Ever scream "What the Hell?" on a new project?

Have you ever gotten a project and just screamed "What the Hell?" on the part of the construction or previous repairs done by previous owners?

Here are mine -

1. A shock on a broken shock bolt, being held on by multi-linked small ty-wraps to keep it from slipping off.

2. Generator on flatty mounted upside down, with cardboard spacer underneath to clear the "***" mounting post on the generator stand.

3. A m***ive wad of tape (on cloth wiring) at a wiring junction point. Say the headlight junction block at front of car.

4. A new motor timed with #7, and #8 reversed...Yeah, it runs, but not as noticable as you would think. Either way, a shop did this.

"What the hell?"

What are your experiences? This could be good.

 

When I bought my 51 Chevy, the previous owner had already installed a TCI pedal ***embly with the master cyl under the drivers floor. It had been installed for a while.

BUT, there was no way to check or add fluid to the master, in fact you couldn't even get the lid off, it was right against the floor!

 

Tearing into the Peter Beater (which I built with frame help from a friend) and seeing some of the ****py welds that actually held.

"What the Hell?"

 

I bought a VW basket case and the PO had lashed a 2x4 underneath the transmission and rear suspension using twine and duck tape.

I called him up and asked WTF and he said he was supporting the trans so he could pull the motor.

In a VW, the trans is securely bolted to the ch***is and the motor just hangs off the end of the trans. He was "supporting" the most solid portion of the car!!!!!!!!!

 

When I bought my F-100 I htought the floors were perfect. The guy who owned it before me thought they were perfect. The guy before him used bondo to fill in the rust holes around the cab mounts. I popped out the old bondo in one piece like a plug. Now I know why the doors dont fit, I thought it was just the hinges being worn out.

 

Umm...

Looked at a Mustang 'vert that was PERFECT - until I peered underneath...

was able to read 'NO PARKING AT ANY TIME' on the floorboard. Turns out parking signs are a near perfect pop-rivet drop in for a Falcon, Comet or a Mustang.

Didn't buy it.

 

I hate to say it, but 85% of the work that comes my way is fixing other peoples **** ups, so yeah, I say,"WTF" alot.....Like one for instance is, why don't people use a hammer before they apply bondo/lead to fix a dent. I just don't know what they are thinking, a little time + a hammer and dollie = less time with the sculpturing!!!!

 

I bought an F1 truck project that looked like a couple of drunks put a chevy 10 bolt in it. They arc welded the rear end perches on, well they thought they were welding them on. Then one side had U bolts made from threaded straight rod that had been heated and bent into the shock plate. One side had a shock plate off a car the other side was plate steel with big oblong hole storch cut in it. Worste **** I have seen to date.

 

When i pulled out a hand full of mouse bones out of a door of my 53 .........

 

When we were restoring a '47 Ford pickup a few years back and took off the old bed. The PO had "shimmed" the left side of the bed on the ch***is so it would sit flat. This was to compensate for the bent frame rail on the right rear where he had backed it into a loading dock.

Sure took a while to fix that and didn't need much heat in the shop while we did it either....... puff.....puff.....puff This here hammer sure gets heavy after a while.

 

friend of mine bought a 63 falcon ranchero which used
wood screws for carb bolts
shingles and tar for floor
nails for cotter pins
and caulking to plug a stripped out hole in the timing cover

 

unfortunately they do use a hammer...its the cave it in and bondo trick....rediculous

 

Looked like I would have to pull the body off to get the coilovers off. Some one didn't leave enough roon for the upper bolt to come out. Took a hole saw to make room in the floor pan.

 

Ohhhhhh like finding your SOLID floorboards are actually WOOD glued on from underneath? Or that the holes on your hood were filled in with part of a tin can? Then slathered in mud? I've had LOTS and LOTS of what the HELL's? in the last couple of years...................but ya know what I like more then what the hell's? I like the "WHAT THE ****'s???",like this one.

 

I was a young fella with a Camaro (ya, ya, I was 15 and had a sweet mullet). Anyway, finished it up and took it to a local body man to put the fibergl*** scoop on the hood and repaint the whole car.

Picked car up and saw something wierd on the inside edge of the scoop. It was part of last week's cl***ifieds molded into the inside of the hood seam!

It sure was a bichin' camaro though ...

 

On my Comet the PO swapped out the original air-cooled comet transmission for a later fluid-cooled falcon transmission. rather than installing cooler lines they just routed the lines out one port and back in the other. Plus the falcon trans is 2" shorter in the tailshaft, so the yoke was half out of the transmission.

