So how do you know when to give up?

[RWDtech]

wow interesting...the camaro is doing this to me and want a fox. random crap keeps breaking...in the past 2 months i did front brake lines, then overhauled the rear drums (cause i cant afford rear disc swap at this time), then the water pump broke, and i just recently had to get a new bracket that holds on the pwr steering pump and alternator...since when does a bracket just randomly crack lol such BS. What makes it worse is i go all out on the car, i get the best parts and end up replacing other stuff while im at it...i always spend more than i need to

then my other problem is i love how my camaro looks, but i dont have a garage to put it in and i feel so guilty just driving the car and parking it outside. i feel like im the owner who is runing the car. I have a 305 which is a waste of time to mod, i wont have money for a 350 swap any time soon (plus im sure the tranny would go out after i got a 350 which adds even more cost). So basically i have a car that looks really nice IMO but isnt really fast. I want a fox because theres so much stuff out there, its a lot easier to make them fast. BUT it seems to me like the general pubic just hates foxes..."omg you want an 80's mustang, those are so ugly" dont get me wrong, i love how foxes look, i dont see why people hate them. With the fox i feel i will have a car thats fast but not as visually appealing as the camaro...im not trying to piss anyone off here lol, its just what i think. i dont know, maybe i should get a beat up looking notch and make it real fast, that way i wont have to feel guilty about parking it outside or driving it...or a crazy ex-girlfriend taking a bat to it

 

[90mustangGT]

Hotrods don't make good daily drivers. I could not live without my truck.

 

[Foxfan88]

There's an old Taoist saying... "The journey is the reward."

which i feel is very true, i had loads more fun actually taking my engine apart, the road to achieving the goal. Then when i get there its like ahhh. not near as fun as getting there....

 

[crazypete]

There's an old Taoist saying... "The journey is the reward."

which i feel is very true, i had loads more fun actually taking my engine apart, the road to achieving the goal. Then when i get there its like ahhh. not near as fun as getting there....

I think everything in my life has been this way: chasing the girls and actually catching a girlfriend, finally moving out, finally graduating college, finishing my big musclecar project, making it to the west coast, finally seeing my favorite band in person. You get there and you realize life is exactly the same as the day before except now the chase has ended. The struggle is 70% of the fun.

On the flipside, the things that I expected nothing from are the things that turned out to be the most amazing experiences: driving through the midwest, going kart racing, ATV'ing, volunteering.

I moved into an apartment "like this" (parking situation) because, in boston, thats all there is. Buy a house? Ha! I'm happy if I can scrape a few thousand together right now, much less commit to pay for 350-450K house.

Yeah, I'm trying to drive a hotrod as a daily driver but I did that through most of my college years. The only difference is I have a lot more hot in my hot rod now (uuum, huh huh huh he said rod). I wish I had left it with a few bolts ons, fuel injected and stick. I'd be 10K richer.

Honestly, I'm just completely fed up with everything in my life across the board and this car keeps making itself an itch that needs scratching. Maybe I should deep six it for a year like aaron11272 said.

Meanwhile maybe roll back to E7's and stock cam and lifters and get some money back for my afr165's, fti cam and 1.7 roller rockers.

 

[Aaron'S'tang]

Sell it!! Buy a Camaro!!

 

[Dark Knight]

What kind of probs have you been having? I've been using my vert as a daily driver for years. If it's just normal stuff for a high mileage car, then selling it for a newer car might put you in the same boat with repairs. At least fox parts are cheap. Hell, the GF's acura needed new radiator hoses.. $400.. dealer only and there were 13..
The point is, unless you are planning on getting something witha good warranty, you could be going from one prob to another...

 

[Strype]

I never really gave up... every now and then I try to PIITB.

 

[crazypete]

What kind of probs have you been having? I've been using my vert as a daily driver for years. If it's just normal stuff for a high mileage car, then selling it for a newer car might put you in the same boat with repairs.

I agree totally....and the "replacement car" would be a higher milage 2.0T saab. But repairs I can do. Fixing the "why in the world wont it start" or the infamous "mod A interferes with mod B" problems is significantly costlier than a few tie rods and spark plugs.

What kind of problems have I been experiencing? The first 4 are old history....everything else was the last 2....maybe 2 1/2 years.

