replace a leaky axle seal on the '51 pickup. Easy, right? Got it up on jackstands, got the wheels and drums off and the differential opened up and went to remove the lock pin to remove the pinion shaft so I could remove the C clips and slip out the axle...yada yada yada. Where the #$#% is the lock pin???? I can see the boss, but no lock pin. Look inside the recess and there it is....the remains of it, anyway. The PO must have Harry Hamfisted it and sheared it right off. And of course he didn't repair it. Ugh. Had to drill out the remains to get it out. 3 hours later, the entire mess is finally out and on the bench for a proper repair. Luckily the speed shop right down the street had a replacement pin, and a replacement pinion shaft too. But a 2-hour job turned into an 8 hour cuss-fest. But I loved every minute of it.
Danny, Are you sure we're not brothers,separated a birth? I swear, an uncanny amount of the things you post I've lived through to. Probably could be said of hundreds of us "car guys". LOL Frank
I am convinced that anything that can be built or dismantled, especially by those under conditions of extreme duress due to "absolutely, positively, must be done by....." boundaries will experience a visitation from 'MURPHY', the severity of which will depend proportionately upon how critical said project's completion is to the involved worker(or workers) future(employment, relationship, or personal health, whichever applies)!
Well, hopefully when the bolt snapped it didn't take any knuckle skin with it, that usually happens to me. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Its stuck, yep its stuck, let go and roll over grab a pry tool,,,,, nope it wasn't stuck........ control arm landed on edge, hitting the top of the hip bone. I didn't pee my pants but it was real close.
And it is always the LAST bolt that either breaks or won't come loose. Don't know why that is, but it happens all the time. Don
dam that hicky looks pain full that gal had some big lips.man you made me laugh when you said I almost peed myself
We need a Hamb Knitting Club... less stressful...and the joy of working on cars is highly over-rated.
you want us to play with big long dull needles ??? you kidding we still wind up injured some way or another ..., Murphy is my neighbor he has been told "stay out of my garage and your beer is safe" , that strategy has been working for a while ...
Another of Murphy's laws: "If something could have gone wrong and didn't, you'd be better off if it had"
It will and you did the right thing. Sometimes, walking away, cooling off and thinking about it is the best approach to fixing it with the least amount of trouble going forward.
Monday didn't pan out and I was able to finagle my way out of helping the boss lady at the shop today so I got a early start this morning. I jacked up the car and found my jack stands,,trying my best not to be one of Murphy's statistics,safety you know. I found my drill exactly where it was suppose to be,I rounded up my new box of DeWalt drill bits,a punch and a hammer,easy outs and a adjustable wrench and a few reg. wrenches,drop light plugged in and I proceeded to wiggle my big arse under the car with a game plan. I grabbed the punch and hammer and whacked the broken bolt several times until I had a suitable dimple to start drilling...Thought I was prepared..I didn't put a freshly charged battery in the drill..crawl out and replace the battery. Drilling went well but I managed to break the damn easyout! Fortunately enough was sticking out I could get it out with a pair of vice grips,,guess where they are?..in the tool box!.. Again I crawl out and grab the vice grips and crawl back under and remove the offending broken piece,about this time I reposition myself and the light I notice something shiny between the frame and the inner fender panel,,a pair of small needle nose vice grips that I have been looking for a long time,,go figure,they might have been there since I built the car. Back to the broken bolt,I thought about going to the hardware store and buying another easy out but thought what the heck so I just kept drilling through the broken bolt,,almost through when a hot piece of corkscrew steel went down by shirt sleeve and burnt the heck out of my armpit,,it wasn't bad but it made me jump as much as you can laying on your back and in doing so I now have a hell of a goose egg on my forehead! I drilled all the way through and screwed up the cage nut but I just used a longer bolt,lock washer and nut. Everything is back together and the new bushings seem to be a big improvement, Murphy beat me a few rounds but I won the fight! I'll replace the sway bar bushings,,it will only take a hour....Sure! HRP
Hang on to the receipt next time, Danny! (I'm convinced they use disappearing ink, anyway. Every time I dig into my wallet to retrieve one, it's blank!)
I try to put a positive spin on this and consider a blood sacrifice to the car gods. Good luck is sure to follow...right? right?
Oooooh. I feel for ya, having whacked my head under the car before doing similar stuff. ...and I got caught by Murphy last night myself. I'm trying to finish up painting a tool cabinet I've been working on for two weeks. I'm using some new formulation paint that covers like mad but it also runs like water; and I had some runs, so after letting it cure 48 hours I sanded it all flat and shot it again. It was all beautiful until the last coat on the last panel, at midnight last night, when a freakin June bug flew into my ear. I shot a huge run all over, so bad I just grabbed a big putty knife and scraped it all off. Now I wait 48 hours for it to cure so I can sand again.
The Jalopy Journal
