Soliciting any motivational speeches...

... for "inspiring" me to get my junk back together.

The work I have done recently hasn't gone quickly or as expected, so I'm creeping into another round of wanting to roll it out into the cul de sac and set the whole pile of car & parts on fire.

Of course, the neighbors wouldn't be too thrilled.

Just sell the damned thing...J/K! I really wanted to see it run...So here is a kick in the pants for ya Brad!!

I'll bring marshmallows!

I hear kerosene burns slower and is safer to work with than gasoline is. Less fumes for the Environment too.

Good to know... I do want to be environmentally-friendly if I end up having a Car-B-Q.

Don't forget the graham crackers and chocolate!

The only sure fire trick that works for me is to have a helper. If a buddy stops by to help me with the car we get a lot done. If nobody is available to help then I hire someone to help me with the car. If I'm paying someone to work on the car then I get motivated too. If I'm all by myself then the work proceeds in a somewhat random fashion where I pick and choose what to work on. I'll get focused if I have a deadline for a magazine article but self imposed deadlines don't do much for me.

I have learned to stay busy doing something productive even if I'm not working on the car. I might clean the garage or tidy up the tool box or do something along those lines if I'm not feeling the energy to work on the car. Sometimes that helps. The other trick I'll use is to buy a few parts that I need. When the parts show up I get motivated to put them on the car.

I tried the trick of buying a new carburetor shear plate to get motivated... and all it did was make me want to buy a new intake manifold to works with it.

How about a wager on who gets there car done first?
I've got a 1940 Ford Tudor that is about 60 % complete, new frame, floor boards and firewall, paint and body work is done, front and rear seats are done, fuel and brake lines are installed, wheels and tires are on it needs wiring, carpet, headliner and door panels as well as heater and air conditioning and sound system installed. The new chassis has as a Ford 8 inch rear end in it but I want to install a Ford 9 inch out of a Lincoln Versias(SP?) with disc brakes that may need to be narrowed.
My wife has been on me for the last ten years to get it done before I die, care to place a small wager on who gets which car done first
I'm finishing a 1966 Dodge Coronet Deluxe right now so the 1940 Ford Tudor is next on the list
As they say across the pond, Touche!

I watched a guy demonstrate once with a tape measure. He asked how long do you think you can race? The answer was 75. He stretched the tape measure to 75". How old are you he asked? 62 was the answer. He reduced the tape measure to 13". How long to get the car running? 2 years. The tape measure went down to 11". You better get going was the answer.
Doug

The sloppy mechanics group on facebook can be a real crap show sometimes but there is lots of motivation in there sometimes. DO SOMETHING EVERYDAY is one that I use when I don't get off my rear and work on the car enough. Even if it is something small, go out and there and either organize something or mock something up, or just plan. It usually helps me keep moving and see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have been lazy this year, my car hasn't even been out of the garage but I have started tinkering on it again and its moving along now.

It won't move until you do.

Brad ,
Over the years i have found only 1 thing gets things done .
You have to WANT it .
Motorvational speeches make you feel nice .
Wanting it makes you do it .

If you dont want it or cant find the want , move on .


Tex

"Thoughts and prayers..."

Hard time fitting it into life as it today.

OK, no more motivational speeches requested. It gets done, or it doesn't and I decide where to go from there.

VENT = OFF

How many years has it been since it ran/drove?

Make a dinner bet with a buddy of yours. It's worked for Joel and I.

10

I understand Brad a few months ago I had had it and was ready to dump my car (which would have been a huge mistake!) but as suggested I took time to relax and step back. It took awhile to get started but people were right the thought of the work was worse than the actual work. The getting started was the hardest part but was easier everyday once started. Find 1 easy thing to fix and just keep adding the next easiest and you'll get excited to see things getting finished and it won't be so overwhelming.

Mike

Ditto what AndyF says. I have always been a one-man race team but this year my buddy asked me to drive his car. It is a 5.80 car so I had to get the license. First time out we had a broken roller lifter. He has a spare engine so we swapped them out. Second time out we make 4 passes for the license, car is slowing down with converter problem. We pull the trans and converter and send it in to have it rebuilt. 3rd time out after reinstalling converter and trans, same result, converter wasn't fixed properly. Pull converter again and my friend has some words with a well-known owner of converter company, converter is rebuilt again and reinstalled. I offered to purchase a new converter from another company but my friend wouldn't have any of that. 4th time out my friend drives the car to make sure everything is satisfactory. It goes 6.10 on a slippery track, so we feel everything is working now. Due to track conditions we went home, came back and I drive the car to 6.00 and a 5.99 to get my license signed off by the track tech man. We have been out once again to bracket race, I have run 5.94 at 113, no good on the tree yet with the delay box.

