Have you guys dreamed up this stuff or is it the voices in your heads that makes you do it? Do you reckon the shade tree mechanics that inspired our passions of traditional hot rods really thought about clocking screwheads? I'm kinda guessing not
Mind you, my wife thinks I'm slightly touched because I'm laughing out loud at some of these posts. Thanks
I'll guarantee some of them did. Go take a look at a tag or something like that screwed to a firewall. Then look at the screws. Then clock them. Tell me it doesn't look better. Hate to tell you guys, but you know when you go to a show, and you see a car that looks great, but you can't quite put your finger on why it looks so good? Then you wonder why your car doesn't have that kind of effect? This attention to detail is why. It's something your brain and eye notice to be aesthetically pleasing, but you don't even realize you noticed it. Start paying attention and you'll see. There is nothing wrong with being a perfectionist and building a really nice car. And you'll never have a really nice simple car that still stands out if you don't think about those details.
I have to admit, I clock hose clamps so the ratcheting mechanism is out of view(underside of the radiator hose) so all you see is the strap portion of the clamp.
Did the clocking number on all the light switch screws at a dealership run by a OCD family. The vertical groves of the covers were dirty. Soaked them while wire wheeled the screws clean. When switch covers were clean-clean, took them to the buffer for glassy shine.Then flat black the screws for contrast. Kept switching screws 'till they were straight up and down to match the vertical groves of covers. Next up, the tack strips up the steps from service area to office were looking very dull. #0000 steel wool & rough compound 1st. Then rag & compound. Then fine polish, then Mothers for chrome like shine. Drove them nuts to be one upped, 'cause the before looked like neglect. Get in their head, win.
Our cars/projects are parked 90-99% of the time, how could you walk past it without correcting or clocking simple things. Bob
I dunno about screws, but clamps, wheels, wiring, being set straight/clocked when on show makes sense. Gives a uniform look, no random stuff going on, makes you look harder, draws you in to the attention to detail the owner went to. A funny thing I noticed was model kits usually get detailed up to look like a real car, and real car builds get de cluttered to resemble a plastic kit without the details.... ironic, huh?
I have never been called a clock-sucker but next time I attach a switch plate, this thread is going to influence me.
Even though I poked a little fun earlier in the thread, I do agree with some mild OCD, like evenly spaced wire hold-downs or maybe even clocking all the screws on the DASH only, not on the firewall or elsewhere. I don't think the extreme OCD perfectionism improves a car's looks. For instance, most of wood's beauty comes from it's un-uniform grain pattern. It wouldn't look as good if all the lines were straight and evenly spaced. Too much attention to detail makes them look worse, IMHO. It makes me afraid to sit in them lest I leave a wrinkle in the seat bottom or afraid to do a donut lest I get rubber dust on the paint. I do like a well built car with reasonable attention to detail and dislike the really sloppy ones. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a wide middle ground that looks good to me but both of the extremes bother me.
When it comes to hose clamps I like to position them so I won't rip my hands to shreds or slash my wrists working on the engine. Learned this is the sixties, when cars came stock with spring wire clamps. Man those things would tear you up.
Spaghetti spark plug wires and hose clamps with the barrel and tail exposed drive me nuts. An hour making your own plug wires with an MSD crimper and bag of zip ties neatly routes the wires, while simply flipping the clamps upside down so all the ugly is on the bottom of the hose instead of top, right in your line of site, works there. Heater hoses and vacuum hoses running sloppy drives me nuts, too. -Brad
Actually, all slotted screws have their thread beginnings in different phases. It is therefore necessary to 'mix-and-match' screws with their respective boxes...eventually, all screws will be clocked and at the same torque number.
Actually, Howard had his sheet metal men replace all screws and fasteners with countersunk flush rivets. Mr. Hughes developed the flush rivet on that very plane, the H-1. It was documented that such modification picked up 7 MPH top speed? Other variables have to be considered, however...
When we were developing the F-117 we found out that the clocking of the phillips head screws holding the FLIR cover was extremely important on reducing the radar signature of the front of the plane, if they weren't exactly correct, it changed the signature by a factor of 10. It was still extremely small, but that's how touchy these things were. If it had to be stealthy, then every detail mattered. Even after that, we covered the heads of the screws with Radar Absorbing Material.
Someone is screwing with me! Lately we have been trying to show the "car from hell" a littlebit! Every time we get ready to go to the show I remove the bottle caps (poverty caps) and index the FORD script parallel to grade...well it never fails when we get set up at the show the letters are no longer square with grade...som ting wong!
My name is TexasHardcore and I have OCD. I clock hose clamps, light switch plate screws, valve stems must be opposite the tire brand, both sun visors must be in the same position, even if there are no passengers and I get happy when I see all of my gauges at the same angle.
When I met my wife she told me she was anal, I thought "cool"... how was I to know there was two types
When I met my ex, she told me she was bi, and I thought I hit the lottery. Turned out she meant "polar."
So, after reading this entire thread, I decided to go out and clock all my rocker arms. I got them all perfectly level and now the car won't run. Can anybody help me?