Is it just me?

It seems like all of my projects, even ones that should be simple and straight forward go horribly somewhere at the beginning, middle, or end (or all three).

Just want to make sure I'm not the only one.

Yeah it's not just you

Rule of eights, my friend. See also: Murphy's law.

it ain't just you.

I can picture the finished product perfectly. The road that leads there is kind of fuzzy and full of perilous choices though.

That and I have too much fun with a welder and a cut off wheel.

My current project started with a few simple bubbles under some paint and ended up with a lot of sheet metal replacement. The one before that was a loose seat in my boat and ended up replacing the entire floor and all the stringers. All my "simple" projects turn into year long nightmares.

It ain't just you...

Toyman01 wrote: I can picture the finished product perfectly. The road that leads there is kind of fuzzy and full of perilous choices though. That and I have too much fun with a welder and a cut off wheel. My current project started with a few simple bubbles under some paint and ended up with a lot of sheet metal replacement. The one before that was a loose seat in my boat and ended up replacing the entire floor and all the stringers. All my "simple" projects turn into year long nightmares. It ain't just you...

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

I made a clutch change take a week. Is that what you mean? Haha.

I'm usually pretty lucky with my projects. But . . .

I once spent 2 hours trying my hardest to install a rain rail support. . . upside down. That was stupid.

Also, it took me 4 hours to figure out how to undo the clips that held the radiator into the Z3.

It took me 6 months to figure out how to get BOTH new pads into the Z3 rear calipers (apparently, it's far easier to do it the right way--but you have to know that certain parts come off that don't come off on normal cars). Yeah, the slider pins come right out!

Recently tried to install a taller 5th gear in a TDi Jetta. 4 hours later, two gear pullers bought, lots of heat applied, a broken sideskirt, and forgetting to put the tranny pan gasket back on and we finished the day with zilch accomplished

sigh

jwdmotorsports wrote: It seems like all of my projects, even ones that should be simple and straight forward go horribly somewhere at the beginning, middle, or end (or all three). Just want to make sure I'm not the only one.

No, it ain't just you. Lately, I can't even mount wheels right.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/774/boy-did-i-screw-up/

I also seem to get blindsided when I offer to work on my non-enthusiasts friends' cars. Two weeks ago, I did the rear brakes on an `03 Sable for an ex-girlfriend. Car was from her uncle's estate...her uncle in New York. The drums not only had about a 2mm ridge on the inside (and the "self-adjusting" adjusters don't want to go "backwards") , but on one side, there was also a rotted-out shoe hold-down spring retainer. I had to use a small sledge to get the drum off, since without the retainer the stupid shoe was determined to go with it.

And last week, I did the remote oil filter lines on my current g/f's `93 Bravada (Olds' version of the S10 Blazer/Jimmy, more cupholders & map lights, I guess). There's a stay rod that goes from the engine block to to the bellhousing. The bolt on the block is behind the header, and the only way I could find to get to it was to remove the LF wheel and stick my hand through the hole in the inner fender well on top of the front suspension arm. There was enough space for my hand, but not much left over for the wrench..

I don't even know what that rod is supposed to do. Aren't the bolts through the bellhousing to the block supposed to hold the whole +_$#%^%$@ thing together? Turned what should have been a two hour job into a five hour one. And then, I got angry and overtorqued the bolt on the remote filter housing..installing the helicoil turned the fiver into about seven-including the two trips to Autozone (because I forgot the size/pitch of the bolt, and had to go back & get it) from our new place in the country..

Soooo...naw, it ain't just you. One of the reasons I love this magazine (and this website) is because it's done by people that have been there too. Look at Per's luck lately...the SAAB and the Neon having engine failures in a single month? And then the Neon doing it again?!?

Maybe it's because I'm old enough to have started all this mess in British cars, but sometimes I think the GRM National Anthem should be "You'll Never Walk Alone."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A487hyjYQWw&feature=related

Apologies for the rant, dude..I guess all I really want to say is just take a breath, go drive the one that runs down a windy road for a little while, and come back to the project after clearing your head. It'll be OK.

I know exactly how you feel, I have been trying to get my eibach springs on my fox mustang for about a month now, Autozone only lets you rent spring compressors for 30 days, so I had to return it. two days later, I am looking at it from a different angle...so i just PUSH it in....literally, it dropped right in, I got both of them in and the front sway hooked up in 20 minutes...WTF.

I guess that is less things going wrong, and more of I AM AN IDIOT!

maroon92 wrote: I know exactly how you feel, I have been trying to get my eibach springs on my fox mustang for about a month now, Autozone only lets you rent spring compressors for 30 days, so I had to return it. two days later, I am looking at it from a different angle...so i just PUSH it in....literally, it dropped right in, I got both of them in and the front sway hooked up in 20 minutes...WTF.

I was going to say.. I didnt need a compressor to install my H&R race springs on my '97

jack up, remove wheel, undo swaybar, undo brakes, support a-arm with jack, unbolt strut to hub bolts, let down SLOWLY and carefully (maybe wrap a chain around it if you think its gonna pop). (installation is reverse of removal)

needing a 32mm socket for the wheelbearing on the exploder made a job take forever just last weekend..

E30 balljoint didnt want to seperate, tried tapping with hammer, bent pickle fork, finally wailed with sledge and a metal rod to get it off, add replacing control arm to the to-do list.

dont get me started on what happens when a bolt shears off inside the hole

Just did an oil change on the lawn tractor. It has a handy valve to drain the engine. you put a piece of plastic hose on the valve, (which I'm proud to say I haven't lost in two years of ownership) turn the valve with two fingers, and the valve comes out of the engine, filling every bit of the dirty grass filled frame with two quarts of oil, not a drop has hit the floor yet but the engine is empty.

