Both seemed like a good idea at the time.
Years ago, with no consideration whatsoever for the hindrances of fear or common sense, my dad and I decided to undertake the project of an engine rebuild on my ’64 Rambler. It had sat for far too long before being fired up again, and the piston rings turned out to be only slightly more brittle than severely overcooked bacon. With at the minimum a few minutes worth of automotive repair experience between us, we somehow convinced ourselves that this was a brilliant idea, and set to work. I had helped friends repair a few cars, so I at least knew which end of a ratchet to use, and I even had my own hammer. Dad had a crowbar and an adjustable wrench, and was reasonably certain he had repaired something a few decades prior. How hard could it be?
Harder than we thought, as it turned out. The project did not go swimmingly, but, after much time spent, one transmission dropped on my father’s chest, and a veritable cornucopia of new swear-words learned by each of us, we did prevail. Well, mostly. Look, we did everything right, but the stupid gasket manufacturers should really label the damned things if there’s an “UP” side and a “DOWN” side. Seriously, how hard would that be when they make a product that’s symmetrical along one axis? The important thing is that we technically did complete the project correctly, even if it took us two months to do a job that a proper mechanic could do in an afternoon with a beer in one hand.
What projects have you undertaken head-down and full-throttle with virtually no prior experience and against the advice of all common sense?
When I was 16, the family van tossed a timing chain a few days before our scheduled 2500 mile trip to visit my grandparents. I volunteered to fix it. I don't think I had the benefit of even crappy printed reference materials like Chilton's and my prior automotive experiences were things like oil changes and spark plugs, and maybe a carb swap.
I borrowed a 1/2 HP air compressor. It didn't have enough oomph to loosen the crank bolt without spinning the crank. I felt defeated until someone suggested using a breaker bar wedged against something solid and then tapping the starter. That did the trick.
I had everything put back together about an hour before our scheduled departure, then went inside for a shower and to pack for the trip. We left on time. I had the doghouse cover off for the first 45 miles of the trip and the distributor hold down a little loose, and I timed the van by ear while I drove.
No problems whatsoever on the trip. The van logged another 100K or so before being sold, and we never again had to to service anything past the water pump.
Ill-conceived projects were SOP for my father when I was growing up. However, he did have one general rule: don't start working on something right before you need to use it. Being 16 or 17 and knowing everything, I decided to give my old Toyota pickup a tune-up before going on a road trip to see relatives in Cincy. Of course, to teach me a lesson, or because I was doing this mostly in the dark, the lead plug got cross-threaded during my tune-up. While I should have been sleeping in preparation for the next day's trip, I was instead up trying to find the right size of tap, and then tapping the cylinder. It ran fine during the trip, but I was pretty nervous for the first couple of hours of driving.
Did I learn my lesson? No. Just last weekend, I was supposed to be moving all of my belongings to a new house. The day before the moving fun was to begin, I had the tailgate off of my truck (it had stopped latching) and in pieces. The concerned look on the face of my girlfriend brought back memories of my late night tune-up and cylinder tapping experience…
Marriage and kids….
Seriously though, it was basically being a Crew Chief for four race cars at Road America. We had three Honda's in IT and Spec Miata all parked under the canopy and I was wrenching on two of them and "helping" on the other two who joined in. I ran around keeping track of when they were suppose to be where on the grid or for practice. Going from car to car making sure all the lists were checked off and making sure the one driver for the two cars I had to wrench on knew which car he was suppose to be in and when. Then keeping the brakes up to snuff, making the tire choices needed choosing. Making sure the cars actually ran right. Wiring up a windshield wiper motor for one session that was all rain. Then standing on the Hauler and doing the radio and timing for my driver and letting him know his gaps and place and when to pick it up or back down. My weatherman epic decision in qualifying made me the hero of the day. It was damp and rainy and people were picking rains and I said no way dude. This is a HUGE track, it could be dry as a bone in most of it in a little bit, this rain system won't hit it all and once the cars are out it will dry fast. It did, he qualified 4th and put the spank down during the race.
I was spent and stressed and loved every minute.
Writing for Atomic Toasters. I should have listened to them…
"It will be fun," they said.
