Projects Things you walk by every day that SHOULD get worked on.

I drive my sedan as much as possible,rain or shine.

Unfinished things are all around me and things to get done have continuously accumulated,I still have 14 LED lights to finish installing in my garage,I need to clean the gutters,put a new roof on the barn,put new tires on the camper,replace both the wooden overhead doors on my old garage,fix the garage door opener,get rid of my off topic pickup sitting in the back yard,mow the lawn if it ever stops raining and cut up the huge tree limb that fell in the side lot,I also need to clean up the garage but I will do like normal and procrastinate and do none of the above anytime soon. HRP

 

I have a plasma cutter and cart to put it on, still sitting in the boxes on the floor in the shop. Been that way for like two years! Going to have to get it out and use it for some projects this summer. lol

 

Awesome old Mopar man! I want to find something like that too!

 

At 85,I look at things like Pa Kettle did..just look at the problem and state,"I'm gonna fix that one of these days.'......

 

Some things I keep putting off as well. Wife's 55 a little too low in front-need to chg coils but not fun-been looking at it for a few years-maybe I'll attack it soon. Also a bunch of 40 stuff to go thru and sort out up in the attic-started on that a while back-slowly making a dent in it-found stuff I forgot about and bought again-at 75 kinda forget this stuff. Another 40 coming next week to assemble-gotta churn and burn on that one as there is not room for it to be here long..

 

I REALLY hafta clean out my garage so that I can resume putting my 1st 1931 Dodge Brothers coupe together....had it since I was a kid, drove it to high school and now it's only 1/3 restored. Hell, I am 65 now....I had better get on it....

 

Thanks. Get in touch with me. I have found a few coupes for friends. My daily again....

 

John, love your coupes. Get those brakes fixed man!

Dave

 

Funny, when I saw this thread, the first such project that came to my mind is one that I got from an estate cleanout. But this wasn't just any estate cleanout - this guy was a car guy, and so is his lawyer! (me) It's pretty rare that a lawyer plays any role in handling the "stuff" when somebody dies, but this gentleman had a yard full of toys, and none of them had been running for the fifteen years he had been ill before he died. His wife knew nothing about cars, and was incapable of - well, lots of things. So I decided to help.

I spent countless hours that summer reviving vehicles that had been sitting for too long, so the estate could sell them. I even re-assembled a cool old pickup that was sitting in a pile of parts, under a rotting carpet, so I could photograph it for potential buyers to see the condition.

This was the unfinished project that the man walked past every time he stepped out his back door:



And here are all the parts, set into place for the sake of ebay buyers. The buyer sent a flatbed to Colorado to pick it up, and it's now a street rod project for a dad & daughter in Florida.

 

The same gentleman who died with the Plymouth Pickup also had this old Jaguar project. It had a Chevy 350 swapped in place of the Jag V-12. I was able to get it running and driving, but the thing was in such terrible condition inside and out that nobody would buy it, not even for scrap value.

SO I bought it for the scrap value, took it home, stripped the suspension and running gear, and the useable parts, and sent the rusty body off to the scrap yard, after learning that Jaguar parts are not in demand on ebay or Denver Craigslist. But I saved a part of the car, for my own amusement. I decided to make a bit of wall art for my garage, so I cut off the front 16 inches of the body, welded it up, and started the minor sheetmetal work to make it presentable.


And then life got in the way. Now I walk past that forlorn Jaguar front end every day. I need to buckle down and get it painted, then hung on the wall - so someone will have to deal with it when I pass on to that great scrapyard in the sky.

Here is the Jaguar, looking restorable, but the entire floor was rusted away, so that you could literally put your feet on the ground from the driver's seat.

 

And yet more photos of unfinished projects a gearhead died with, and I got to work on that summer:

A Travco Motorhome, bought by these two nutjobs, who flew into Denver and drove it back to Tennessee, after the thing had been sitting for fifteen years. (They made it home, though not without some mechanical misadventures along the way.)




And these are a couple Airstreams the same man had. They sold easily. Ebay LOVES Airstreams, even when they are gutted inside.




Saddest is the thought that this poor man spent fifteen years sick and dying, and every time he left the house, he walked past his collection of unfinished projects, wishing he could turn his attention to them.

