Author Topic: Frustration! (Read 726 times)

Ponyman66 · « **on:** July, 13, 2011, 09:31:18 PM »

I'm sure those of you who follow the build threads have noticed no updates in awhile to my coupe project. Well, after the whole cowl assembly debacle (the unexpected rust damages, fab work and obtaining a new cowl....finally!), it took a lot of wind outta my sails. We all know how we can get to the burnout point in projects and then finally pull it back together and get motivated again. Well, that was the case with the cowl.

After FINALLY getting motivated again I started working on the car and got the lower cowl in. I then promptly ran out of gas for the welder as well as flap wheels, roloc disks and cut off disks. I had to wait to restock. I took several extra days off during the week of July 4th. I woulda had 5 days to work. I usually burn up my first day off just relaxing and recovering from the previous work week, and I did just that. I then ended up having to spend one more day dealing with getting repairs and maintenance done to my police car at the garage (properly working brakes are just a LITTLE important to me!)

, and getting down to restock all of my welding stuff.

Okay,so I STILL have a whole three days off. Wrong! I came down sick that night and stayed that way all through the remaining days off. That now left last weekend and my normal three days off (I work 4 days of 10 hours shifts). The first two of those good ol' mother nature decided to give me heavy rain storms all day, each day. No work again! The last day off I FINALLY got out to the car and finished up lining up the upper cowl, getting all the plug weld holes in, cleaned up to be welded and clamped in place. I had about 20 more minutes left of work and the cowl would FINALLY be finished. Yeah right! First I felt a cold blast of wind kick up..COLD, not cool! Then I smelled the rain and the skies turned BLACK! I had just enough time to pick up everything and turn around in the garage doorway to shut it, when the first rain drops started hitting. No more work gettin' done on THOSE days off. I now start my days off again tomorrow. Forecast? Thunderstorms....all weekend!

This has gotten to be the ultimate exercise in frustration!

I'm seriously doubting this thing getting on the road before next year! I was hoping to have it on the road by Oct at the latest. Once it's in paint, it's downhill for me. Just getting to the final body prep though seems like it will NEVER get here. I absolutely HATE sanding, but right now I'd be overjoyed if I could start blocking the car out!! I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, but it sure is tough! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

abrahamfh · « **Reply #1 on:** July, 14, 2011, 12:03:20 AM »

Hang in there buddy, I feel your pain. Seen any updates on my build thread?

There are 320 miles between Fred and I. LoL!

Stay positive, take this much needed breather to regroup, look over your plan, sit back and look at all your PROGRESS.

You have been a great source of motivation for me, Fred and I thank you.

blue65coupe · « **Reply #2 on:** July, 14, 2011, 04:06:44 AM »

Hate to hear it BUT, MBB is coming up so it could be worse. Hang in there.

RapidRabbit · « **Reply #3 on:** July, 14, 2011, 04:42:42 AM »

I feel your pain. Having little progress can be somewhat depressing.
I had the same thing happen to me. Took a few vacation days hoping to get a lot of work done on my car then got sick. Major head cold. Add that to having a one year old and time to finish the car is non existent .

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

Jonk67 · « **Reply #4 on:** July, 14, 2011, 05:01:39 AM »

I feel you pain, I haven't touched my car in 3 weeks, the entire 4th of july holiday was spent in TX with inlaws (but I did sneak out to meet 2 mustang guys from other forums...). This last weekend was shot as I had to drive 3 hrs. to work on the MIL rental house to get it's sale to go through so I can stop working on it ~1mo. I bet I've lost 6 weekends this year working on that house instead of my car and of course SWMBO complains that the car isn't done...

When I can't get anything physically done on the car I come on the forum and ask research questions to prepare for my next steps, right now I am figuring out (with the forums help) the proper way to wire my trunk battery with a circuit breaker. I'll need to order the parts so at least I get that out of the way and will have everything, including knowledge, on hand when I can put my hands on the car and not waste time then. I enjoy the research part too luckily.

When I used to need brakes for my unit I'd go to Scwinn and buy new pads and install myself

MBP
Jon

RustyRed · « **Reply #5 on:** July, 14, 2011, 05:38:10 AM »

Hang in there and you'll get there sooner or later.

