Technical Are you a Happy Mechanic or a Mad Mechanic

No, because they were easy to work on....

 

After doing it for a living for 40+yrs I figured I would mellow out after I retired. Didn't happen. Not a thrower ( I think my shoulder would fall apart) but can still cuss up a storm. Now in my 70's, poor health, pain from just about everywhere I'm still plugging along. Takes me 3 times the time to do different jobs. But I'm still out there everyday when I need to get something done.

 

I'm really enjoying reading all the responses here. It has made me reflect on the difference of working on an old car that I can work on at whatever pace is fun vs. working on a daily driver that has to be ready to drive each day. I have kind of mixed those two up a little by driving something old that needs fairly regular maintenance and things fixed as compared to later model stuff. Even though it is sometimes rushed to get it going again, it is kind of a nice mix of the fun vs. the stress of knowing I need it the next day for work. Just in the last couple days, I have been dealing with some issues on the brakes caused by the previous owner including some incorrect hardware I found late last night. Although it was a little frustrating to have to take extra time to fix more than I planned on, it was also a sense of accomplishment to overcome the issue and drive it to work again today. I think I actually enjoy working on this stuff even more the older I get since my job that pays the bills has very little sense of accomplishment compared to what I can do with my hands in my shop at home.

 

I can relate. My career has turned me into troubleshooting with a laptop and my head. It doesn’t matter if I fixed the biggest issue in the Plant or some puddly thing. It’s just “work”. But overcoming obstacles on daily drivers and thinking things through ( many time with info gleaned here) on project vehicles, make me sit back and have that “ah-ha” feeling.
Plus the “thanks Dad” I get from my girls when I take care of their problems, is worth more than any “good job” I could get at work.
I just keep the girls away when I work on their cars, I don’t like to let them see me stress out and slam a beer in 3 seconds

 

Get mad get stupid..

That has been proven, when you allow yourself to get angry, the problem solving portion of the brain shuts down.

 

Yep, like several have mentioned, who has to fix what we break or find a wrench, etc that’s been tossed. Heck, we work on this stuff because we either think we can do it better than a shop can, need it done sooner or we’re cheap bastards and are saving a buck or two.

 

^^^
Damn Right! You never know what effect you will have. You'll never know what harm you can do. Maybe by putting that man on the road...he matured.

When you hang that shingle or draw that check, it all changes. You are a professional and by golly you ought to act like one. That kind of stuff is poison in the work place.

You never know what effect your actions have. When you are a professional, you act as a professional.

When you are working on your own stuff by yourself, you can act a fool all you want. When you are doing it for pay or being an example...that's different.

 

depends...the first time I do something I appreciate the adventure. If it something I have to re-do I get less happy every go-around. (had an OT vehicle I had to pull the 2.8 V6 out of 4 times for various reasons...it got bad)

 

Wise words for anyone, when a problem happens, it's a mountain, the next day it becomes a molehill. I've always tried to followed this advice myself but there have been exceptions, lots of swearing and a few things thrown in my time. Now as a senior citizen, my favorite expression seems to be, WHY is everything a F**K story, very few things seem to go right/easy anymore, age is a trip, garage, car hobby used to be fun, now the garage part is just work AND where's my Damn glasses, tool/part I just had in my hand, now what was I doing, can't find my coffee cup, I give up, will try again tomorrow. This is my life now, I eventually get a project done, still get the satisfaction/pride, takes forever. Life is good just different as an Old Timer. LOL

 

I am like F-One in the first thread. Problem solver, thinker, mellowed with age and sometimes the glasses get me down. I may not be the fastest but that does not matter if the work is successful. I had the steer lock break in my truck where the broken piece could have stopped steering anytime which is not good to drive. It was tilt steering in a truck. The garage told me it was expensive and they would take a few hours and special tools involved. I decided to do it so I carefully took the steering wheel off, took out some fasteners. I walked the tilt out to the edge of no return and was able to get the pieces out. The new piece did not want to go in. I took little off with a file to give it the clearance and got it in. Pushed it back together, buttoned it up and did the happy dance. It cost about $20 for the retracting lock part. Tell me that it can't be done & I may just show that it can be done.

