Projects Be Honest with yourself : Do You care if it ever runs?

I drive and fix/finish as I go and as funds allow. I get bored of cars if they aren't drivable.

 

Okay gang, time for me to fess up to a something... By "show" standards, I have never owned a "completed" car. I don't care if I do either. I honestly like kinda nasty, rough around the edges but fast and well constructed cars. I hate washing shiny stuff too. I do drive what I build, very hard, and either use it up and rebuild, or freshen it up and sell to someone that wnats to blow it apart and paint and polish and clean and protect and worry, etc.

I also have come to understand about myself that I LIKE building the vision. I love having an idea, rounding up just the right parts to put it together and building the roller. Most I like to get to running and driving status, but if some one comes along and needs it more than I do, so be it. Next set of ideas and challenges, please. Most everything I have ever sold has made it to the finished painted plated happy stage with the next guy.

Now, all of that revealed, I have to say that I have never in my life been with out a running, driving hot rod of some sort. Nor have I ever owned a "late model" or new transpo type car, or ever will.(I once handed the keys to a new company car back to the guy that just hired me... Talk about a confused look!) I have always, always driven what I have built. And, I would much rather drive my slightly beat up avatar Plymouth to the grocery store and not have to worry about it rather than leave it in the garage and take it to just cruise nights once a week and worry about whether it is gonna rain or not.

Maybe some day I will build something "finished", but maybe not. It's all abou the vision and the adventure to me.

 

Bob, I am not buying your signature line. You have made quite a few comments since you hit 60, that makes me think that you do wish you had a driving car. Same thing happened to me, woke up to realize "Oops I'm 60", and it's time to stop being a bridesmaid at the shows...or just go for a ride to the ocean.

Harmsway did the thead about being paralized with so many unfinished cars, that nothing ever gets done. I took it to heart and sold 4 project cars, and only bought one more since. I don't miss any car I have ever had, and then got rid of. As the song said "the best is yet to come"

 

Well I used to think this but Im about two weeks ago from completing my project car after 17 years. Although truth be told it probably could have been done a few years ago but I was no longer happy with some of the work done at the beginning- so I re-finished some stuff before it even saw the light of day!

Dont you guys watch Overhaulin? Whats takin you all so long??????

 

x2 sucks when they dont run. at least up and down driveway

 

Kid, you started something here...lol. Interesting, the different takes on the hobby. Has to do with so many variables...time and money mostly, but also age, preferences, etc. Some have more time than money...some have more money than time...some don't have much of either. Some want a finished shiney car, some like 'em rougher. Some of us are older, and see that if we're gonna reach our goals/dreams, we better get hustlin'...lol. (me) Some won't pull 'em out of the shop 'til they're pristine...some drive 'em and fix 'em as they go. Some wanna work on 'em for a loooong time. (you) Some don't want to. We're all different, yet the same. It's all good.

P.S. - Kid, after seeing F&J's comments, I'm more inclined to encourage you to actually finish your roadster. Never too late. We're still hoodlums at heart, no matter how old we get. Here's hoping you do get that sucker done, and enjoy the crap out of it! - Rick

 

It may take me a lot more time. But I do need my shed back as a shed, and not a garage. So failure is not an option. My problem is that I keep taking it apart and redoing it. Sooner or later I'll have something that moves, even if it isn't as perfect as I'd like it.

 

Most definitely! I get em running before i do brakes and body work. peace

 

I'm in the minority here. Having done the cruise/show/get togethers, I find now I couldn't care less if my current project ever runs. I find driving a waste of time away from the shop. It's the tinkering, backyard engineering and construction that makes me happy. The day I open the shop door and don't smile, is the day it gets cut up and something else gets started. This hotrodding thing is all about making me happy, and my shop time is what makes me happy.

 

After pushing the same car in and out of the shop for three or four years, heck yes I care, I want to go to the races.

 

Takes time. And yes it matters. Well to me anyway.

 

Well, dont misunderstand, perfect chrome and a 100 point car are not always a part of my vision either. The goal for my Chevy II when I started it was a usable, high performance daily driver with decent, not show car paint, passable, not perfect trim, and a n/a carburated 327 & an 11 second time slip on skinny radials, and twenty hwy mpg in od with the converter locked. I could have it done by now if I'd settled for a T350, and a motor that wouldn't hit the mpg goals. But I set those goals because thats the challenge I set for myself on this car. The goals I set when I built my falcon were totally different, and If I was building a period hot rod, the goals would be totally different from either of them. And like Saxon says, it takes time. In my book it takes as long as it takes. Thats really a side issue.

 

Maybe you're just enjoying the 'process' and think that it ends when it runs (It doesn't). But not ever getting the chance to drive it? No thanks.

Kinda like dating a girl for a while a not sealing the deal. What's the point?

Not driving a hot rod? Not logical.

