Another type of Car OCD

Hi, my name is Bill and I'm a car-o-holic

Guys, I'm having trouble quitting when its time to stop. By definition I think that means I have a "problem". You guys have always made me feel normal in the past (well, the short "past" that I've been posting here) from the "sexy tire tread" thread, to the "I have to buy a new car every 5 minutes to feed my addiction" thread. Now I'm hoping you can help me with my "Other type of car OCD"

This is what happens:

When I bought my daily driver it had a radiator leak which led to some rust on the radiator support. I took the front clip apart and POR-15'd the radiator support and bought a new radiator. No problem.

When I was doing all that I noticed that there were some rusty bolts. I put those in a holder and cleaned and POR-15'd them too!

Then I noticed the Battery tray had some rust, took it out, applied POR-15... No problem.

Then I noticed the fan blades (old metal blades, no clutch) had no paint or any coating. Removed that, applied POR-15.

Then came the water pump/fan pulley. It was bare metal (which was fine) but was really dirty... so I took that out and cleaned that too!

Thats when I noticed that in the deepest darkest recesses where my fenders meet the wheel wells, there was some surface rust developing... So off came the fenders and wheel wells...

Then came repainting the thermostat housing and water pump housing

Oh my godness! theres a bit of seepage coming from my brake master cylinder! Out that goes.

Those orange heater core hoses have some grease on them, and while I think about it I don't really like how they're routed...

Well, if I'm going to clean the heater core hoses, I might as well clean the grease off my orange spark plug wires too...

Hey! I should clean off the radiator hoses since I have those out!

Since I have the plug wires off, I could shine up the distributor cap and spark plugs too!

Darn, I've been meaning to do a compression test. Now seems like a good time.

Do you see where this is going? This isn't even the end of it, theres more! The list goes on and on, until I almost had the engine/transmission out. It probably wouldn't have stopped there either, but I woke up one morning and there was frost on the ground so I put everything back together.... (quickly)

Can anyone here help, I mean how do you know when to stop? How do you make yourself stop? My social life (or lack thereof) is beginning to suffer, some times I forget to eat, and thats not even the worst part! It's hard for me to say.. but I havn't been consuming near enough beer lately because of all this.

I have a Miata that's not doing anything until spring, if you get bored.

Send it over! I could use the outlet

It's exactly that kind of OCD that led to my Javelin being stuck in the air on jackstand with no brakes or suspension...

That's a variation of "mission creep" that makes for epic projects.

"While I'm in there, I might as well do this ... "

A clean car is a happy car.

Mission creep is what forced me to sell my E30 BMW 325ix.

I quickly realized I was going to spend $10k getting it back to showroom condition.

Yeah, I was going to clean it up and flip it...

I am in the doghouse today for suggesting that I might be disappearing for a half a day next week to just look over an incomplete small british car with all the paint stripped off.

Someone thinks it is ridiculous to have a race car in a trailer, a vintage 911 on jack stands, a Chevelle stashed away from road salt and plans to start another project. Someone should have done their homework before saying "I do"

I think she is just worried that I'll kick her car out the garage.

"Mission Creep"? Now I have a name for my illness!

I knew I could count on you guys.

This was originally supposed to be a mildly hopped up stock-motor'd street car.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/yeah-yeah-i-need-to-add-this-to-readers-rides/34254/page1/

Just do like I did with the Camaro, start out with a plan to make it a full-out race car (for autox) and then the project snowballing out of control is not a surprise. Of course the project snowballing still happens, just easier to justify/ignore.

81cpcamaro wrote: Just do like I did with the Camaro, start out with a plan to make it a full-out race car (for autox) and then the project snowballing out of control is not a surprise. Of course the project snowballing still happens, just easier to justify/ignore.

I like this way of thinking. Especially when it comes to 'splaining things to SWMBO.

"Mission Creep", thanks for coining that, is the reason I can never make money on flipping cars. I try to make anything showroom condition with lots of elbow grease, polish, and spray paint.

A few hundred dollar profit isn't so great when you have put 30-40 hours labor into something. But the satifaction of shining a turd is worth it. At least that's what I tell myself.

Once again, we will not help you with your "problem", only enable it more.

yeah, we call it "scope creep" in the auto industry and we fight it all the time. at work, i mean.

Cone_Junky wrote: "Mission Creep", thanks for coining that, is the reason I can never make money on flipping cars. I try to make anything showroom condition with lots of elbow grease, polish, and spray paint. A few hundred dollar profit isn't so great when you have put 30-40 hours labor into something. But the satifaction of shining a turd is worth it. At least that's what I tell myself. Once again, we will not help you with your "problem", only enable it more.

I wonder how they do it on Wheeler Dealers...?

In reply to Hungary Bill: I've been there, done that, the issue is when that part fails you flash back to the day when you thought, "yeah, I should fix that". That moment comes back to us in crystal clear recall too. Or the issue is while you drive it and wonder if that part is going to fail and don't drive the car because of the condition.

If there is a cure be sure to share.

I thought about cleaning the engine bay before I put the new engine back in my Miata but it's just going to get dirty again so why bother?

I'd repainted the Sprite a couple years ago and had it nearly back together. I connected a battery and tried cranking it and all manner of disgusting brown munge sprayed in a nice arc circumfrential to the fan's rotation. A closer look revealed a Weber side draft all varnished up and overspray on everything.

I pulled the front sheet metal as an assembly, the engine, suspension, wiring, brake lines - everything. I powerwashed the engine bay w/ degreaser followed by lacquer thinner in a non-HVLP spray gun w/ about 75 psi at the air cap and the fan set to full narrow. Scuff, spot sand, etch prime, seal, paint.

While I was there I figured the engine block could stand fresh olive green...I disassembled, dipped and rebuilt the Weber w/ a rebuild kit. The engine got all new seals and gaskets and a fresh clutch, and while the trans was off I resealed it and now the make a front cover w/ a rubber lip seal.

I'd never done the suspension right, so before the front went back on I blasted and sprayed it and installed urethane bushings. All 4 lever shocks went to the dude in Wisconsin who's the lever shock guru for rebuilding. I installed some softer front springs, and modified a set of Moss rear quarter elliptics to get the right rate and ride height.

It got back together to the point that the difficult carpets were in, all the shiny bits are on, and it looks like a car in need of carpets, interior panels, and the last of the wiring hooked up.

At which point we stumbled across the house that's just like what we wanted, with the shop and garage I always wanted, in the exact right neighborhood. And it only needs maybe a year or 2 of renovation. And after 6 months of that I went racing. Then I changed jobs and need to really get my machine shop set up here...

So there it sits, 97% done...