Only put 3 of the 4 fan/water pump pulley bolts in, so the whole thing was off balance and ate the waterpump almost immediately.

Dust caps are optional right?

 

Yeah...See my "professional quality welds?" post...

 

sometimes i think there should be a test you have to take to buy tools!at least once i week i get some POS that some " mechanic " worked on.im pretty sure the offroad business has more than it fair share.last week we had a ford truck come in .the nuts off the front shock bolts had come off.rather than get new bolts and nuts .the guy put nails through the holes and bent them over so the wouldnt fall out..i asked if he wanted me to fix it he said NO.

 

this was on last weeks "nightmare engineering" post

This is the remains of a frame from under a 34 coupe, purpose "built" for street racing (I hesitate to use the term "built"). I don't really know if it was fast but the locals knew about it and I was told it launched kinda funny. I know its hard to tell but don't get the square tubing body cart its sitting on confused with the frame.

The first pic highlights the stick welded (splattered and kinda varied penetration) HEAVY TRUCK LEAF SPRING used as the only ****** crossmember, no bolt on stuff here fellas, that spring is hung below 16" sections of decking channels that span the hacked into the twisted K-member. I personally liked that the leaf spring wasn't straight and it had been cut too short and pieced together the last 4" on the right rail, apparently it isn't easy to stick weld spring steel and the actual ****** mount was on a 6" perch off the leaf spring

Notice in the other pics the GALVANIZED PIPE welded to the top of the right frame rail for one version of the many roll cages it had scabbed onto it in its life. I did pull serviceable front and rear crossmembers, believe it or not the frame rails aren't to bad and they have nice ends.

If you think the floor was something you should've seen the firewall.

I got this for $150 and swapped the crossmembers for new 32, I didn't and still don't have wads of cash for new rails, I doubt I'll get the rails shiney paint straight but its the frame.

When I get to the point of complaining about the metal finish on my frame rails I hope one of you kick the lawn chair out from under me.

 

I bought this *****in 49 ford coupe, with a merc flathead, it was all good except for the BMW emblems taped to the fenders, oh yeah and the 2 litre pop bottle gas tank held on by yarn, i drove it home like that, ran out of gas once. Then i had this 61 ranchero with **** carpet on the floor , door panels, headliner, sun visors and the seats.....it was all stapled on.

 

Well to start Trash bags to fill in behind the body filler on the rear fender opening on a old ford Pickup I bought. Fibergl*** resin strings hanging down through rust holes caused by moisture under a vinyl roof on my Cougar where it was poured in. Radiator tie wrapped in front bolt in cross member missing. I wanted the car pretty bad since it was a Big block car and the price was pretty good I also had the needed pieces so it was no big deal. Carb screws replaced with drywall screws in a Carburator in a Goldwing I picked up.

Dawg

 

Yepp, ...one of my past project cars had cement in the rear wheelhouses to hold left and right rear fenders to the body, put together with screws for wood applications and .....hear this....upper parts of various types of keys (!!!) as washers !!! After removing all this **** I found alot of rust....which ofcourse didn't come as a surprise to me.
Lots a welding and new sheetmetal got it all back together the way its supposed to be.
/ primerkid

 

What is it with the drywall screws for carb screws?!? I've seen that TWICE myself on motorcycles.

It's an OT vehicle, but my wife and I looked at a Pathfinder for a winter beater that had a broken frame riveted back together with some sheet metal plates about as thick as a beer can!!!

We didn't buy it...

 

Drove (barely) our ROUGH '57 project home and started trying to tune the 283. It wouldnt idle when cold but idled FAST after warmup . The p.o. had the fast idle cam on the carb on BACKWARDS .
The whole project went like that.

 

Here for your amu*****t is the laundry list of problems I have discovered in the course of working on a poor abused GTX (I know... not a traditional hot rod, but it still ****ed LOL). Sometimes, I really do feel sorry for a car when I see what other dipsticks have done to them. This car spawned the term "KD" (king dip****) and helped inspire the wildly popular (on another forum) coinage for people with no experience who do dumb*** things - LMAH Low Mileage *** Hat .
.