The point of all this rambling is that we motivate each other to get the work done. If I had tried to do all that by myself, a whole season would have been wasted. In the meantime, I had my Duster ready to race and I took it out a couple times while we were waiting for parts, only to have the rear shock mount break. I could have had my friend weld it up, but he had his hands full with his car and a street rod that he is building. So I took the Duster to a fabricator and we decided to rip out the factory shock mounts and fabricate new. He did a beautiful job and again it was a matter of trusting someone else to do the work. Fortunately I am better able to afford to buy parts and pay for services than I used to be when I had 3 kids at home. Now we have 2 cars ready to go and thank goodness the hottest summer ever is almost over!

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Hard time fitting it into life as it today.

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Just bring it to someone to finish. If you have a demanding job and then add family to the mix its hard to get car stuff done unless you can go without sleep. When I get busy at work car stuff takes a back seat. When I put together my car I farmed out most all of the time consuming fab work.

I'm usually okay once I get going, but when I have to drop it...it's usually for weeks at a time.
Then I come back to it and it's hard to find the exact spot where I left off.

One thing that has helped me a whole alot is a dry erase board on the wall. A piece of cardboard or similar would work.

I usually write down the next 2 or 3 detail steps (not big picture steps...we are trying to break it down instead of being overwhelmed)
I make it a point to go look at that every chance I get, and attempt to do a little something towards the goal.

I really need to take others' advice here about asking for help. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of folks who can do
what I need done, way better than I can, at a reasonable price. That's something that has held me back for
a long time, that I need to get over.

You just have to find the right person. I have a short list of people who are willing to come over to my shop and work on my projects for a reasonable amount. They typically have other jobs but they are willing to moonlight for a few extra bucks. If you know someone like that it can really speed the project up. The other way to do it is to work back and forth with a buddy who also has a car project. Help him one Saturday with his car and the he can come over and help you with your car the next week.

This car has been sitting like this for 2 months and I’ve had zero itch to work on it. Between being fat, lazy,out of shape, getting a concussion June 23 in a car wreck, allergies, lack of interest, and Racing my bracket car, I hardly every walk into the shop. On almost finished powerglide transmission has been on my stand for 6 weeks untouched with about an hours work left to do. I haven’t done any porting work since some grinding last winter. A set of .350 offset rockersmall block Edelbrock heads haven’t been touch in 1.5 years is sitting bolted on my flowbench. I gotta snap out of it as I have at least 4 engines I want to build this winter aft r race season finishes the end of October

Don't make it perfect, just get it running.

Stop dreaming, and start doing.

This^^^^^^^^^^^^ Jesus! I am half dead and manage to work on mine once in a while! Maybe you should ask Porky Pig what he would do....

I about choked on that one laughing - I think we have a winner for best "Motivational Speech"

This is the plan .

Tex

At least wait for a lung full of below sea level air before deciding. less than 30 days away.....

Hear, Hear!

i must of missed a lot on the way. I remember years ago you went with us when we rented the track. them you built a new engine and dynoed it I thought. So what do you have to still do to it. to get it running and driving.

There's my problem is I'm "that guy" I can do transmissions,engines and rear ends with some tuning and electrical work thrown in so I spend time working on friends cars while mine is about 12 hours from being ready to race.
Now the good news is I got motivated from this thread and spent 4 hours out in the shop tonight and now the engine is ready to run again
Thanks Brad

Gus

I have certain tasks that I wanted to complete as part of putting the car back on the road & track. One of the things I have to consider is how many I'm willing to short-cut or ignore completely, neither option which I like, since there were specific reasons for wanting to complete them now, rather than after the car's back together.

Also, there have been some "one step forward, two step back" experiences which have put me off track, such as some krap I determined last night unexpectedly. As straight forward as the process "should" be, it hasn't been. Some of it is self-inflicted and some of it "is what it is" due to time constraints, etc.

I'll post updates if I make some key milestones, but not much else to say at this point. And in retrospect, I shouldn't have bothered starting this thread in the first place and should just go about my business.

When I need motivation , all I need to do is think back to the advice that the family gave Navin R. Johnson as he was leaving home for the first time.......................The Lord Loves a Working Man , Don't Trust Whitey and See a Doctor to Get Rid of It.
I hope it helps.
I already has this , and that lesson has also served me well.