Thanks to the boys' baseball I haven't gotten a whole lot done on the current project lately. I look at it as the cup is half full though....no time to work on it means no $ being spent on parts so I am saving up $ and really thinking through / researching what issues I want and / or need to tackle next. I thought we were done with baseball till fall ball when the spring season ended. Wrong, they are on a select team now and playing in a tournament next week with a minimum five game guarantee so there goes most of that extra week of vacation I was hanging onto.

Look on the bright side though....couple of years ago, I pulled the motor in the Mustang and then came down with the swine flu which then turned into pneumonia. Literally, I was planning to start working on the car the next Monday and that Friday I started feeling bad. By that Saturday night I had a 103 fever. It took me two weeks to get back on my feet after that crap.

Just chalk it all up to Murphy's law, realize things are never to go as smooth as planned and keep after it and you will eventually get there.

Midlife · « **Reply #6 on:** July, 14, 2011, 08:29:30 AM »

Cheer up...it could be worse. The car could have been touched by me and Cursed...

tarafied1 · « **Reply #7 on:** July, 14, 2011, 09:00:26 AM »

I really do know how yawl feel. I have owned my current Mustang since 1990. During that time I had a son, got divorced, was a single dad, got remarried (to a different women), moved/changed jobs and states 3 or 4 times, had two more boys, and I travel every week pretty much. My car was in a state of disrepair on and off and in storage repeatedly over about 17 of the last 21 years. I would just get it out of storage or whatever, get motivated and something life changing would happen and it would go on hold again. It suffered setbacks, changes in my plans, budget issues, and on and on I could go. It was far worse than I thought and should by all rights have been scrapped. Somehow I managed to keep it all these years and finally get it to a point it can be enjoyed. It's still not "finished" but they never are!
Anyway, I don't know if this is encouraging or not but I hung in there and it took much much longer than I planned but it did finally become something to be proud of and enjoy.
Hang in there!!!

Kats66Pny · « **Reply #8 on:** July, 14, 2011, 09:01:23 AM »

I feel your pain. I haven't really done much on my 66 lately, other than removed some suspension stuff. I still need to clean up the spindles and post them on CL and Ebay for sale to help fund my suspension parts & disc swap, but I just haven't had time. It may be days or weeks before you get any progress, but when you do get something done.. it helps motivate you all over again.

GTchris · « **Reply #9 on:** July, 14, 2011, 10:22:33 AM »

At least your build isn't being held up for lack of funds due to your wife wanting a 2nd house... I hate that house.

I'm sure it can only get better.

janschutz · « **Reply #10 on:** July, 14, 2011, 10:55:32 AM »

Went through that also on my wife's coupe. Finally after 10 years, I hired someone for a couple weeks to get it running. That was all the motivation I need to finish it up.

Not that mustang is nominated for Car of the Month. How things can change.

Ponyman66 · « **Reply #11 on:** July, 14, 2011, 02:36:33 PM »

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I know setting a deadline is just a guide and I guess that's the only thing i have control over to change. I've never been a firm believer in hard deadlines and have told friends on more than one occasion "if it takes long to do it right, so be it". I'm certainly not rushing anything for the sake of completion! I guess the biggest part of my frustration is it's based primarily on issues I have no control over and have no way of influencing (e.g. weather, illness, etc). I am patient..very patient! I've actually waited on some parts/items for the car for several years just to get EXACTLY what I wanted! While money is usually an issue (big or small), and in some form or fashion for all of us on our projects, that patience on my parts has helped. Add to that SWMBO has been EXTREMELY supportive! Most recently she was taking some money out for new mattresses for all the bedrooms. She asked if I had any big ticket purchases left on the car. When I told her the final big cost single item expense would be for paint, she asked me how much and then deposited it in my bank account! She did the same thing at the end of last year when she got her work bonus. Her work bonus became my R&P assembly!

