Art & Inspiration What’s your 1 pain in the butt working on your rides ?

I just did exactly this !!!!!!!!!

wired in my gauges and did not like how ran some wires last year under the dash .

no biggie RIGHT !!!!!

now I got no spark .


Packed up my stuff and calling it a day …….

 

Yeah, take a break. You'll get through it.
Shop for a lift to cheer yourself up! Hard to see, my scissor lift is similar to Anthony's.

 

Getting up without something to hood on too. Working under the dash is a close 2nd..

 

For me it's messes.

Can't stand them. Awesome at making them.

 

I think I have found the magic solution to all the cramped close quarters body twisting and hand won't fit in the space problems..............

A family bought the house across the street from me when the last owner moved. They have a steep drive and I clean it for them when it snows, + I towed his car for him when it broke. He loves older cars and tools and stuff but can't afford a lot of them for his shop, so we have become friends. He's only about 5' tall and bet he don't weigh a hundred lbs. I think my problems are solved.........

 

Tool organization
I don’t like to stop progress but today I spent an hour putting tools away after several days of working on various projects
Now I can find sockets easily again

 

I had a real problem with that when my son was working in my shop, he couldn't remember which drawers a tool came out of, so he put it where he thought it should go. Then, when I needed that tool, I had to figure out where he thought it should go.

We solved the problem for both of us. There is a specific spot on the end of the work bench that is the tool dump location. When we are done with a tool, it gets put in the tool dump.

When your looking for a tool, the tool dump is the first place to start. When the tool dump get too crowded, I'll take the time to put everything where I think it should go. It sounds pretty dumb, but its worked pretty well over the last 10 years or so, and the number of lost tools has been reduced a lot. We have developed the pattern of putting tools in the tool dump as soon as we stop using them for more then a few minutes. If we need to go on a test drive, the tools automatically get put into the tool dump before we go on that test drive.

I stopped by his shop to give him a hand a few weeks ago, he has a tool dump at the end of his work bench too. His 9 year old son already knows the drill.

 

Tool Dump.. Yup right next to where I'm working.

 

Wiring.
I can let the smoke out of anything.
If I look at wires they start smoldering.

 

Time, working on my toys is always a pleasure if I have enough time, if I'm on a deadline it gets stressful and not enjoyable. I hate working on my daily drivers anytime, but I still cannot bring myself to have anyone else do it.

 

My biggest PITA is procrastination. I have a trophy on the mantle for it.

 

Time, but in many aspects, not just the deadline pressure of trying to keep daily drivers going. I've done that for the past 20 years, especially trying to keep my son's car, or my 27-year-old car, or my wife's car, going reliably enough to get him through med school. He's out now, just bought his first new car and I now have the time and not quite the money to resume work on my 49-year-old project, a '29 AA hotrod. But I'm 74, retired the past eight years, make a little money on the side substitute teaching and cancer free for the past three years. Will I still have the time to get my truck on the road or will age, illness, mental incapacity or just lousy luck keep me from finishing the hotrod? Don't bet against me. I'm motivated. As I was explaining to my son, who was having misgivings buying his first car: We postpone a lot of nice things early on in life so that we can reap rewards later, but don't defer that gratification for too long. There comes a time to enjoy and appreciate that which we've worked for. Don't feel guilty about it. Time is precious.

 

Body work... I can do it and make things come out well. But; what a long, tedious, boring, messy and monotonous process it is to get a car ready for paint. Hopefully the one I'm working on now will be the last one... don't think I have the patience or energy left to do another one.

 

Even without the hoist, there is the issue of how to get the car up in the air without scratching the paint. I have those plastic protectors on the jackstands, wooden supports to hold the car up under the tires and am still paranoid about working on the car without scratching it up.

 

WORK!!!! Damn work getting in the way of my real job . Few years away and then I'll have another excuse......

 

I can see your biggest problem right there in the first picture. Sell that snowblower, then sell the house and move down here to Tennessee.

 

I might challenge you for that trophy, but I'd probably never get around to it ...

As to the original question: I'm possibly the quintessential diametric opposite of a neat freak, but my brain-weirdness doesn't like gooey messiness. I don't like rust and mud; I don't like stray oil and grease; I don't like paint at any scale bigger than about a 6" cube. But give me clean parts and I'll work with them all day — especially if the job is the kind of job which ideally requires the use of a loupe.

