How close to a 100%er are you?!?

The common thread here seems to be we're a bunch of cheap bastards! :-D

I try to learn the job of whoever I felt ripped me off. So far I've learned alignment and glass cutting, and soon will be a licensed and bonded VIN checker outer and yes I make housecalls

I would love to learn machining. I think lathe and mill work is the only stuff I got what I paid for when I farmed stuff out, but that was home garage stuff.

Oofah I just remembered my last machine shop bill...yeah I'd *really* like to learn that...and how to weld proficiently!

Now my sickness has progressed to rebuilding waterpumps. I want to upgrade to roller bearings and a better impeller but don't know where to get it.

*JUNK* is what they sell at the 'zone level stores. That lifetime warranty stuff is cleaned up used crap. I knew it sucked before, I just didn't know it really was barely touched cores or junkyard stuff.

As far as I'm concerned, you can't buy a good alt/starter from those places, no matter how much you pay.

EDIT: You guys are getting to me. I was at JEGS today and looking at these oil filter adaptors and thinking if only I had a lathe....

 

Closer and closer everyday. They never said it was gonna be easy to be this cheap!!!

 

If you consider yourself a HOTRODDER it goes with out saying at least some of your car should have your hand in it. Always skeives me when the soccer players try to buy their way in. Happy to see the well to do hire out their Millers, Dusenburgs, and even Customs, but I like to think hotrods are a little different.

 

I am jealous. My mind short circuits when it comes to electrical stuff.

 

I paid a local body shop a lot of money to do some body work, paint and rechroming on my wife's 56 chevy. We got seriously taken by him. I told my wife that i could screw up the job as well as him and for a lot less money.

I started buying welders, air tools etc, and did her car over again. Since then I did my 40 ford tudor.

2400 hrs of my labor. Blew the whole car apart including the frame and started over. New floor boards, rails and metal around the windshield.
My labor was for EVERYTHING minus boring, machining crank and grinding valve seats.

Everything =
All welding, body repair, installing mustang front end (not kit), metallic paint, strip all upholstery (seats down to the springs) and started over. Sewed the headliner, seats, rugs, trunk etc. Cut, fit and welded s/s exhaust. Rebuilt the C4 tranny. Reconditioned the Caddy tilt/tele. steering column.

Figure I must be in the 98/99% level.

I do have a lot of patience and I'm sure that must help.

Now building a 24 T coupe doing pretty much the same work.

I love it!

Fourdy

 

A life has many interests. There are believe it or not , other things that make up the spectrum of a complete life's experience besides the restoration of automobiles. Catching Salmon in a wild place, smoking your own meats, making salt ham in a barrel of salted oak, ornothology, icthiology, collecting and making primitive weaponry, making a perfect rum cake. Oh sure, I suppose that many of those things sound dumb or even girly. As you age you really look deep at the fiber of what you have experienced, you look long and hard at that damn clock, you wonder when that bell is going to sound. It all comes down to time. Would I rather pay a man to do a thing for me so I may have the time to enjoy something else? I suppose each of us must put this to the scale and weigh it for our own personal worth. Be sure to experience the ride to your own terms, if you had your starter rebuilt so you could have the spare hour or three to sit on a bank fishing with your son, friend you have won, let none say different.

 

Not close enough

 

I do all my frame,body,interior,paint and electrical. I only buy good running engines and trans so I don't have to pay someone to rebuild them for me. The only thing I farm out is the drive shaft and tire balancing. What percent does that make me?

 

Only thing I cant do is the Chrome plating...everything else I got covered....even my own fiberglass bodies...

 

I haven't painted a project yet, and I don't have the equipment to bore a block, but I have done everything else on one or more of my projects. Instead of farming out the work, instead I have used the money to buy the tools to do it myself, and now I have a complete machine shop including a lathe, milling machine,MIG, TIG, and stick welders.
I love this hobby and have never grown tired of it.

 

I do almost everything. I hate paying someone to do something that I should be able to do. I must admit that as I get older , I think about paying someone to stuff for me a little more often.

 

Well said Plumbero,
I'm only about a 30%'r. That being said I have just enough time to help out all my kids minor sports teams, work, feed the dog yadda yadda. Like ya say, times a ticking. Lets get this mofo finished! I want to get Dad to Wendover before its too late.

 

100%??? What's that?

 

I'll say a 90%-er. Partly why it's been 30 years and it still aint done...
I'll get rebuild kits, some repop panels etc.
But I'll weld and install myself.
I bought the center rear pan for my coupe but I needed the corners too.
I had to make my own.
Hammered them out on a shot bag then hammer-welded them in place.

 

I do most everything! not because I'm good or anything. I've been around close to 7 decades and never been smart enough know I couldn't do it

 

I'm basically a fabricator and do a lot of chassis work for friends along with sheet metal stuff. I rebuild mechanicals, adapt anything that I got my hands on cheep, and can get body work reasonably close enough. I've tried stitch work, never again! I've just gone back to indian blankets. Wiring and plumbing, no problem. Generally, I'm just cheap. Probably a 99%er.