I had a big brother in-law that was a gentle kind soul and would do anything for anyone. Well loved. When it came to inanimate things his fuse was in the powder. I never knew when he was going to go off. A job seemed to be going well and he would go off. No rhyme or reason. One day we were working away on a difficult job and we were winning when he went off. Threw his tool box across the yard then gave it a field goal kick for good measure. Then he was mad he had to pick up his tools. Done, he can walk around and pick up his own tools. I would come back when he was ready to go again. I can happily work on things all day long and may let fly with the odd word. I have no patience for people losing their sh@3 over nothing and no patience for those with no patience..

I had a fuel leak under my old truck's box that got progressively worse and I could not see it. It appeared to be over the fuel tank. I took the box off myself with the engine hoist and darned if the leak was under the cab. It was spraying backwards to wet the tank. I crawled under and cut out the rotten section and put 250 psi fuel injection hose in its place. My nephew was visiting so I had him help set the box on. There is a satisfaction in overcoming the difficult and using $4 worth of hose and some patience to avoid a garage bill. I want one more winter out of that old truck. I enjoy working with my boys. They like to get it done and often have a different perspective to getting it done. I have decided that if their idea gives me the quality of work that I want that I can run with their ideas. They are thinkers and both very mechanically inclined. I have decided there are more ways than just my way to get it done and not to be stubborn on how we get it done. Accepting how others want to participate & contribute input to the work has made life easier and work has become more fun.

I think losing ones mind and throwing tools is controlling what one can control when the work seems out of control. Rushing and having to get done in way that sets the work back is pointless. It is all self defeating and makes no sense. I had a friend welding a difficult shape for our project where I tried to show him how it should go and he told me piss off. I watched him weld it and paint it 4 times. He was a rusher and get it done without much thought kind which often showed. He asked a friend & I to fit up. It was not going to work any which way. The other friend did not want to tell him so finally I did. He was not happy but did a fifth version that was right. So stubborn fits in this conversation. Once he told me to piss off then I would have let him weld it a hundred times or to the end of time except it was time to finish and move on. He had reputation for being difficult at work and no one wanted to work with him. That was his awakening for working together and accepting help.

Like the British WW2 posters during the bombing said. "Stay calm. Carry on"

 

All depends on the time- if I have time to get the work done, all is good, but...

if there's a tight deadline OR the work starts taking over everything else, steer clear (I spent WAY too much time trying to fix my son's OT 97 Buick and was ready to boil the designers of the 3.8l platform in the juices and feed them to their families

 

In the '80's I worked as a mechanic in the local Buick dealership, 2 stalls away was a mechanic who was 13 years older than me that I really respected and learned alot from . One problem, he was a tool thrower ! The wall above his work bench looked like someone had opened fire with a machine gun on it , he had a small parts organizer on his bench with every drawer face broken off from tools hitting it.
Occasionally he would send a wrench skipping across the floor towards me , I would hop up off the floor to keep it from hitting me ! One day I was talking to the snap-on man when my co worker sent a wrench skipping across the floor towards us , the snap- on man was shocked, his jaw hit the floor and he ask me what was wrong with him . I said nothing , happens every day !

 

Depends on what the situation is for me. I rarely get unhappy if my mechanic work is a hotrod build. But if one of my daily drivers needs attention I'm immediately a little put off, and unhappy about those tasks.

 

I've mellowed a bit with age, but it largely depends on the project or job, and really my attitude towards the whole thing to begin with. Jobs that are unnecessarily difficult, especially on a car that is fighting me, costing me an inordinate amount of money, or just generally pissing me off, I start with a short fuse that can be easy to blow. Other times I resign myself to how much a job is going to suck and just get started. Sometimes it isn't so bad, other times I just walk away for a while. The pressure of a looming deadline or if a project has been dragging on for too long only make matters worse. But generally speaking, I try to enjoy my shop time. It really is the time I get to decompress and unwind, and enjoy a sense of accomplishment.

 

while i have been known to have some questionable moments, average i would guess, i did have a very talented friend who would get to the breaking point sooner than most. once the scale tipped, he would reach for a hammer and scream "you inanimate object" ! . he had a deep ravine behind his garage with an old honda mc down there that wouldnt start one day, so off the cliff it went

 

If the car doesn't like me I usually don't like it

 

Back in the 80s I went to work for Yellow cab as purchasing agent for the shop. WE had this guy who would throw wrenches when it wasn't going his way One day he was working on a Checker, messing with the wiper linkage and he got pissed and threw his wrench. It went into the windshield and the boss fired him on the spot.