Wally wrote: Just did an oil change on the lawn tractor. It has a handy valve to drain the engine. you put a piece of plastic hose on the valve, (which I'm proud to say I haven't lost in two years of ownership) turn the valve with two fingers, and the valve comes out of the engine, filling every bit of the dirty grass filled frame with two quarts of oil, not a drop has hit the floor yet but the engine is empty.

This is why you should never clean old grass off your mower. Its absorption keeps the chassis from rusting as well as keeping the drippers off your floor. The valve is designed that way because the engieers knew you would never think to spill the oil all over the frame like that and the thing would have turned to dust in a year.

My M50tu swap in the E30 has turned into an OBD-I S52, reinforced front subframe, the new UUC Swaybarian sway bar setup, stiffer springs on the coilovers, deleting the non-functioning ABS, rebuilt camber plates, slotted rotors/rebuilt calipers/Hawk HP+ pads, E36 SSK, custom clutch/pp setup..........................

an alternator change on a 1984 Rabbit took TWO DAYS!! (wasnt me, NAPA gave me the wrong alternator)

I take on some of the goofiest projects only because laying in bed at night, the whole thing is built in about 10 minutes.

As a kid, you'rve heard the song "There's a hole in the bucket"?

Yep, me too.

Saturday night I hit a huge pothole in the 325i, didn't think anything of it. Sunday I go to leave my house, and notice a rainbow oil sheen running down the street (it was raining). Look under the car to find a large puddle of oil. Yep, crack in the oil pan. Monday I go to the U-Pull yard, because last time I was there they had 3 E30's. Well, they only had one left, and out of probably 200 cars in the foreign section, only six were not up on stands. The E30 was one of them. No wheels or anything, just flat on the ground. So I spend the last hour they were open looking for a jack to get it high enough to work on to no avail. Ask them politely to put it up on stands so I come back and get it the next day. Stop by on my lunch break the next day, the car is on stands and life is good. I get the oil pan off without much hassle. So after work I push my car into the shop, put it on the lift and start taking it apart. I go to put the new pan on, get it out of the parts washer only to see that it's cracked. I couldn't see the crack with all the grime on it, but once it was clean it was plain as day. And it was on the back of the sump, so you now some jackass put a jack under it or something equally stupid. So then I had to pack everything up, put all my parts in the car, and push it off the lift and out of the shop, up hill, by myself, so the mechanic has his lift in the morning. On the positive side I decided that after I found the crack and I was dead in the water, I'd go ahead and adjust the valves and change my valve cover gasket while I had it in the shop, since I didn't have anything else to do. That went pretty smoothly. I can only hope today will be better than yesterday.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. On this latest build, I've been in the berkeleyin zone. The engine build itself went nearly flawlessly. The biggest issue was that following the first drive of the new engine build, the alternator was dead. While I've taken the alternator out of EF Civics more times than I can count, I kept having trouble. It just wouldn't fit through the hole between the engine, axle, and body, like it should. After 2 hours of BSing with it, I realized that I installed shortened Koni's since the last time I did the alternator. The shortened Koni's don't droop as far, and thus the hole was smaller. Dropped the spring hat out of the shock tower and had it out in 30 seconds. That one was irritating.

Honda alternators always drive me berkeleying nuts.

16vCorey wrote: Yep, me too. Saturday night I hit a huge pothole in the 325i, didn't think anything of it. Sunday I go to leave my house, and notice a rainbow oil sheen running down the street (it was raining). Look under the car to find a large puddle of oil. Yep, crack in the oil pan. Monday I go to the U-Pull yard, because last time I was there they had 3 E30's. Well, they only had one left, and out of probably 200 cars in the foreign section, only six were not up on stands. The E30 was one of them. No wheels or anything, just flat on the ground. So I spend the last hour they were open looking for a jack to get it high enough to work on to no avail. Ask them politely to put it up on stands so I come back and get it the next day. Stop by on my lunch break the next day, the car is on stands and life is good. I get the oil pan off without much hassle. So after work I push my car into the shop, put it on the lift and start taking it apart. I go to put the new pan on, get it out of the parts washer only to see that it's cracked. I couldn't see the crack with all the grime on it, but once it was clean it was plain as day. And it was on the back of the sump, so you now some jackass put a jack under it or something equally stupid. So then I had to pack everything up, put all my parts in the car, and push it off the lift and out of the shop, up hill, by myself, so the mechanic has his lift in the morning. On the positive side I decided that after I found the crack and I was dead in the water, I'd go ahead and adjust the valves and change my valve cover gasket while I had it in the shop, since I didn't have anything else to do. That went pretty smoothly. I can only hope today will be better than yesterday.

had that happen in my e30 with the m42. Lowering that thing is a death wish for the oil pan...

Yep... and it's pretty much why I've procrastinated the installation of a set of GT6 brakes on my Spit6... right now, the car run and drives... and it's now entering "convertible season"... and the car has to go to Carlisle in a couple of weeks... and I just KNOW that when I go to install those brakes, SOMETHING will go pear-shaped and the car will be stuck on my lift for weeks...

So I'm trying to pick and chose my projects... and minimize down-time...

I think writting a little list of things to do before starting a small job can keep things in order. Just remember to do the list before starting the project and look at it again just before picking up tools. Add/cross stuff off as necessary. I think that helps keep a shade tree mechanic humble in their attempts.

I had a '53 CJ-3A that had a pontiac 3.8L in it. I hit a bump mudding and the axle hit the oil filter and all the oil drained out. It froze shortly after. I'm not quite sure how the next part happened but I do remember the whole jeep being disassembled and a junkyard set of heavy duty 3/4 ton axle housing being shorted to fit the track width. Then it was sold as a pile of parts. sigh.

My projects are fed with blood. Literally.

Ain't racin' if I ain't bleedin'.