For me getting my car running & street legal really helped me stay motivated to go back & fix , finish or redo areas of the car, getting to drive the car even with the worn out junk 383 made me smile, then it got the A518 & 512 low deck ect,ect, more smiles. it will never be done

The biggest source of motivation: Progress!


motivation science

These pictures are 5 years apart. I've spent every chance I can in the garage. I don't have cable T.V. So instead of getting home from work, and kicking back, I crank up the radio, and try to do something on the car. Some days it's 10 minutes, some times it 5-6 hours.

Don't sweat the small stuff and just get it done. It's to the point that all of the analyzing you do as far as what works, what doesn't work, who is right, who is wrong, this is the popular opinion on this or that has consumed your ability to complete a project. Do yourself a favor and log off Moparts for 2 months and just put your car together and drive it.. At the end of the day nobody really cares if your pushrods are .003 too long or if the BLP main body has no definitive data on it's flow numbers vs Proform... Life is short.......... Get er done!!!!!!!!!!

I've been saying for years i need too do the body and paint on mine ... it "might" actually get done in the next year.

Do what you can’t do once the engine is installed. Then install the engine and get it running. It will all fall into place after that. Do as I say not as I do. :-)

Brad I had to have the engine in CokeBottleKids old Charger eat a piston before I concentrated on my Demon that hadn't ran in at least 10 years..... It runs now and runs damn good, suck it up and buckle down.

No speech from me....Get off your butt and finish it! And after that, if you feel the same way, put it out to market....

I'm getting close to finishing up the Duster. This is one of those projects that I thought I'd knock out in a few months then it turned into a year and now it is right at 2 years since I started working on it. I changed my mind on a bunch of things, changed direction on engine, changed direction on race car vs. street car, etc. But I learned a lot in the process and maybe even had some fun. It was a lot more work than I expected but it does feel good to be getting close to the end. I wouldn't be close to finishing the project without help. I got stuck hard a couple of times where I just didn't have the tools or talent to fix the problems. I had to drag the car twice to a chassis shop so they could fix the core support, add the cage, fix the floor, fix the rear suspension mounting points, fix the frame issues, etc. I just didn't have the capability of doing that stuff. I also had it towed to the paint shop and had it towed out for a custom exhaust system. I've had people over several times to help me with stuff like the front end alignment and window glass. I've learned the hard way that if I need help I need help. If I try something myself and bust stuff then that puts me further behind. I have more tools, time and experience than most home shop guys but there are a lot of things I don't know how to do so I learned to ask for help.

To be fair, the Duster sat in my shop untouched for 5 years while I was working full time. I didn't actually have any time to work on it until I quit my day job. So I understand if people who have a family and are working 40+ hours a week can't also squeeze in the time to work on a car project. I didn't have time for this project when I was working full time.

I know a guy who has the same problem Brad. Nice car, or three, plane in the shop and none work or are being touched.

I agree with Andy F, it is much easier to motivate yourself to work when you have someone on the clock working with you. A/C also helps this time of year.

At least the grass gets mowed.

Good point. I don't have AC in my shop but I my shop is heated. Having a heated shop opens up another 3 or 4 months out of the year of time for me. Before I had a heated shop I was shut down for the winter. I couldn't get anything done when the shop was in the 40's or colder. It was just too darn cold.

LOL..."and maybe had some fun"! I don't know why, but that just made me LOL.

Well these projects are supposed to be fun but building a car is rarely a lot of fun. Mostly it is an exercise in frustration. Parts show up that are damaged or don't fit or are garbage quality. If everything fit and worked perfectly right out of the box then building a car would be fairly easy but in my experience less than half the parts I buy get used "out of the box". So for me it is just a constant source of frustration to buy stuff and then fix it.

What are you afraid of and who are you trying to impress? PUT the junk together and drive it. Stop living in the hypothetical world and figure it out.

You want motivation I will tell you what works for me; what is your other option? Give up and sell it? For pennies on the dollar? And let some joker put it together and get all the glory?

Truer words have never been typed.

I look at it this way...either finish the dam challenger or start wearing skinny jeans and hitting up Starbucks for poetry night.

And stay off of speedtalk and ebay!

At this point you are living in your head and your own worst enemy.

Buy yourself a cold one and pick up a wrench.

Start attending the local track once a month minimum.

