And my wife wonders why I swear so much

73 Mike

73 Mike

I'll drive it someday
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
714
Location
Boston, MA
I snuck out of work a little early today. I got everything I wanted done and went in early anyways but I wanted a little more daylight to get a few things done on the car. All of my missing parts came in so I wanted to finish putting on the sidepipe covers, wiper hoses and wanted to do a chasis and u-joint lube (never done it yet in the whole time I've had it).

First I put the rear brace on the side pipe cover. Two #8 machine screws and washers. Almost immediately drop the washers and nuts under some shelfing. Easy enough to go over to the hardware store to get replacements but daylight is burning so I thought I'd move on.

Decided to grease the linkages and u-joints. I got a new pneumatic grease gun with continuous flow from Sears. Charge up the compressor, hook it up and pull the trigger to prime it. Nothing. It's an f'n grease gun with like 3 moving parts. How the hell can it fail? Pulled off the flex hose to see if that was the problem. Nothing and now the trigger is locked up. Frick. Undid the trigger valve and piston. Nothing seems to be working. Fricken Chinese junk.

Daylight is burning.

I remove the grease cartridge and flex hose and put it on my old, single shot pneumatic grease gun. Prime it up. No problem. I get the jack out to raise the front end. Doesn't seem to be working. It's a freeking jack. How can it not be working? Fiddle and futz with it and get the front end up off the ground. Go to start lubing the steering linkages. I can't get the end of the grease gun to go over the fittings. THIS ISN'T FREEKING ROCKET SCIENCE!!!! I take the end off the grease gun and loosen the holder. Put it back on. FINALLY able to push it on the first fitting. Start pumping. By the way, it's now dark. Damned if I'm going to stop now. Unfortunately, it's now very hard to see any grease comming out of the joint. Pump some more. Pump yet even more. Next thing I know, a blob of grease the size of an orange falls on my arm and rolls off onto my jack. Frick. Did I mention that I hit my head on the undercariage when the blob fell?

At this point, my wife comes out and tells me to BBQ dinner.

And she wonders why I swear so much. That was three beers ago. I feel much better now.
 
awesome :thumbs:

can you think of anything better than some quality time in the garage ?


two more beers and you'll feel even better.... enjoy the BBQ :)
 
It is so frustrating when you have to fix your tools!
As for the nuts and washers, that's just Mr. Murphy at work for you. If I remember the law correctly it says that any time you drop a tool or part it will roll to the hardest place to get to.
Speaking of, one time about 10 years ago I was replacing the (shorty) header on my car and managed to knock the 7/16" wrench off the fender. Wanna guess where it went? Yep, of all the places in the universe it could have gone, it managed to make it down the exhaust pipe.
Seriously, just how the hell does that happen?
 
some days it's just better to throw the tools as far away as you can and step away. If not, for some reason whenever holding a hammer everything looks like a damned nail
 
Twin_Turbo said:
some days it's just better to throw the tools as far away as you can and step away. If not, for some reason whenever holding a hammer everything looks like a damned nail
Click to expand...
Yeah, finger nails....:smash::clobbered::gurney:
 
clutchdust said:
It is so frustrating when you have to fix your tools!
As for the nuts and washers, that's just Mr. Murphy at work for you. If I remember the law correctly it says that any time you drop a tool or part it will roll to the hardest place to get to.
Speaking of, one time about 10 years ago I was replacing the (shorty) header on my car and managed to knock the 7/16" wrench off the fender. Wanna guess where it went? Yep, of all the places in the universe it could have gone, it managed to make it down the exhaust pipe.
Seriously, just how the hell does that happen?
Click to expand...
Hehe, awesome. I've found that tools will generally roll to the exact mid point under the car. I have a couple of telescopic magnet thingies now that make it a shit load easier retrieve stuff.