-A long time ago.....driving down the highway.....eeeeeEEEEEEEE BAM! Screeching to a stop with a little spin at the end. T-5 input shaft retainer broke. Took the gearbox with it...locked the gearing inside and probably one of the rear tires. Replaced T-5 and rebuilt the engine while I was at it.
-A long time ago......car died. Long diagnosis later, turns out it was just a n exhaust leak upstream of the O2 sensor.
-A long time ago....car died. Fuel pump relay.
-A long time ago...car died. Every ground was hot, MAF resistences were crap. Car had shorted out more or less and grounds were about ~1.3 volts

Began carb conversion to cure electronics issues.

-About a year of perfect operation with lots of drives.
-Lost the T-5...damn thing simply refused to shift anymore. Funny thing is I didnt even beat on this car!

Began automatic conversion so I never have a bad T-5 again. Did the springs to C springs at the same time.

-Took it for a spin one rainy day, pull into a gas station. Car refuses to start up again. MSD box died. Water probably shorted it out. Same "surge" took out my amp and headunit. Had to replace most of the electronics on the car. Fused the heck out of everything to make sure repeat didnt happen.
-Not really a problem per se but the C springs are so hard that people dont want to ride in the car with me anymore.

Begin repainting project. Replace interior, paint under floorboards, weld cracks, subframes, tubular k-member and most of the mods you see.

-Longtubes refused to seal. Had to lift the engine, tighten the tubes than basically drop the engine with tubes attached back in. Had to repeat when the afr165's went in.

-Got a nice tubular k-member and BAM....part of the k-member hits the oilpan on hard revving since it was sized wrong. Cutting was required. Plus polurethane mounts. Now the steering shaft hits the k-memeber. Flaming river shaft required.

-Went for a drive and BAM...all power goes out. Cant even turn on my hazards. Cold dead. Blocking an intersection too. Turns out the electric fan draws so much juice, it blows 3-4 fuses if it gets it just right. Went to 130A alternator for that damn thing too. Had to get a mech fan and shroud.

-Went to go visit my college friends....turn the key....nothing.... jumped..... nothing.... 3 days of furious hacking later, turns out the battery shorted out internally. This car had been more or less sitting for months with an occasional bi-weekly startup.Replaced battery.

-Driving around....car dies. Some carb cleaner later it sponteneously works again. A few days later, dies exactly the same. Same solution. A week later dies in my driveway where I can actually diagnose. Turns out the carb developed a sponteneous leak. RTV'ed for the win.

-Went to get it inspected. Failed. Added cats and retuned. Power valve leaked and the extreme heat from the glowing cats set the paint on the underside and some of the grease on fire. Fixed problem. Retested. Horribly failed cause the cats melted. Replaced cats and retested. Failed. Turns out the distributor had lost it's mechanical advance and I was driving around with 17 degrees total advance. Replaced distributor. Still failed. Passed he test in unspecified ways.

-Now the speedo bounces even though I just replaced the gear and the cable.
-Now the car pings and crazy leans out when I make sharp turns (fuel sloshing in the bowls). So now I cant even say it's a roadrace car cause I cant make swerving motions without lean backfire!!
-Visited a friend the other week and walk out to my car at 1 am, turn the key...nothing. No click from the starter relay. Screwdrivered the starter relay and drive home. The relay trigger wire had sponteneously frayed at some point during my harrowing 10 minute drive over.

Darn it all. And this is stuff off the top of my head. There's plenty more but you get the idea. One big headache.

 

[Aaron]

extreme heat from the glowing cats set the paint on the underside and some of the grease on fire.

Sorry, but the grease part catching on fire is

 

[RWDtech]

wow pete, was your car ever in a flood? so many wiring problems! cut your losses and sell it, that thing sounds like a lemon and a money pit. Its funny how working on cars can make you hate them...so true

 

[emagdnim]

"Not really a problem per se but the C springs are so hard that people dont want to ride in the car with me anymore. "

Nice....I have C springs and poly bushings its great I like the hard feeling.

 

[stykthyn]

damn man. at this point I would highly suggest parking it in storage or if your parents are cool enough offer them some money to put it in their backyard for at least 6 mo. save some money and tackle it later.as for getting another car I did this after I sold my 71 T/A last year <sniff sniff> it was easy enough to throw money at it and scream and swear at it if it wouldnt start when I was single, but now that I am married I dont have the finances to keep a project like that one going. Anyway I bought a new truck and the payment alone is just as much as the money I was throwing at it not to mention the cost of gas and the price of insuring a new vehicle. find a way to park it and re-evaluate the situation later. If you want to keep it maybe rip the enigne out, part it and start fresh again with a crate motor.