 

I'm only 56 and getting tired of having too much shit to do.... I had new brake lines made up for my Rambler but can't get under it to install them because it's been pissing rain here for days. Got a Jaguar project I should get rid of but, nobody wants Jag stuff anymore. Getting down to the short strokes on restivating my RV for SHTF duty, so I do see a light that I -think- is at the end of the tunnel. People who think they've seen that sometimes see all white light soon after! The workshop/shed is a nightmare; the roof failed and the floor rotted out, so every damn thing in there is soaking wet. THAT is my major aggravation every time I need to get something out of there; it ends up stored in the RV so it stays DRY!

 

That is exactly right, except that I am working at level 5 crap. I have to admit that I am a 28 year survivor of bone marrow cancer and that my disease is in control but not in remission. This means, there are periods of up to 5 or 6 months, when things are out of control, that nothing gets done. Then when I am feeling better again, I am even further behind.
I could farm some of the jobs off, but to me it is like giving up. I believe that my attitude accounts for a lot of the reason I have survived. I am sort of like the sports fish that was genetically altered to make the ideal fighter. They crossed a coho with a walleye, and it fought well but wasn't big enough, so they crossed that improved fish with a Musky. They found that the resulting fish could fight like hell, but they had to teach it how to swim.
We always have to be careful what we are asking for, so I do my best to be happy with what I have.
Bob

 

Great message there, Bob,....you rock!

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I hit rock bottom two years back when all four of my vehicles were broke down and I was renting an econobox by the week to get back-n-forth to work

 

I completely agree with your philosophy, but up to now, I have not been able to put it into practice. I have told everyone around me, that I have to concentrate on my stuff from now on. The only exception is my son, who is a true gearhead, and has been a fantastic working partner.
Bob

 

I am impressed that you are still working on your projects at age 81, and that my dream is to be playing around with my stuff 'till I croak.
Some famous personality said, "Get'er Done"! I hope you get the Chevy on the road.
Bob

 

Thanks,
Bob

 

There's nobody to play with where I'm at. The wife is totally uninterested.
The 61 Galaxye needs to be put together. I rebuilt the motor 2.5 years ago, and there she sits. 20 hours
The 57 country sedan needs a good go through. 20 hours
Several OT's, figure 150 hours all together.
Theres a 71 SBC 4 bolt that's a crank kit away from assembly.
BUT!!! I spent the Memorial day weekend straightening the shop out.
I can use the whole bench, not just the tile size space at the front.
I touched the back of the garage. I was so very sore I took Tuesday off to just remember how to breathe.
I'll be 62 in a month, and want to wind down.

 

I think we all suffer from more-itis until we get our eyes opened for us. I had ten projects under construction at one time, working full time and trying to renovate a 1910 two storey house we were living in at the same time.... so I sell off everything and move 500 miles only to start the same thing all over again (minus the 1910 house)... accumulated projects again, and get swamped. Another big sell-off (and give a bunch of good shit away just to get it gone).... But that old-car bug will not die. I have to have something to tinker with or I'll fidget myself through the floor. Who am I trying to impress with all this junk? A clueless estate clearance auctioneer? Well; at least my Rambler runs and is 90% driveable...

 

Bob,I bet some of these younger guys read your post and are scratching their heads and thinking ," who the hell is Pa Kettle?" HRP

 

Thanks for the thread. Jump-started me a little and now I'm not walking past so much stuff and got a bunch of stuff organized and put away and actually started working on my Wheeling Machine frame. Need to get that welded up so I can move my frame table out of the shop....Im switching gears to my Unibody stalled project that I think I can get done by September. Wont be perfect, but Ill be driving something.....

 

My email address is mapa-kettle, not because I procrastinate, but my back yard looks like the Kettle ranch. It also proves a family can be happy in that kind of chaos. We did the best we could and brought up three successful kids.
Bob

 

no quick fix but I have been stumbling over this for 15+ years
got all the fenders and hood painted and doors are primed but need to start on the cab and finish the frame.
plan on keeping the 6
I fixed a lot of other peoples stuff though and about to start on the wife's 56
paw paw said you can rest when ya die
I think having too much crap to do can be healthy

 

Damn! I have a beautiful nose from a BMW 635csi coupe, and maybe I should do that. Oops, that's another project.
I can't win.
Bob

 

Shocking.


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am i helping?