 

The spirit is willing but the body needs encouraging....................

 

New parts that don't work . I try to diagnose the problem not throw parts at it but some times it's the less time consuming fix until the new part is bad.

 

Having moved 22 times in the course of 55 years of marriage, my main complaint has always been the lack of, and the quality of my workspaces. After seeing what some of you accomplish in places much more cramped or ill fitted to what we do, I find I have almost nothing that is really a PITA other than diminished physical ability and the constant disappearance of the tool I just laid down. Now that I need it to complete the job, it isn't anywhere to be found. I really hate that .

 

Try sorting wires when you have issues with color perception. I'm color blind at the blue end of the spectrum. Yeah, I guess that's my second most pita thing in the garage. Why can't cars be coded like the paper machinery I worked on in the 70's? Black, white, green, and red, all numbered to identify the connectivity. Black was power, red was controls, white was common, and green was...well of course ground!

Working on a prototype vehicle in the 90s, a technician and I were working on the wiring the day after Thanksgiving. Turned out he was color blind also, not able to distinguish much of anything. And we were trying to figure out how to connect the wiring.

Vince held up a few wires, mostly at the blue end of the spectrum and asked which is the blue wire? I saw 3 or 4 gray wires. Oh yeah, let's get a dvm and go with continuity...

 

hearing my beautiful wife: "YOU'VE BEEN OUT HERE FOR 45 MINUTES! AREN'T YOU ABOUT DONE???"

 

When I did chassis work and roll cages I NEVER used a lift, always built em at ride hgt. Pain in the ass sometimes but they ended up exactly where they had to be. I've had lifts for stuff and for some big jobs one could say they're essential. My shop has 10' ceilings and I'm 6'2" so pretty much a "fuck that" expense. The majority of my stuff is pretty tall and I'd have to work a bit hunched over. No thanks, my back is fucked up enough. Brakes? Gimme a milk crate and everything I need I'm a happy guy. I will admit my exhaust job on the 39 woulda been nicer on a lift but I managed.

My biggest "Fuck, not again..." is following someboy else's work finding wives tale fixes and loose fasteners everywhere. I've said on other topics how I didn't get the memos about how every-fuckin-thing electrical needs a relay, how you shouldn't tighten shit up because it might chip the paint, or that antifreeze is now radiator fluid, or that ONLY clutch pedal freeplay is the master setting, or...

 

Only thing that's ever bothered me is the lack of work space. I've always had a small single car garage, and built many cars in it. It gets a bit tiresome having little space around the cars, and more so when it comes to dropping in engines, and I have to roll the car out to get the cherry picker in, then roll the car back in. Then repeat once the engine and mounts are done, and cherry picker goes out back to storage.
I'd be in heaven with just a two car garage, let alone a big shop!

 

lol you would LOVE to work on forklifts !!!!

All wiring on Raymond’s is black , black as night black as coal !

caterpillar uses all grey .today there is no black or white only shades of grey

crown used to use all white .like the white room with black curtains, at the station .

at least they are all neutral colours and compliment each other as I throw tools and call the engineers bad names .

they do stamp the wires with numbers to help you find and trace them , but if you get a bit of oil on them the numbers are gone as fast as a fat kid stealing cookies !!

I enjoy electrical , but some of the stuff out there gets me scratching my head , I swear I’m gonna go bald on the left side of my head !!

 

I haven't read all the posts but my problem is when my wife comes to the shop to help. Bless her soul but if I lay down a wrench or a screwdriver it disappears back into the toolbox. Jack handle? Didn't know what it was so put in one of the lockers.

 

my biggest pain is that my hands shake so bad, I could thread a sewing machine while it is running. I've got to get the screwdriver into the slot on the 3rd or 4th pass...
it kind of messed up my watchmakers hobby too.... but I'm still on the right side of the grass..

 

My biggest PITA working on my cars? I'd say turn signals. It's not a steady issue, more off and on.

 

Asking for help online. It seems like half the time that I ask for advice online I either ask a simple yes/no question then the whole thread turns into this long over drawn back and forth and I never get my question answered, or "if you'd put an SBC in your car like everyone else you wouldn't have these problems"

 

May I suggest.....