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

Man you guys hit everything and yeah old age is a bitch!! Put me down for a lift also but like the rest of y’all I don’t have the room unless I add on to the garage

 

My advice is to do whatever it takes to get a lift installed. If I hadn't bought mine a few years ago, my hotrodding days would be over.

 

Very Honestly, no decent garage to work in.

 

Gotta remember= we took the oath a long time ago....... Time might be a lil on the longer side though......
The only one to jump you out of the car gang is yourself......

 

And that’s the issue , the car fits in there for winter storage , 1” from the wall on the right side and just enough room to squeak around the left no room for any actual work .
It’s clean and organized, all my tools are in the garage , the full length on the garage I got a 3.5’ tall storage loft . I have my compressor up there and lots of stuff
Also have a 12x14 shed out back with more tools and all the gardening stuff lawn mower etc etc .

so space for projects I have , a portable hoist I could use in the driveway would be sweet for crawling under the car


My back is shot and I’m incredibly lazy .

 

Haha, I guess I am really spoiled now. Because my biggest pain in the butt is that I have 2 hoists, but there is ALWAYS something on both of them. Usually something that is not capable of moving under it's own power. So I have to push one car off, maneuver it in to another spot, then put what I want to work on now on the hoist. THe single post hoist is my main work area. I have several projects going at any given time, and I spend too much time moving them in and out of the work area.

 

Having no hoist does take a lot of the fun out of this hobby. My garage has a basement garage that is barely accessible, but its still there. Then the enclosed ceiling (nailed to the bottom of the rafters) is only 7 1/2' high. There will be no hoist here.

Old age, lack of ambition, laziness, lack of funding, and very little desire to do much more then to maintain what is already built are my biggest issues. I think maybe I have outgrown the desire to build cars.

 

Seems like everyone is talking 'bout life at home.
From 1965 to 1992 I had full access any number of off hours and til dawn, if needed, to the standard setup of most gas stations.
Retirement was gonna be when my dream rod was born.
Bad health beat me to quitting work,
I managed to wind up with a wonderful 2 car garage.
With 3 cars in it. But my sister has claimed she will buy one soon,
Oh yes I do love card board

 

Other than the money spent on building the shop, the money spent on a 2 post asymetric lift is the best investment you could possibly make. JMO

 

To answer your question, It's All a PIA now and pain, fun garage work is now just work, UGH ! The 4 post lift I purchased was the best tool I ever acquired for my car hobby, it has allowed me to work on my cars as age, health issues caught up with me, not a surprise as I planned for this, was aware of the changes coming. I got out of the HAMB style cars which I really do miss, HighBoy Roadster, 32 3 window and a 51 Mercury. I still enjoy the hobby with my 2 OT cars, one now 33 years old, other 18 years old, both mint survivor type cars, I planned ahead, they only require minimum general maintenance, just keeping them polished and still cruising/local shows are enough for me now and I'm happy/grateful that I can still participate in this manor. I've been in the hobby all my life and will be to my expiration date, no regrets. Aging Sucks but the work around is doable IMO.

 

can you put a door in the rear of your garage and create a workspace out in the back yard ? (as mentioned previously)

 

I could , I’ve thought about it but it would screw things up . My patio is behind the garage , with the back door to my house , the back door / mud room is all glass and is part of ( kinda) my kitchen . So blocking that into the garage would kill a bunch of natural light coming into the house . I “could” extend the garage and build a patio across the ba k of the house , but , meh . To much work I think



I like @anthony myrick idea of using the portable hoist on my driveway

 

My solution to the lack of space problem is to buy a smaller car! I went from a '53 Studebaker to a '40 Bantam (Stude is in storage at the in-law's) so now I can walk around my project. If I keep bringing crap home, I'll have to swap the Bantam for a Peel P50!

 

Lol already did that , sold my 63 merc convertible as that would not even fit in the garage !!!!!

The 40 “ works”. I like my land yachts , don’t think I could go smaller !