Running a marathon. Stubbornness helps.
Buying a "fixer upper" house.
Painting the ceiling became the biggest pain of all. It had a smooth ceiling with some holes that needed to be repairs. No problem, slap in some new sheetrock and spray the popcorn stuff on the ceiling to cover any imperfection. Two weeks later and many gallons of ceiling popcorn and paint I was done.
I am hoping to make this ill-advised mistake in the next year or two.
Its even more fun when you are scraping to remove the popcorn ceilings. =/
It doesn't have to be perfect – just get it off asbestos you can.
One year my girlf and I wanted to drive my '70 F-250 (which was over 25 years old at the time) across the USA. I had to replace the engine to accomplish this, as there was no oil pressure.
The engine swap wasn't the damn-the-torpedoes part, since I'd swapped engines on my Yamaha XS-650s many times, and a 360 V8 pickup couldn't be that much different.
No, the damn-the-torpedoes moment came the morning after the install when we commenced to driving an unproven used 25 year old engine haphazardly shoved in the day before by scruffy bike messengers in a rented garage from SF to Burnin' Dude to Las Vegas to New Orleans to D.C. NYC and Portland ME. And back. Radiator leaked a bit on the way back.
Swapping the head on my Jeep. I did it without a hoist, bought tools as I discovered I needed them, worked from a Chilton and JeepForum.com and generally did not have detailed enough instructions or a good enough work area to actually pull it off. But I did it, and my Jeep is running great.
Adding a neck pickup to my guitar. It required modifying the body of the guitar to add the tub for the pickup. I have zero wood working knowledge… The techniques I found on youtube and figured out for myself worked surprisingly well.
Actually, most of my projects are ill-advised, but then my goal is to learn-by-doing, which has always worked pretty well for me. My modified computer case didn't work out as well as I would have liked (it's something of a rat-rod Blue&White G3 case; not what I intended, but eh, it holds the computer parts Ok). The shelving that is acting as my entertainment center was also ill-advised, and it looks like a dumb college student nailed a bunch of 2x4s together (guess what actually happened? Yep, nailed some 2x4s together when I was a dumb college student).
Tomorrow, we get the keys to our new house.
I plan to upgrade the garage as follows:
- redo the wiring, including a new sub-panel (I'm an electrical engineer, so I have idea of what is going on)
- coat the floor with epoxy. Zero experience.
- Install dry wall. Zero experience.
- tape and mud said dry wall. Zero experience.
- paint the walls. My wife has experience, so that will be easy.
If I stop commenting for a few weeks, you now know why…
sounds like a plan. make sure to read instructions! (epoxy mainly since you know what you're doing with electrical) and the rest of it is pretty simple and common sense; but it's always good to have a bit of advice (if available) or read about it online/in a book/etc. Also, a second set of eyes/brains to give input on what you're just about to do.
Not sure how much your new house needs, but make sure the roof, windows, siding and foundation are good before you take on the interior.
And congrats! And good luck!
Floors are easy. They just take time. Dry wall is also easy. But it does take some time to do it… so i suggest doing in phases….
"Hey Super spouse, I wanna go racing…"
What did she have to say about the possible health risks, i.e. crashes, fires, trophy girls, etc?
Risks are evaluated after the race.
Marriage. I thought a good attitude, devotion and a genuine desire to be happy were enough. Turns out its far more complicated and a lot of it is out of your control. The one thing I learned that seemed to come out of left field is that once the ring goes on her finger she starts treating you exactly the way her mother treated her father. She can be the most fun girlfriend ever. Buy her a house and knock her up and if her mom bitched at her dad about every little thing (deserved or not), she will spend the rest of your time together bitching at you about every little thing (deserved or not).
Everything I've ever done with a computer, pretty much.
Aside from that? Well, I replaced a turbocharger. This, of course, meant that I ended up doing a lot more work than I had to (instead of undoing three banjo fittings, three bolts, a clamp, and a couple of pipes, I did all that – except for the clamp – as well as four of the rustiest manifold nuts known to mankind and the three nuts on the downpipe.
Two of them required a Dremel.
It all mostly went together, though, and stayed together for a few thousand miles until the engine threw a rod, so I count it as a success.