 

I'm so tired of looking at my 32 c-dan unfinished. I want to drive the wheels off this thing.I put a 5 speed in and I cant wait to dump the clutch and do a big old nasty burnout.

 

Two words: Hell Yes!! The whole reason for grinding away for countless hours is to reach milestones in the build: to fire up a V8 that has been sleeping for weeks, months or sometimes years, to put it in gear and go, knowing that its ready for the first drive....to the GAS STATION!!

 

Well, I still got a few years left, but if my chevy II isn't done by the time I'm sixty, I think I might be singing a different tune. I'll be driving it with one green door, primered fenders and a milk crate for a seat...

 

Go on a date with a beautiful woman. Enjoy her company with a good meal and a drink or two. Let's say shes wearing the sexiest dress you've ever seen and there's a hint of some even nicer underpinnings. Man she's a dream come true and you've got the chemistry happening. She makes that eye contact with her bright baby blues that just makes your heart race and her sweet lips move into a smile that could make the Pope reconsider his vows. You know that the promise of the greatest night of your life is just a couple of words away.................You decide to get a picture of the moment and she shyly agrees to a snapshot with your cell phone. This is a woman that makes photography easy.
You surprise her with the fact that time has stood still, it's late and you need to get home for some shut eye. The picture becomes your screen saver. DUMB ASS!

 

^^^^^Hahaha...!!!^^^^^^^

A gosh darn poet...!

I'd feel like a failure if it didn't run... my cars may not look like much but they should be solid runners with safe chassis and a well tuned suspension.

 

there's nothing like the feeling when it finally does run. the issues become finishing from there. once I got mine on the road I found it bothersome to "finish" what I'd planned to come back too. after 7 years on the road the interior's still not done, A/C still not hooked up, rocker stainless holes still not filled and it's still in the temporary coat of black epoxy primer I squirted to get it to the NATS south in one color.

 

It pisses me off that I don't have the time to work on the truck, especially since I have every part to get it running....and it feels as if it will never run! At these times I feel like selling it and have contemplated it. I have recieved several calls from potential buyers who said, let me see what I can do, and I will call you back...I hang up saying Great thanks! Then I say a small prayer that they don't call back. Someday someone with cash in hand will take it and I will regret it, but until then, I will push along as much as I can.

 

Models not running okay / projects never finished and not running not so okay.

 

I have one that was supposed to be done a long time ago. I want it to run, I want to drive it, I do not want to get rid of it and I am not disinterested. I've hit kind of a block on it and have gotten distracted but I'm very willing to wait until the time is right, until it is to the point I want it to be before it's done.

 

it's gonna go down the road one way or another
either me driving it or on somebody's trailer

 

nah...

 

Well said. Heres another analogy involving women. So lets say you are Dr. Frankenstein, and you are building the bride of Frankenstein. You have to keep paying grave robbers to bring you bodies, but you are in a hurry, and you are running short of cash. She doesnt have any tits yet. No young babes are kicking the bucket, and your "suppliers" keep bringing you 70 yr old grannies so you take a couple shortcuts and hang some wrinkly old fun bags on there. Think old Frankie boy is gonna be thrilled when you say "Hey look, I got her running"?

 

I don't think Frankie is real fussy ! He run what ya brung .

 

Gospel!!

 

Mind you that i dont mind working on my rod, but im dying to drive it.

Taking them out for a spin is a heck of a lot better than busting my knuckles in the garage.

 

I built the Stude 15 yrs. ago, drove it, drag raced it, then wrecked it going to the muffler shop. Only got to enjoy it 3 months. Insurance totaled it, but I kept it. Had a frame and all the front end rounded up in 4 weeks. Got remarried, had a son, built a home. The car wound up burried in the back of the garage. It dawned on me one day it was about to be 10 yrs. since the wreck. I decided that day wasn't coming without the car running again. I missed it by two weeks. My oldest son's 17th b-day present was getting to drive the Stude at the drags in San Antonio. Drags, cruises, Lonestar Roundup, you name it, going to take the boys and enjoy it every chance we get. So hell no, don't ever NOT at least get your project to a point you can drive it.

 

I got mine running long before it was ready to go down the road. I will be driving it down the road long before its finished, as a work in progress. By the time it is or nears being finished, I likely, will loose interest in it and I will start on whatever is next. Once that one can drive down the road, the current one will be sold.

I did the wax and polish thing when I was younger, I've had enough of that to last a lifetime. I do enjoy the build process, but it will move towards being drivable in short order. Pushing anything in or out of the garage sucks real soon, but I'm OK with driving it in and out of the garage, for a short time.

When the sun is out and the temps reach the upper 60s consistently, its time for my wife and I to go for a ride in the hot rod. The current "new" hot rod will be ready to drive by the first week in April, pending a disaster. Gene