It’s silly up here cause even 2 car garages will have 2 small 1 car doors so you can only work on one side of the car .

my last 2 houses where like that , better then what I have now but still a pain .

my parents house has a 2 car garage with one big door , so you can drive right in the middle of the garage and have space all the way ‘round



better then what I have but not ideal



in a residential setting , to me this is almost perfect

 

I think this thread has wandered away from the original intent. If I was to say what part of this hobby is the biggest pain, I think anything to do with brake fluid has to be at the top. I'm good with building a braking system and installing parts, but when it comes time to pouring that nasty stuff in and trying to get all the air out without spilling any fluid....Gives me the heebie-jeebies.

 

Yup , brake fluid or coolant running down your arm and into your armpit sucks !!!!! The smell of burnt atf !!

and doing stuff at home , getting rid of , trying not to trip over and spill the container eta of waste oil or whatever is a pain

 

Biggest PITA is searching for the right tool, curse you 10mm!

 

Oh man, can I spill used oil! I'm so bad at pouring oil out of a drain pan into a funnel, I may as well intentionally pour it on the floor beside the funnel! How hard can it be?

 

Antifreeze! Its the worst stuff to work with in the world, but up here with the frozen north winters its required.
I hate the slimy, then sticky, feel of it, and the mess it makes when every I have to work with it. There isn't a container big enough, or shaped in a way to catch all of it that runs off of everything on the bottom side of the vehicle when you try to drain it from the motor. There isn't a drain pan made that I can not somehow bump or tip over to splash it onto the floor. It never drains completely, there always seems to be about a cup full that ends up on the garage floor, and everything you need to use around it either is dropped into it, or rolls or is drug through it, and it gets tracked all over the garage.

Yep, antifreeze is the worst.

 

I spent 45 years working under small jet aircraft,
and like an old whore,
I do my best work lying on my back

as to the topic
not being able to find a tool that I know I have somewhere
gets me into stupidville

I have multiple of the same tools to help
but
#&@*%/+- it suks

 

Yeah! I can't drain or fill a radiator without antifreeze all over the floor. I am anal about cleaning it up immediately, though. Scared my Barney dog will lick it up. Doesn't take much.
Since I got my lift, I have perfected my oil and filter draining. I can change the oil without a drop on the floor. Radiators not so much.

 

#1-Wiring is not my strong suit so it gets in my head which turns it into a PITA.
#2-climbing out from under the car 4 million times for one small repair

 

First, I've got to beat the heat: The early bird doesn't get burnt out by the heat. Well, till about 9 o'clock.

Second, I've got to log off of the internet.

Third, I need to stay healthy to have the energy to mess with cars.

Going back out there, now. *


* This message sent on the Toilet-Tap app.

 

pretty much anything under the dash in a 50's-60's full sized American car,
ever replace the defrost plenum and heater controls in a '49 Cadillac convertible?
neighbors three doors down heard every swear word I knew and a few I made up on the spot.

 

one of the incentives for buying this house was the big shop with lift already installed.
it's an in ground single cylinder air over hydraulic, it works great, hasn't shown any leakage in the 20 years we've been here, doesn't settle at all when in use (I always put a steel post under it when I use it) and I do think about the 60 gallons of oil down there..

I also installed an electric hoist and beam.
those two things do make working on and building cars a little easier..

 

My biggest complaint is that with diminishing physical abilities getting up, down, under and into tight spots is a pretty painful experience !
A drive on lift would make my life much easier but living on a hill with the driveway and first half of the garage on a 4 degree downhill pitch makes that out of the question. The higher I jack one of the cars up the more sketchy it gets and don't dare drop a socket or anything that can roll, it definitely won't be where it hit the floor lol
But at least I'm alive and I have a garage to work in, it could always be worse.

 

Boy that brings back some memories from working at a mom and pop Exxon in high school.

 

I forgot the photos of my stack of cardboard creepers piled on top of the 57, I own regular rolling creepers but you always roll downhill away from where you're supposed to be lol

 

#1 pain? Gravel....what I'd give for a few sheets of plywood

 

Well I cant blame lack of tools or space, laziness or time. Id say Im my biggest PIA working on cars. I always find a way to over complicate things trying to to "my best". Then somehow still end up doing a hack job. If it aint broke, I'll fix it until it is..