What part of a Hot Rod build do you find the most difficult???

Without a doubt.......DOOR GLASS! My '62 Bel Air Sport Coupe (bubbletop) had worn out window tracks that required always rolling up the windows with two hands.....one hand to crank the window crank and the other hand up on top of the door glass to guide it up and down and to make sure it stayed on the tracks. I even machined new nylon guide rollers to help but it was still far from ideal. To this day, if I look at a car with the door glass removed I have war-like traumatic flashbacks and just don't care what kind of car or how cheap it may be. Truly.....the bane of my existence.

 

The damn building and not driving part. I wanna go now .

 

Rust sucks, but even tho' i hate it I keep on fixing rust over and over again, both on my own and other peoples cars.
Old cars with really worthless wiring is kinda hard work and makes me scratch the back of my head för hours.
As I work from 7 to 4 at a machine shop with really heavy parts (such as train wheels and stuff like that) as a CNC mill operator I'm usually really tired both physically and mentally when i get home. That makes it hard to get out of the couch and down to my own shop "downtown" to work all night!

 

For me it is block sanding. My personality does not lend itself to imperfection. Hence I am always disappointed.

 

^^^

 

Hardest (most time consuming) is paint and body, hands down.....

Second hardest is not not screwing up the paint putting everything together.

 

Wiring first, what a nightmare. Brake lines second. The rest is fun.

 

I've always loved every part of the build, except a few things. Wiring is no problem since I was a electrical engineer once. Engine and trans work? Love it. Brakes, I can do them in my sleep.

Body work and Interior are my nemesis. I can do body work, but I can do the sanding, but it's hard to me to picture the finial project. Same with interior. I'd rather pay someone to do the final touches to it.

I'll make it run like a top, but I'm not the one to make it pretty. Just like my house. If it needs to look good, that the wife's part of it.

 

Get a mighty-vac. You'll never go back. Keep sucking and pouring.

 

I will second this.

 

+1!!!

 

Space for the build, with enough room to move around it. Also need the room for the removed parts, and the new parts to go back on. Time comes in a close second.

 

I hate the part when i have to crawl around underneath my car on my glass shard oh i mean rock driveway.

 

Been doing it for 50 years. Pretty fun and easy stuff...

 

I'm finding that motivation is directly proportional to your age. The older I get the less motivated I am. I've bought, modified, built so many cars in my lifetime the drive is definitely running on low. I''m not in any way bragging/complaining, it's just the road I've chosen to travel and I DEFINITELY won't be taking up golf.

Frank

 

Gotta be paint and bodywork and then when you think you have found a paint and bodyman to do the work they want an arm and a leg and your first born to do it.....

 

It's winter down under and very cold.
Winter Motivation is my problem.
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Now that's funny. It's been damn near 100, with 90% humidity, for the last month and a half here in Texas. I bet I've put on 15 pounds, eating, rather than working in the garage.

I also hate wire-ing and sanding and welding paper thin sheetmetal.

 

you got that right....what lined up nicely on the skid , went to hell on the frame......

find cash these days is the hardest part. got projects in stalled mode , gathering dust....... the track t is probably only about a couple weeks away from being mobile....

 

Getting my son to partake in the biuld. And then shut up when he did nothing,and I moved on......I'm biulding his hot rod, I think I'll keep it.....
I'am an asshole.

 

Hardest part for me is staying in the mood. I finish a car and if I can find the next project I'm in the mood and motivated. But if I wait too long before starting another I find myself just screwing around and not getting into the work mode for a long time!
I have limited space, so that makes every part of the build a hassle in the winter. Summers I just roll them out of the tiny garage and do it in the driveway.

 

Having to listen to everyone without a hot rod tell me how they would have done it different.

 

Designing around problems, takes so long.

 

After reading all of the comments I think for me the hardest part is organising other people to do the stuff I can't do or dont have the time to do.

They never seem to hacve the passion that us owners have and some of the costs hurt.

So am I the only one who has trouble with park brakes and exhaust stuff?

 

I have the same problem with my son.... he is not motivated to work on it but he will drive the shit out of mine..... and I am an asshole...... see my avatar..........

 

Coming up with the Jack for the parts without feeling like I should keep it for something else..... Damn Parental responsibilities.

Time is a big factor in my life also. A day should be 40 hours long and 8 of them in a week. (Working 4-10 hr days at the job in town of course!)

CJO13

 

being a mechanic by trade working on junks all day, & then trying to find the motivation to keep turning that wrench on long nights & weekends just to come right back to the shop to fix junks again. feels like you never leave that shop sometimes.

 

All the piddly little shit you have to do to take it from full mock-up to running and driving.

Fabrication is fun and making it look like a car is fun, but going from that to road-worthy is a grind...

And...

 

1. Constantly having to justify to people why it takes 4 or 5 years to build a car with one set of hands
2. Trying to shut the brain down after an evening in the shop. I do some of my best thinking lying in bed, but it sucks getting up for work the next morning.
3. Grinding MIG welds.

 

Hiding everything from the WIFE!!!!!!

pdq67

 

Picking a direction and sticking with it, as well as making those first few steps, once I'm in the zone it's all I think about and want to do. Getting to that point can be tough. For those of you that hate wiring get a power probe, it really makes troubleshooting go by so much faster.