After 8 years I've done it... And I KNEW it!!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

...I made an appointment with a garage to get my car fixed

Has this ever happened to you before, that your mojo for a car is so down, you rather pay someone to do a job for you? Rather than make your hands dirty with that car...?

I've arranged an appointment to get the W124 fixed. Ball joint change. It's neither expensive nor 'realy' difficult, but I can't for the live of me get me motivated to work on that car... I rather safe my energy to fix the W123.

So far the W124 has only done ~3500km - and spent more time standing somewhere broken down than driving I still like driving that car - but I hate HATE working on it.

I want to drive the W123!

Soooo... Post pictures of you working on cars you enjoy or enjoyed Or better: just general "working on cars" pictures.

My old diesel-Merc; should've kept that one... ;D never let me down.



Welding the W123's wing...



And pulling a dent out of a W123 coupe, wich was realy big fun!

[PandaSelecta]

Cant see anything wrong with that as its the daily, if you were saying you hated working on the W123, thats the time to worry, but dailies are often fixed by garages so all the mojo is focused on the retro

[ToolsnTrack]

Welding


being "intimate"


despairing


nesting

[murran]

don't think ive ever paid a garage to do work on my cars (apart from bodywork painting once or twice).

i work in a garage so i know how it all works (probably the reason why).

i don't wana pay vat on top of the labour either!!

[HoTWire]

I do all my own work on my cars, and look down on anyone that doesn't.





If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

[elmotheewokking]

After spending the tail end of last week under my sisters Ka, I nearly lost the will to live.
How a 10 year old Ford needs twice as much welding as a 34 year old Triumph is beyond my comprehension. I refuse to go near that car ever again.
I'm itching to get some more bits for the Trump though...

[Seth]

_{[not a recent photo]}

[murran]

infact id go so far as to say I couldn't comprehend paying someone to do I job I could do easily.

that said if I had money coming out of my ears and I had a job coming up I really couldnt face.


just recently I had a job forced on me by the total fooking shed of a discovery that our lass drives round in.
front diff sh1t itself on the wednesday inbetween xmas and new year..... had to remove front prop at the side of the road and put the diff lock on to drive it.
opted to buy complete front axle from doug dransfield for £150.
was not looking forward to doing it at all!!!!
but as it happens I quite enjoyed it. even on new years eve day.

would I have paid garage labour of the 5 hours it took me to fit said axles change all gear oils and engine oil and filter............. no I bloody wouldnt!!

pics for proof....

ive weighed in the innerds of the old axle for £31
anybody want the casing?
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180797695004?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

id never pay someone to do something I could do myself.

[Dez]

Jan 17, 2012 20:38:13 GMT Seth said:

_{[not a recent photo]}

it cant be that old, its in colour, and theres one of them newfangled wheelie bins in the background! ;D

[alex77]

with no spare offroad wheel i had to replace all four with orginals was too easy with offroad tyres anyhow !


Bodging the beemers exhaust at Silverstone track day.
was too wet for the slicks in the end and in our usual level of prep no other tyres
so swaped the sticker on the windscreen to my celica and had much fun on the budget tyres that came with the wheels brand new for as a 400 quid package
really liked that car in the end !

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Î'm usualy to proud (&tight) to pay someone... But... Gah. I do enough work on those cars (that's my current job)... No mojo. But working on a W123 - any day! I realy got to love those cars...

[RobinJI]

I'm getting to this stage with the Passat, it's MOT's due in a little over a month and I know it'll need one or two little things sorting, which I'm very tempted to just get sorted by the garage. In my eyes it's still just cheap transport, there's no excitement to the idea of doing work on it, and the jobs are all things I've done multiple times in the past, so I won't enjoy learning the process either, which I think's half the fun sometimes. Plus with the final term of my final year of uni just about to start, I'm not exactly rolling in free time, but then I guess it might make a welcome break from studying at some point. When I come to modify it once I've finished uni I'll definitely be doing everything my self, but just fixing simple things in far from ideal working conditions, I'm not feeling the excitement for unfortunately. Normally I'm 100% with Murran, and won't pay anyone to do something I'm capable of, but in this case I'm lacking the proper tools, work place and time, so it may have to be the exception that proves the rule.

Anyway, some stuff I have enjoyed working on:

My Polo, this was my first car and I learned a hell of a lot fixing it up, unfortunately rot claimed it in the end, as I couldn't weld back then

Picking it up, in need of some TLC:



Spot the patch's of primer, unfortunately the sill covers were hiding much much worse rot:



My mini starting to be dismantled, back when the plans still involved keeping it mostly mini based:



First bit of real welding on the mini, reconstructing the corner of the door shuts, all the curved area is new, this has since all been cut out :



The Scirocco, I guess this is the car I've made my own the most, as I've modified it more than any other car I've owned (bar the mini, which wont be done for a while) this was it receiving some much needed new metal in the exhaust and some oversized brakes:



It's first incarnation, it came down another ~10mm after these photos, I know this isn't working on it, but a lot of the enjoyment comes from standing back and admiring what you've just done:





Making the Recaros fit:



Receiving it's diesel engine, this was a frantic but enjoyable weekend at the brilliant location that is Area 52:



Modifying engine mounts:



Fiddling with gearbox's:



Making a downpipe:




And then there's the mini.... many hours of fun have been had, and many, many more are still to come with this one, I'm itching to get back to it once uni's over ;D Just a teaser of photos for this one:

Fiberglass:



Electronics Geekery (although this ended up in the MX-5 in the end):



Mocking up (always smile inducing):



And as it sits, waiting for many more hours of fun:






I think that'll do, I do usually enjoy working on cars

[ChasR]

I don't blame you (I had a daily not so long ago that did not seem to stay right) but I also noticed that the odd few times that it went into the garage it would also come back with more faults (I do appreciate that it was an awkward (but not impossible) car to work on).

For that reason I tend to do more work on the cars myself where I can.

[pantera2075]

I have paid for a garage to do work twice.

1st time A-series Manta, clutch swap, gearbox fell off 4 hours later and bent the input shaft - had to threaten to sue them before getting a new (scrapper Cavalier) gearbox fitted - they scratched the paintwork too.

2nd time, drove in a 1971 Mini Coop rep in really nice nick with a bust flexi and NO brakes. Tech drove it into the shop and straight into the back wall (NO brakes). Wrote it off. Few years later I was his best man. Now I have a tame MOT tester. Heh!

I trust garages to change tyres - nowt else.

[jasonb360]

Jan 17, 2012 21:25:25 GMT murran said:

infact id go so far as to say I couldn't comprehend paying someone to do I job I could do easily.

that said if I had money coming out of my ears and I had a job coming up I really couldnt face.


just recently I had a job forced on me by the total fooking shed of a discovery that our lass drives round in.
front diff sh1t itself on the wednesday inbetween xmas and new year..... had to remove front prop at the side of the road and put the diff lock on to drive it.
opted to buy complete front axle from doug dransfield for £150.
was not looking forward to doing it at all!!!!
but as it happens I quite enjoyed it. even on new years eve day.

would I have paid garage labour of the 5 hours it took me to fit said axles change all gear oils and engine oil and filter............. no I bloody wouldnt!!

id never pay someone to do something I could do myself.

I think the phrase time is money comes into it... quite a lot of people could do all mechanical jobs on their car however if being a mechanic isn't a day job then it is quite tricky to find time to do the work that you don't want to do. By the time you get home and get the car in the air and drag the tools out etc etc. (as if you leave anything on the driveway then someone will steal it) then you simply can't be bothered to do it yourself. Especially when it is dark/cold/raining. What you really want to be doing in the free time you have is playing with the project.

I can fully understand why the OP chose to do it!! - I haven't as yet, but in the future when I have more commitments I can definitely see myself getting a garage to do stuff if needs be. (Also, if no-one got a garage to do any work then they wouldn't be needed....)

Here's a car I do enjoy working on:

[wagoneer]

Choice. Now I have the funds to be flexible, choosing to ask a garage to do a job on the cars that I could do myself makes a world of difference.

[gouldygtr]

i used to do a lot of stuff on my car and just use garages for stuff like clutchs/cam belts

on my daily I now do very little, cant be bothered with it tbh, when you do over 60 hours a week the last thing i want to do is spend time fixing a car which I'm not into.

The problem I have is that most garages you go to are curse word, ive taken my Saab 9-3 to 3 garages to have a knocking noise diagnosed on the front, None could find it, I took a look and in 10 mins found it was the steering rack

if its a project retro i do as much as i can on my own still but ive only got a T5 camper so its not a project really lol

[stealthstylz]

I nearly gave in and paid the guys next door to work to sort the handbrake out on my car yesterday as it's stopping me putting it through an MOT. Tried everything they said to get it to work and failed, and I was resigned to buying 2x rear calipers and 2x handbrake cables plus their labour for fitting them as i'd lost the will to live (worked out at about £200 with discount). However luckily I had one last go and something obviously started working that before wasn't inside the calipers and now its working perfectly.

Matt

[Soopahfly]

I nearly always pay someone to fix my cars.
It works out cheaper, as my mechanic charges less per hour than I do, takes him less time and lets me concentrate on earning more money.

I do the quick simple stuff though.

Daily's going in for rear discs, pads and CV boot. Sure, I could do the discs and pads, 30 min job at most but I've never been happy with how the hand brake holds, and the rear discs are massively corroded which makes me think the calipers stuck.
So I let my man do it

[ChasR]

I would not mind taking a car to a garage. Whilst my local garage is OK and IMO fairly decent with me the car will still come back with faults (some which they have caused). As for trying other local garages, they tend to be worse, cover up their work etc.

The only garages I do trust to do any work are all at least 30 miles from me. Whilst they are very good (and take their time thinking over the job) they cannot always fit people in at short notice...