 

Lol! That just reminded me of a great deal I got once because of someone's temper. My wife's best friend's husband was rebuilding a 58 Apache short bed stepside with a Pontiac 400. It had been at the body shop for a while and he was getting frustrated with the guy that was doing the work. I was fixing to head to Sturgis for the rally in the next day or so and he called me and told me he was going to push the truck off in a ditch that day including the freshly rebuilt 400. He said he was giving me a chance to have it for free if I wanted to go get it from the body shop. To say the least, I went and picked it up. It wasn't every day someone gave me a complete pickup including a fresh Pontiac 400 that he had just spent about $3000 on. I think the only thing I have left of that deal is the brand new Holley 750 vacuum secondary, but a buddy still has the truck that he bought from me. Thanks for making my day reminding me of something that happened more than 20 years ago.

 

I have a few tools that were given to me over the years, but the majority of my tools I bought myself. I refuse to abuse the things I pay damn good, hard earned, money for, unless its a set of tires I feel like lighting up! Is that abuse though?

 

Pretty sure this whole hot rod deal is for helping relieve stress and taking out frustration on tires at times.

 

As I get older I am getting better at not putting my hands or body where something will hurt me if it slips, and not getting in a hurry since I am no longer "on the clock". However, getting up off a creeper will still bring out George Carlin's "seven words you can't say on television"...

 

says it all..........

 

Never was a tool thrower, rarely swear (I know the words, just don't feel the need to hear them echo on the shop walls). Never wrenched for a living, mostly to keep the low buck (trailer trash) fleet running. Occasionally build something "interesting" as a long distance driver.

And sometimes attempt to do something that I have never done before. This time, removing and replacing a fuel injection pump on a 4 cylinder Cummins diesel engine.

This mornings view, just north of the Mexican border. At 76 years old, I have the luxury of saying mañana (local slang for "NOT e'fing today").

Went out first thing this morning and turned on 2 electric heaters. One did not work - fail circuit breaker, outlets on 2 walls dead. I have replacement circuit breakers one of the storage sheds - If I wait 2 days, the snow will be gone, the ground will be dry and it will be almost 60 Degrees F.

 

Someone posted here that you should pull on the wrenches instead of pushing on them. To this I will say that the whole world discriminates against us who are left-handed. Tools always favor the right handed.

Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

^^^^^ I generally push to loosen and pull to tighten. So if it where a lefty threaded world instead, I'd just reverse my actions.

 

I have a friend my age, when we were younger I built the engine in his 73 Monte Carlo for him. It was one of the first engines I ever built, I tried to do everything like the books said. But, I was a better builder than tuner back then, and I didn't have the tune just right. It had a Quadrajet that would alternate between rich and lean, and when the car was hot, it was terrible to try and start. One day he came home from work and shut it off and went in the house, then came back a few minutes later and got in it to go somewhere and it wouldn't fire off. Made him so mad he took a piece of steel pipe and beat the hell out of the hood and fenders. Once a nice car, now it looked like it had survived an earthquake. After he had cooled off, he was pretty sick about it.

Worked out for the good, anyway. He found a 68 Malibu body, we swapped the engine and trans over into it, he had it painted and seats redone, and kept it a long time. After beating that Monte Carlo, I never knew of him losing his temper like that again. Oh, when we did the swap, we put on a aluminum intake and a Holley 4bbl, and added a HEI distributor from a later car. He never had hot cranking problems again...

 

48 years ago when I had my first car (a barely OT '66 Caprice with a 396) I would be happily working on it but then run into difficulty, get mad and stomp into the house, fed up with it. Without saying a word, my mom would put some cookies on a plate and pour a glass of lemonade and set it on the table. It was amazing how it put me back into a happy frame of mind.
Years later, one of my daughters figured it out, too. When I got frustrated working on something, she'd say, "Give dad a cookie." It works!

 

Happy, happy, happy. It’s a great escape for me. Never tossed tools - but have searched for many that were right in front of me.

 

Having my best friend around helps .

 

I agree... I have never thrown a tool in anger or frustration.... But I do "talk" to my projects, quite often with great vigor....

Lynn W