Thanks again for the kind words and encouragements. Kat, your project updates are a huge source of inspiration (believe it or not!), due to the many similarities between our two projects and the stages we're both at (usually pretty close to the same ones at the same time!). Thanks again everyone. Hopefully I can add some progress photos in the next week or two! BTW, the weather forecast today didn't fail. Rain and NO progress! LOL

janschutz · « **Reply #12 on:** July, 14, 2011, 03:02:26 PM »

Would gladly trade you rain for our sunny days and heat/ It has been 90 in the garage when I get up in the morning and 101 at night.

sigtauenus · « **Reply #13 on:** July, 14, 2011, 03:25:52 PM »

Twice now when lining up work on my car, I've taken 5 days vacation to have a full 9 days off in a row. BOTH times I got sick around day 2 and spend the next 4-5 days in bed, then the other 3-4 sitting on the couch.

Unbelievable.

TWICE!!!

AzPete · « **Reply #14 on:** July, 14, 2011, 04:45:40 PM »

Quote from: sigtauenus on July, 14, 2011, 03:25:52 PM

Twice now when lining up work on my car, I've taken 5 days vacation to have a full 9 days off in a row. BOTH times I got sick around day 2 and spend the next 4-5 days in bed, then the other 3-4 sitting on the couch.

Unbelievable.

TWICE!!!

I would say you need to seek help and find out why you are avoiding the Mustang work. Sounds like a problem to me....a deep routed problem....

sigtauenus · « **Reply #15 on:** July, 14, 2011, 04:49:43 PM »

Oh, I got the work done eventually. But it was on nights and weekends and an hour here and an hour there, not a week in a row of wrench turning bliss like I expected.

RustyRed · « **Reply #16 on:** July, 14, 2011, 08:09:43 PM »

Quote from: janschutz on July, 14, 2011, 03:02:26 PM

Would gladly trade you rain for our sunny days and heat/ It has been 90 in the garage when I get up in the morning and 101 at night.

I'll second that.

Last Sunday afternoon for a very short while it wasn't too bad here though when I finally got the TA's power window working.

It was about to rain and I had my fan blowing into the garage through the door and it wasn't too bad. Of course it only rained about 15 minutes and then it was immediately so humid there was literal steam coming up off the streets.

Seems like the only time I get to work on the car more often than not is nights and couple hours here or there on the weekend when the boys have friends over or go to a friend's house. Wrenching late on Friday nights sure makes it hard to get up on Saturday but that's why God made

I suppose. It is pretty rare that I can actually take a day off just to work on the car all day. I did take a day off a couple of months back to do the bearings and brakes on the front of the TA though.

manley · « **Reply #17 on:** July, 15, 2011, 04:27:55 AM »

Last year, I took a week off to work on the car... I think I managed to get a whopping 2 days in on it. I'm taking all of next week off to work on the Mach. I have a goal.... whether it will be accomplished is a whole other story. :)

Believe me, I know how it is when it comes to setbacks.... I have owned my car for 10 years or so. I am single, live on half an income, and just bought a house, which I've been remodeling for the last 2 months. Time and money are both luxuries I don't seem to have, but I'm loving it because progress is being made slowly but surely.

Ponyman66 · « **Reply #18 on:** July, 15, 2011, 07:58:35 AM »

No need to offer to swap something I already have! LOL When it hasn't been raining the heat index lately has been 110+. The rare days I did get to work on the car last month I had to wait until around 4pm so it could be a little bearable to work in! Fortunately it's light out until 8pm, so I'd get a couple of hours in. I tried one weekend to start at 9am and I worked all day. I damned near passed out! LOL The thing is, it's the only day in the past SEVERAL months I actually got anything done!!

opentrackerSteve · « **Reply #19 on:** July, 15, 2011, 10:18:49 AM »

Shut up and get back to coloring. Welcome to life!

This too shall pass, maybe like a kidney stone, but it will pass.....

cmayna · « **Reply #20 on:** July, 15, 2011, 12:10:41 PM »

I was just going to say that if you people would quit dialing whine, one, one and asking for the wambulance, you might actually get some work done on your rigs.

Horseplay · « **Reply #21 on:** July, 15, 2011, 12:26:27 PM »

Did someone say call an ambalamps?

Midlife · « **Reply #22 on:** July, 15, 2011, 01:35:49 PM »

Enough of your whining, Ponyman. If you continue whining, I'm going to come over to whoop your ass, Curse you and your cars, and generally rain all over your parade. You really want that?

Then shuddup and get back to work!!!