Although, they didn't help at all when a mate knocked a socket down into the void at the rear of the front fender - that was fun to get out :rolleyes:
 
73 Mike said:
I snuck out of work a little early today. I got everything I wanted done and went in early anyways but I wanted a little more daylight to get a few things done on the car. All of my missing parts came in so I wanted to finish putting on the sidepipe covers, wiper hoses and wanted to do a chasis and u-joint lube (never done it yet in the whole time I've had it).

First I put the rear brace on the side pipe cover. Two #8 machine screws and washers. Almost immediately drop the washers and nuts under some shelfing. Easy enough to go over to the hardware store to get replacements but daylight is burning so I thought I'd move on.

Decided to grease the linkages and u-joints. I got a new pneumatic grease gun with continuous flow from Sears. Charge up the compressor, hook it up and pull the trigger to prime it. Nothing. It's an f'n grease gun with like 3 moving parts. How the hell can it fail? Pulled off the flex hose to see if that was the problem. Nothing and now the trigger is locked up. Frick. Undid the trigger valve and piston. Nothing seems to be working. Fricken Chinese junk.

Daylight is burning.

I remove the grease cartridge and flex hose and put it on my old, single shot pneumatic grease gun. Prime it up. No problem. I get the jack out to raise the front end. Doesn't seem to be working. It's a freeking jack. How can it not be working? Fiddle and futz with it and get the front end up off the ground. Go to start lubing the steering linkages. I can't get the end of the grease gun to go over the fittings. THIS ISN'T FREEKING ROCKET SCIENCE!!!! I take the end off the grease gun and loosen the holder. Put it back on. FINALLY able to push it on the first fitting. Start pumping. By the way, it's now dark. Damned if I'm going to stop now. Unfortunately, it's now very hard to see any grease comming out of the joint. Pump some more. Pump yet even more. Next thing I know, a blob of grease the size of an orange falls on my arm and rolls off onto my jack. Frick. Did I mention that I hit my head on the undercariage when the blob fell?

At this point, my wife comes out and tells me to BBQ dinner.

And she wonders why I swear so much. That was three beers ago. I feel much better now.
Click to expand...



What! All that carrying on and you didn't even skin a knuckle? Did your head bleed or get a nice knot on it? If not you need to go back and try harder.......

Just kidding.... it's good to vent! We have all been there and share your misery!
 
clutchdust said:
It is so frustrating when you have to fix your tools!
As for the nuts and washers, that's just Mr. Murphy at work for you. If I remember the law correctly it says that any time you drop a tool or part it will roll to the hardest place to get to.
Speaking of, one time about 10 years ago I was replacing the (shorty) header on my car and managed to knock the 7/16" wrench off the fender. Wanna guess where it went? Yep, of all the places in the universe it could have gone, it managed to make it down the exhaust pipe.
Seriously, just how the hell does that happen?
Click to expand...

Twin_Turbo said:
some days it's just better to throw the tools as far away as you can and step away. If not, for some reason whenever holding a hammer everything looks like a damned nail
Click to expand...

CD, best I can claim is a distant second to THAT one.....odds are.....

TT, many years ago, I serious....tossed a wrench SO hard that mofo landed tang end on, and put a dent/hole in the fender....lets just say I was ROCKET pissed.....


:clobbered::banned:
 
Had a much better day today. Even got a short drive in.

I did grease the rear u-joints. Judging by how much went in and how little came out, I don't think they have been greased since leaving the factory. Hope they don't fail now that they have been lubed.

Still haven't figure out what's up with the jack. Maybe I need to grind up some Viagra and put it in the fluid.
 
If you have an early C3 with the vacuum operated windshield wiper door, open up the door. Set a small socket down on the floor of the plenum. Stare at it, in a minute or two, the socket will, on its own, fall over, and roll into the void between the front clip and the fire wall. The same thing will happen if you're doing anything else in the windshield wiper door cavity. Any loose fastener will immediately race full stop into this void and disappear forever. It's astounding. When I work on this area, I stuff the void with paper towels to keep anything from falling down into it.
 
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