Tell you what kills the desire to finish a project more than anything else is to get into a project you don't have the skills or abilities to finish on your own. That means you have to kiss someone's rearend to get things done, their timeline,their desire to do it right,and yes getting it shoved up your butt when it is time to settle up. Don't ask me how I know this...

I look at that as a learning opportunity. That's how/why I taught myself to weld and and paint.

I hate having to go to others to get work done. The only thing I had to outsource for my Cuda was the chrome plating and exhaust system (I can't bend pipe, and I don't like pre-fabbed systems).

But I didn't do any engine machining work.

Why is Project written in singular form? ... ...

Yep, gets worse, multiplied by the number of cars, motorcycles, etc.

Then add to that, health, where the mind still can to some extent (debatable), but the body can't,.....hardly.

If I can do it physically, it may take me 5 times longer than it should or used to.

It's so much worth the effort once you get it done.

And from a practical point of view unless you are restoring a numbers car with intrinsic value,projects are a money pit with no bottom. And that money spent will be reduced to 25 cents on the dollar when one sells. So I guess a guy better really want the car just to have it! But Still better than playing golf....

Cool!

Good lord, how many lives are lost to Powerpoint?

Great thread, I think we all need to hear that we're not alone in getting burned out, over out heads, not enough wallet... seems like I'm bouncing between those three zones all the time, but I try to do a little something almost every day. Some days, the something isn't much, like putting the tools in the work area away so the mess isn't so bad tomorrow. Other days, it's taking on that project that really needs to get done rather than skipping it to feel like the project is farther along. That has made a pretty long list of to-do's out of a pretty simple "gaskets & paint" freshen up of the engine bay.

Not as much done today as I liked - before literally wasting my life on PPT at the office, I spent a couple hours with my nephew replacing u-joints in his Phord 4x4. I like to think the good carma helping him will come back around one of these days...

Clair

Sure, it's only 2812 miles to haul my junk to your place!

Re PowerPoint... not that much. My work usually involves things like systems interface analysis for integrating new appllications, reverse-engineering system requirements from poorly documented legacy code, working with business areas on what is involved to automate highly-manual proceeses often glued together with spreadsheets... stuff like that.

I definitely did by mine for a while there. Looking back on it, with the car running now and just ironing out (hopefully) minor issues, I'm still not that happy with what it took out of me.

I literally spent just over a full year of my life, every weekend and vacation I had off from work wrenching on it sometimes as much as 12-14 hours a day. I felt like I had no life other than the car this past year and even with the excitement of getting it done it still feels like I wasted the last year of my life buried in the garage. The money is just money, you can always make more...it's the time that gets me. Luckily I had a great friend (540challenger) helping me out along the way and letting me use his lift or I probably would have went crazy lol

It actually made me want to ditch the twin turbo 96 Impala SS project that t I've been building for years and go to an LS3 GM crate engine. Sometimes you just can't put a price on being able to bolt stuff in like it's from the factory and not have to deal with custom building everything. I have fun performing the fab work on the larger components that really make the build unique, but when every little thing you install has to be modified or custom built to work it gets really old fast.

I HATE to say this, but I'm starting to see the appeal to late model cars. I remember when I first bought my Impala many years ago and all it took was a few bolt ons to make that EFI LT1 motor keep up with many new cars. I spent WAY more time driving it and NOT worrying about what will go wrong than I did working on it. Now you can buy many late model cars, bolt a supercharger on it in a couple of hours and run 10's. I'll never do it though because I just can't drive something everyone else has. LOL

One other thing I learned is sometimes, to a degree, money CAN'T be an issue. I built my procharged small block 340 on a 'budget' because I couldn't afford to spend big money on R blocks, big blocks or a late model swap.

In the end, as usual, it ended up costing way more than I thought and now all the stuff I didn't want to spring for are huge limiting factors and sources of "uh oh, I hope I don't blow this up" worries. Now that it's close to done, I realize that my time would have felt much more worth it had I gone with an R block or a late model motor and I wouldn't be worrying half as much about accomplishing my power goals (or growing into bigger ones). Spending more money when you start a project seems like the end of the world, but when it's over you just think why didn't I spend more money and do it right from the start?