I built and broke three + cars since you forgot to check the oil and killed mopig mill #27.]

On my way to finishing three more lol. I have a wife, job, kids etc. and IMO that excuse only goes so far. 40 hours a week is nothing. Most racers I know work 50+ so they have car money to blow. As said above you have to want it.

Is that what you were looking for? Remember, this is a grown man's sport. You have to have some grit.

This is a good idea to show before and after pics for motivation.
It took me 18 months to get mine together. I spent every day doing something related to the build even if was just ordering parts or looking at it. I didn't do a lot of the fab work since I don't have the skill like some people here.

You yourself HAVE to WANT it to accomplish it... It took me 6 years to finish my Barracuda. I only got it done because I was tired of it sitting and not being completed. When I first bought the car I figured it would take me a year maybe 2 to complete as it was a SOLID project. I wanted to switch the car from a /6 to V8, update the rear to 8 3/4, give it a fresh paint job and redo the interior. It took me about a year to switch the drive train around, paint under the hood, door jambs, etc. I got the car in primer and that's where the work STOPPED. I don't really like body work and I had some other things that took priority over working on the car so I always found an excuse to not work on it. Finally in Oct 2018 I had enough and said I'm getting this car done to be on the road by spring. I spent alot of evenings and most weekends Oct to Feb to get the car ready for paint and finally got it painted. Ended up getting the car on the road in June. There's still some minor things that I want to do, like upgrade the front 9" drums to disc, but that's a weekend project for the winter time. If you WANT it, you WILL get it done, if not, you'll just keep making excuses and things will NEVER get accomplished.

Ooops, should have been this:







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Kudos to those who have been getting it done, regardless of the adversities they've faced.

Honestly, I'm sick of the subject. I'll fix it or I won't, but there's no point in bringing it up on here again unless I can show either progress or a Bill of Sale.

I restored this car over 20 years ago. I had never done a car before and it took 3 years. I had just giving up drinking and this became my new addiction. I needed something to fill in all the lost time. Great motivation! I made the mistake of trying to make it perfect and that made it hard to drive afterwards because of the fear of it getting damaged after all that work. The fear was justified because after 3 years work it only had 30 miles on it when the hood got hit by a falling acorn and chipped it down to the primer. Driven less than 2500 miles in over 20 years now. When it was worn out I'd drive it anywhere and as you see was still a good looking 10 footer. Don't try and be perfect build something you can enjoy. I doubt I could be as motivated today as I was then.

Mike

And yes the car and garage are painted now.

Tell you what....spend a half an hour on the car tonight and report back to let us know how it goes. Pick one task and knock it out. Even if you are cleaning in prep for a job. Fyi i am going to t&t my 68 GTS *again* and it was off the road since '86 before August.

Brad, all motivation and happiness comes from within us, you, correct
It is up to you to decide if you want to work in it or not
Good Luck, NOW get out there and get it done

As I tell my children you can accomplish anything in life IF YOU HAVE THE WANT TO...If you don't have the want to then nothing will get done. When my kids were young I would spend the hours after they and the wife went to bed to work on the car. Two, three four hours a night listening to late night talk radio. My trouble these days is I have all the time in the world and not a lot to do. I need a new car to work on but don't have room anymore.

Well, what'cha done on it recently?

It's a bee-yotch when things don't work out how we expect. It's also pretty much the way it bloody well goes...

IMO, just pick a task that seems like it would be doable/affordable/fun, and go for it. Maybe change the project if the scope is too big. For example, if money is tight and that high-dollar killer engine is bogging everything down, how about a junkyard engine to get it running?
Just an example, cuz I don't know what you're building. But I'm sure you get the point.

And, like lots of guys here have said, puttering along at something a little everyday gets it done.

I'm good, folks; we can let this mistake of a thread die.

I'll post when I can provide progress updates, FWIW.

Is it done yet!!!

All of the time spent on the computer asking this question and many others like it could have added up to a lot of hours in the garage...

All of the car guys that I know have unfinished projects in their garages. I have about 5 car buddies who are good friends and I try to check in with them once or twice a month to see if they need any help with their project. They help me, I help them and we all get stuff done. I've found that just telling someone to finish up their car project is like telling someone to stop smoking or to lose weight or to exercise more or to save more money or whatever. In other words, it is useless. Showing up with your toolbox and spending a few hours turning wrenches actually helps. Now that I have more time on my hands I'm enjoying helping other guys finish up their projects.

Nope.

Yep.