• Rusted through front floor pans - were supposed to be perfect.
• Cob jobs in the wiring harnesses (twist ties, dry twisted and taped, you name it).
• Fusible link replaced with a wire jammed in the socket.
• Missing half the bulbs.
• Three bent rims, two tires with "dry rot", one tire with a "BLEM" stamp conveniently hidden on the inside.
• Overheated within two miles thanks to a completely botched cooling system.
• Oil seeping into the intake runners causing my heart to sink when I saw the white puffs of smoke (just needed sealant).
• Charging system screwed thanks to the great wiring job.
• No horns... no horn relays. Even the steering wheel horn hardware was put together wrong and jammed.
• Wiper motor cobbed in with a "unique" splice system.
• U-Joints shot.
• Transmission case was broken around the starter mount as evidenced by the heli-arc welds all around it.
• Proportioning Valve flapping in the breeze... no mounting bolt in sight.
• Sway bar links flapping loose and stripped on sway bar end.
• Mufflers welded in crooked to compensate for not doing the pipes correctly.
• Br*** nuts and nylocks used on exhaust nuts.
• 5/16" bolts/nuts used on the two-bolt exhaust manifold flanges. Again... to compensate for not doing the pipes correctly.
• Transmission cooler butchered to cob into crushed cooling lines (in and out lines on the cooler cut and pulled out to splice into rubber hose).
• No backup light harness.
• No console light harness.
• Headlight harness on the fritz and again filled with unique and interesting splices.
• Tail light harness corroded and cross-wired.
• Missing block dowel pin (transmission alignment pin) to accomodate the obviously warped transmission case.
• Torque converter hub area in the crank rusted preventing the torque converter from "floating".
• Lower ball joints completely shot to the point of falling apart in my hands when I changed them out.
• Upper ball joints were not far behind the lowers - at least THEY had grease on them.
• JB Weld used on an intake runner on driver's side head to cover an extensive crack.
• Rust-prone area behind back gl*** filled with lead and painted over. At least it was lead, unlike the door sills which were filled with enough bondo to stock a paint store.

 

On my 1950 Chevy while taking it down to bare frame; removed rear end ***y & rolled it over to storage area. Removed the roll around tires/wheels & as I let the rear end down, one of the brake drums fell off.Guess what was behind it? NOTHING there - no brakes whatsoever! I wonder how well that car use to stop? Gary 4T950 Chevy Guy

 

When I drove home my 1947 international pickup The first thing I found out it had only 1 brake working both rear seals were blown and 1 caliper was frozen. the guy claimed he drove it every day and it would be fine driving 200 miles home from New Jersey to Rhode Island. Then I found he had used an S-10 wireing harness without removeing the old harness or any parts of the S-10 harness so there were sockets and wires hanging everywere. He only used red wire to wire in the gages , the wipers, and what ever else he added to the truck. As I started to clean the front end I found he had fibergl***ed the rot in the upper a frames. Calling any of his welding bird S**t would have been a compliment. Carlg

 

Is it bad when you WATCH and say What the Hell?
At the old shop I worked at, Aurora Rods in Moorhead MN, I saw the owner do **** work on numerous occasions. We had to do some body work on a new SUV Limo. Little bit of rust in the rockers where they stretched it. No biggie, right? Nope, stuff that hole with a SCOTCHBRITE pad and 'gl*** over it! Send it out the door. Another project was a lifer at the shop. A '39 Olds 4 door. Previously the shop owner had welded in a frenched licence plate bucket that he built too big for any american plate. So his fix? A bunch of broken-to-size paint stir sticks wedged into the bucket to bridge the gap, then take the 4 year old gallon of 'gl***, pour an entire tube of resin into the can, stirr with one of the sticks that survived the tragedy and pour onto the decklid. 36 grit to fit and paint!

Notice I DON'T work there anymore.

 

the 69 pickup appeared to be in good conition, but apparently it wasnt, and i dont think it will ever be. almost everything on the truck is in bad condition. a 1/4" layer of bondo "fixed" a dent, i swear, the builder of this truck was on something. the bodywork ****ed, paint was waaaaaay overhardened, speedo cable was off by 20 mph, the late model chevy rear bumper was apparently torched off of the frame, and welded to the 69's, at least it was even. wiring was wrong, dents on the roof from god knows what, i think there was a dance held on the roof of this truck. the gear drive was put in wrong, so the noise was even louder and obnoxious, one of the gl***pack mufflers werent even clamped on, i pulled it off bare handed. but now, thats all being fixed, and i just scored a 12 bolt posi with 3.08 gears for 100 bucks out of a junkyard. what a deal!

 

Bought a '66 Tempest with a 326 3spd back in the mid '70's from a **** in town.Car sat real high in the back...turns out this genius had too wide tires on the back and so to get the *** end up to clear the tires he removed the shocks and welded in square tubing from the rear end to the frame.Bounced my way out to the farm and fixed it right.