 

[crazypete]

Sorry, but the grease part catching on fire is

Oh there were huge flames licking over the bottom of the car. I was positive the fuel tank would explode any minute. If I didnt just happen to be at my parents house at the time with a hose right there....this thread would have been a moot point. Now I drive with a fire extinguisher under the seat.

 

[crazypete]

wow pete, was your car ever in a flood? so many wiring problems! cut your losses and sell it, that thing sounds like a lemon and a money pit. Its funny how working on cars can make you hate them...so true

Sometimes, I think I have too much determination and way too much willpower and way too much desire to persevere despite setbacks.

Title was for a "rebuilt" or "recovered collision" or whatever its called. It was cheap at the time and had no discernable major problems. History as far as I can tell:

1991 mustang light blue, wrecked in 1993, rebuilt in 1994 (purple with canary yellow ground effects and painted yellow interior pieces = domestic rice rocket. The hood was red on the underside). Resold in 1999 (1999 I think, to a soldier in western ma who painted grey over the canary yellow exterior), sold to me in 2001 (the car had a total of 5 different colors throughout the enginebay, interior and exterior....this is why I repainted it to crappy home-painted single stage urethane black).

The damage was "minor", the nose was pushed in and it looks like they sliced the nose off forward of the shock towers and welded a replacement in. I _NEVER_ had any problems with fit or finish or body panels not lining up or cracks or anything resulting from that collision and its repair. All my problems have been electrical. Engine and tranny and interior all look to be the originals when I got it. When I rewelded the nose for fun to reinforce the welds: spot welds->seam welds ...... not a single weld showed any signs of stress.

I guess it must have sat outside at the boneyard for a year in the rain and snow but what the heck.....I leave it outside every day too. I shouldnt have this many electrical problems because of that.

During repainting, I sliced open every single damn wiring harness and rewired the car front to back with my own wiring....pete style=overkill on the guage. Deleted the fusebox and ran wires through a pack of inline fuses that I meticulously labelled. Big mother 30 amp fuses for the big mother guage wires. I'm talking everything for the horn to the highbeams. Ran the wires through the fender.

Yet still the deamons lurk.

The car must sense that I am talking about it and the speedo stopped jumping today to appease me.

 

[srothfuss]

You know the best part about this hobby? That on any given day (even Christmas) you can buy another Mustang. If you feel like it's time to move on, than do it and don't regret it.

 

[RWDtech]

so pete, what did you end up doing with the car?

sorry for reviving such an old thread

 

[gunmetal5.0]

Buy a new beetle. With a flower on it. You make me sick.

 

[crazypete]

Still have it. Ended up getting that saab 9000 back in october and have been doing nothing but fixing THAT since then (headgasket, transmission, turbo). Ironically, the "unreliable ford" was a real trooper in this interrim period. It worked without a single glitch the entire time. Seems the less I worked on it, the more reliable it was.

Life is strange that way.

So this past week, the saab came back from the shop and finally seems to be in working order so the stang came off the road monday. Now it will sit for a week and then I pull the afr165's and driveshaft off and roll it back to near stock. It was fun building it up but I honestly liked the car better when it was just a plain old mustang and all this car building had me drift away from my roots.

The whole past 6-7 years of building it, I forgot to drive it. Spent more time in the garage than on the road.

So I'm going to roll it back to near stock....try to get back to my 25 mpg and quiet it down a bit....make it a little bit more creature comfortable then throw the tarp on it and forget about it for 5 years.

One day I know I will want to build another muscle car or turn some wrenches. I figure why not start out where I had left off?

But I dont have any plans to sell her anytime soon. There's too much of my blood sweat and tears in there to do that.

Kepp up the good fight guys

 

[Aliate X]

Every stang has their bad months, you just gotta push through. Mine broke down on me twice this month. I spent my 21'st bday changing my balancer in the college parking lot. Then a week after that the steering rack decided to just come apart. Now it runs fine and I have a lot of fun with it.

 

[crazypete]

Buy a new beetle. With a flower on it. You make me sick.

Ever driven a turbo beetle?

You would not make fun of it, my dear sir, until you have experienced the joy of over 200 horsies in such a small wel balanced package.

GEHRMAN ENGINHEERINK JA!

(my friend had one and it was plenty fast)

Plus...I'd put the flower in just to piss people off....A big sunflower with a smiley face on it in marker.