I feel like I'm terrible at car projects.

Oh, I know exactly how you feel... All 4 of my running cars (my crusty 1800ES doesn't count) have a laundry list of "pending" projects. In many cases I have the parts... but maybe not all of them... so I wait... I have a pile of parts (maintenance stuff) to go on my TDi daily driver... but not all of them just yet - so I wait... I've had new stereo bits to install in my GT6 for over a year. I've had a new steering rack for the Mini since I bought the car back in May...

I am also starting to get more willing to pay others eff around with some projects. My E30, for example... pretty sure the head needs to come off to replace the head gasket. But I absolutely abhor working on that car so have ZERO desire to do this. Local shop quoted me $600-800 to do it. They'll get the car later this month. I'll probably swap out the lowering springs for stock ones myself, tho... Maybe... I just have trouble developing enthusiasm to wrench on a car I don't really like much (right now I have trouble getting motivated to work on the cars I DO like), but need to have running right now (so I have something to drive to work while I work on the TDi).

My biggest problem is room and how my garage is currently set up. I'ts a 1.5 car deep, single bay garage. My wrenching area is near the door. So if I put a car in the air to work on it, one of the other cars ends up trapped behind it. This annoys me. I'm hoping to rearrange things this weekend so I can reverse this. It'll be a pain, tho.

Toyman01 wrote: You sound like the opposite of me. I'm great at starting looooooooong term projects. I'm quick to take something apart and much slower at getting them back together. I'm in the middle of about a dozen. Send me half of your personality and I'll send you half of mine. That should give us both a good balance.

Uploading personality matrix.

Does this forum support that?

Ian F wrote: Oh, I know exactly how you feel... All 4 of my running cars (my crusty 1800ES doesn't count) have a laundry list of "pending" projects. In many cases I have the parts... but maybe not all of them... so I wait... I have a pile of parts (maintenance stuff) to go on my TDi daily driver... but not all of them just yet - so I wait... I've had new stereo bits to install in my GT6 for over a year. I've had a new steering rack for the Mini since I bought the car back in May... I am also starting to get more willing to pay others eff around with some projects. My E30, for example... pretty sure the head needs to come off to replace the head gasket. But I absolutely abhor working on that car so have ZERO desire to do this. Local shop quoted me $600-800 to do it. They'll get the car later this month. I'll probably swap out the lowering springs for stock ones myself, tho... Maybe... I just have trouble developing enthusiasm to wrench on a car I don't really like much (right now I have trouble getting motivated to work on the cars I DO like), but need to have running right now (so I have something to drive to work while I work on the TDi). My biggest problem is room and how my garage is currently set up. I'ts a 1.5 car deep, single bay garage. My wrenching area is near the door. So if I put a car in the air to work on it, one of the other cars ends up trapped behind it. This annoys me. I'm hoping to rearrange things this weekend so I can reverse this. It'll be a pain, tho.

I can't complain about the garage setup since I have a full two car that is pretty large, especially for working on the Miata.

Honestly, I think the Miata is the only car I really enjoy working on (that's not saying much as I have a definite nervous issue working on cars in general), though I suppose my wife's car wasn't that bad when I did the suspension refresh. The one I hate is the Outback I have, because I was dumb and bought a car that must have sat on the beach for most of its life. The thing is rust central underneath. I had to cut off one of the brake dust shields on the Outback, because it was all rust and every time we hit a bump it would just fly around and throw pieces of rust everywhere.

Harvey wrote:

Toyman01 wrote: You sound like the opposite of me. I'm great at starting looooooooong term projects. I'm quick to take something apart and much slower at getting them back together. I'm in the middle of about a dozen. Send me half of your personality and I'll send you half of mine. That should give us both a good balance.

**Uploading personality matrix.** Does this forum support that?

Yea, but you have to press the matrix button.

Where's the blue pill icon? I wanna get back to the Matrix.

Well, anyway, this has been somewhat therapeutic, at least I know I'm not the only one.