Hey guys,

Restoring cars is fun. Actually very fun! But boy, it can get frustrating. I just spent more than 3 hours in my garage looking for one part, which I wanted to mount this weekend...

The darn alternator tensioner bracket which mounts to the chain cover has disappeared. I know I have one. I know how it looks. I know how it smells. I know how it tastes! But I can't find it. Boy is that frustrating. Been through all the boxes. Every Single little spot where it could be. Nooe. Gone!

So, a downside is definately looking for parts ypu know you have and ypu know you need but habe gone missing... Grrrrrr...

 

You already know you will get there. As you say it's fun and things like this are what make it fun. Let us all know where you find it or how you resolve it please then we can all go oohhh!!! So that's where it was!!!!!

 

I sure am glad I'm not the only one. Four years ago I disassembled a vintage Corvette down to every last nut, bolt and washer for a total body-off restoration. Carefully, bagged, tagged, labeled and boxed everything (or so I thought) and stored it on the shelves. I'm nearing completion, maybe another month or two of weekends. But yes, I have spent an inordinate amount of time hunting parts. "I could swear I put that in this box!" but its not there. And the crazy thing is it's usually the large parts that were too big to fit in a box, things so big you'd think it'd be impossible to overlook them. But the most frustrating yet is hunting tools. I have this nasty habit. I'll need to fetch a part and I'll absentmindedly take whatever tool is in my hand with me as I go to the shelves. After searching through a dozen boxes and returning to the car with the holy grail, "Dammit, what'd I do with that ratchet?" Another half an hour down the drain.

 

I think you belong to a club with a rather large membership even the tool thing sounds very familiar.
When l did my XJRS resto l found l could minimise the delays by proceeding on several different areas of the car and if a needed part for one area was found to be hiding from view l would move my attention to different area and a different part and almost magically the original lost soul appears.

 

Exactly that is what I am planing on doing. Sod the part at the moment. I'll rearrange the garage a little (getting very cramped in there now with 3 motorbikes, a V12, loads of boxes and more crud nobody needs at the moment) and move on to installing parts along the sideS of the engine and start on overhauling the Harrison A6. It'll probably jump into my eye then.

The worst thing is really, that I know I have it, I know I saw it and I know I laid it on my engine. But I don't know what happened after that. I even had it in my hands as I was considering to have it zinc plated but it was just oily... So I had it last time about 2 weeks ago in my hands...

Grrrrrrr!

 

sounds like me when doing mine. You know you just had that damn part in your hand about an hpur ago, so were is it now. spend hours looking for and come across that other part you were looking for 2 days ago. then go looking for my eye glasses just to realize they are on top on your head. Or, looking for your cell phone with a light in the car, under the car and all nook and crannies just to realize, that light you are useing is your phone LOL

 

It's always in the last place you look.
So, I alway look there first.

 

When I restored my car I put everything in labeled bags and boxes, and I still had stuff missing. So I feel your pain.

I solved this problem with a work in progress bench everything off the car sits on or under the WIP bench till it's needed. I also built a mobile work bench to wheel around the shed and I always (in reality mostly) put my tools back on this bench.

 

Okay, I've just spemt more than 7 hours of my Saturday cleaning the garage up and going through all my boxes. Like that I was able to shed some rubbish too. Heck, I hate collecting things I don't need. But I also found some parts I thought I didn't have

So, the little bracket has gone. I have just sent out some mails to see who has one. I bet, when the new one arrives, the old one will appear from nowhere as if it was magically there. Abrakadabra! Hocus pocus! Simsalabim! PING! THERE!

 

I'll join that club please
Found the spanner I was looking for on the window sill in the bathroom once

 

I've done that too! I was looking forma gasket for my XJ8 at one time. I knew I had it indoors but where!? Found it in the washing machine... In a pocket of my jeans... No idea why it was there.

 

That makes me feel better, I'm not the only one that does stupid stuff like that.

 

Guys all this is too, too familiar!

 

Just a few weeks ago, I was fabricating a part in sheet metal and marking it with a Sharpie permanent marker. A few days later, the marker turned up in the bottom of the washing machine. Don't know how, but the cap stayed on and no ink leaked out but it could have been a disaster. I know a guy who has got a washing machine in his shop just for shop rags and work clothes - actually kinda cool, he bought an antique washing machine at a swap meet and restored it so it fits with his 1930's hot rod theme. When I build a bigger shop, I think I'm gonna have a separate laundry. It'd be nice to have a machine big enough for car covers.

 

Two stand out despite my efforts to avoid this issue.


1. A couple of decades or more ago, time flies, I was reworking the oil sump of the four cylinder circa 32 Ford engine for my "Hot Rod of the forties" roadster. In the process conversion to full pressure oiling was involved. And, I ship wright fashion, a flap to control oil slosh away from the pump pickup. I made the flap and it's hinge to the dam. Primed sand painted in Glyptal. Looked great. I put it away. Time came to install. where in the h.... dirt it go ???? Started to make another ! Voila, hanging from the ceiling over my bench, almpost right in front of my eyes!!!!


2. I've been thrashing on my newly acquired old Chipper Shredder. I removed the air cleaner to see how the choke and throttle blades worked in the updraft carb. Oh, h..., I lost the top cover for the air cleaner!!! Looked high and low and in between. Nope. So, I embarked
on fabrication. I chose Plexiglass. I was working on the lay out for the cuts and drilling. Using the "can" as my guide. SOG !!! The can is the lid!!! Only one "hole" no other. I'd been looking for something that existed only in my mind !!!


Another stumble in that process. it's tale for another day.


Oh, I do try to avoid these episodes. I use pans for tasks. Parts and tools in each as opposed to all over the place. I think the parts and tools fore the belt tensioner assembly is in one. A clever levered thing that works as a clutch as well.


Carl

 

Well, the most obvious thimg happened...

I ordered a used one, got it delivered today. Cleaned it up and painted it correctly. Went into the garage and my old one was all of a sudden on the barstool which I moved like 20 times and used to put mymcamera on while taking the compressor apart. I am not kidding. I moved everything in the garage. Really everything. And of course the barstool.

I have NO idea whatsoever how this part could be overseen. It is impossible, especially since the barstool fell over on Monday! Nobody else has been in the garage since last Thursday! The only person was me.

Magic? Is it like on Toy story - do these parts have a life of their own and wait for you to turn your back on them?

 

roflmao.................it's George The Ghost

 

i picked up a new pair of glasses last week, went in the garage for something and spotted my missing claw hammer on top of the garage door. It had only been missing for 6 months. I have no idea how it got there .

i wasnt using it on the jag honest

 

My Daily Driver 'The Merc' Broke down and so with the GF working during the day, everywhere I went I had to walk.

The Merc's been out of action for the best part of a Month, until I finally managed to fix the mysterious 'Random Stalling Problem'

So being without a Car for so long, I walked all the way back to 'Orange Blossom Towers' only to find that my Car was not in the drive!

I'd somehow forgotten I'd fixed it and walked back home, while leaving the Car in the Town.

 

OB, now THAT is something I have not yet read or heard of in my entire (short) life!