 

100%er Haha getting there. I found that you can do anything with a bunch of really expensive tools and alot of time. you also can mess up alot of nice stuff. Im no 100%er maybe with 50 years of experence. I can do body and paint, weld, patches, wiring, and fabricating. I do alot of the work on my car. Its always a learning experience.

 

I've done it all. 100% I've built a ton of cars.
However- I'm an old fart now & do less & less every year.
I still wire my cars. Used to do from scratch- use a kit today.
I build my motors, do the trannys, rebuild the rears, weld the exhaust (mandrel bends), I do all my welding.
I used to paint years ago- no more.
I did simple upholstery years ago- my tastes today exceed my ability.
I'm about a 70%'er today. I'll leave the 100% to the cheap broke kids building their 1st cars.

 

I do all the mechanical and electrical stuff on my cars but no body or upholstery etc. I do like to rebuild everything I can, rather than replace though.

 

I tried to install a ragtop on a '66 mustang... That taught me to hate apholstery. But I don't have a lot of money, so I want to learn how.

 

I'm a 99.99999%'r. I did EVERYTHING on my truck, ground up, top to bottom myself.......everything except the exhaust system (I don't own a bending machine and didn't want a hokey ass welded up system).

 

I don't do body work or paint or exhaust. Anything else I can do and enjoy.

 

I'd say that I'm an 85%er.....I can do machining if I have the appropriate machines....which I do not, however there are times in which I "borrow" shop time (social hour or three) in which to machine whatever it is I need done...

I don't do automatic transmissions....at all, tried it....hated it, sucked at it.....hire it out....

I don't do interiors...tried that, hated it, don't have the patience to be proficient enough to satisfy the vision in my head nor the specialized machines to do it and lack the contacts to "borrow" them.....hire that out as well...

I do all my own welding, fab, assembly, set up, gaping, problem solving, painting and even built my own nickle plating vat....

At one time I really wanted to learn the finer points of auto trans and interiors....I gave it an honest shot....realized I was not one of the chosen few to be a 100%er and embraced the fact that I suck at those two processes....

 

I use the alphabetic system instead. Im like an S or T. I find its better to do it yourself sometimes so you can fuck it up with no one to blame but yourself.

 

70% i'd say.
State certified mechanic.
Done everything to my cars except paint & welding.
Whenever I use specialty machines, (Lathe, tire machine, bender, press), i do what i can. Still have a lot to learn, but can hold my own for the most part.

 

I don't sew my own upholstry, but I can install a kit. Do my own welding, fabricating. Rebuild engines and automatic transmissions. Wired my truck from scratch. Do my own body work and Paint. Overhaul suspension, mount and balance tires and do alignments. Been doing this stuff professionally for over 20 years so it is not a big deal to me to do the work myself. Plus I am a cheapskate. I only have about $2500 in my truck currently, but still have the body and paint work to do.

 

I had a friend who was a 100%-er on Model Ts. He'd drive back east, chop down a particular tree, let the wood season on the roof of his shop for a couple years. Then he'd whittle out the pieces and assemble them into stock T wheels. Parts would fit so tight, they held together on their own. He made the hubs, the spokes and the outer rims.
I miss my friend Arliss, RIP bud.

 

When I started the build on my coupe the concept was to do everything myself,with the exception of the glass.I still don't want to pay a lot of people to work on my car,but as time goes by,I'm more interested in having friends help out-A very talented machinist/fabricator offered to help me chop it,another friend who used to build sprint cars offered to help wire it. I have done everything myself so far with the exception of the front axle kit from MAS....patch panels,frame boxing,motor mounts,x-member,rear hairpins and brackets. It has been fun,but now it's a little boring ,just want to have some friends help out.
As far as parts and stuff,the 283 was free for hauling the car out of the guys yard,the th-400 was free from a work truck headed to the junk yard,Bronco 9" $50 from a guys back yard,Walker rad,$62 on e-bay,Econoline front spindles/drums $50 at the junkyard(brakes and spring kit still all had paint on them),Vega box$50,etc. etc.
Bottom line: I don't know what percentage this makes me,but I'm having fun building my first ever Hot Rod!

 

I did pretty much everything on mine. I'd say 98%
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=489654
I didn't balance my own wheels or sandblast the bolt on panels, and I haven't yet done the seats.

 

so far ive done everything all by myself, from making my frame, firewall,floors,shorten the rear end, weld up the welder series MII crossmember, welding up the hood for a 1piece, bodywork, made a tube bender to bend a cage and started bending it, all the welding. More then likely going to paint it myself, do my own interior (learn to sew i guess), but the motor will need to be checked out (tankled,bored,etc) but i will build it myself, wire the whole car, run brake lines,etc. all myself too .. Thats what hot roddin is all about