It has now been over four years since me and my dad started on our 1969 coupe.It is now so close to being done i can taste it. however, everytime i think im going to get to drive it out of the shop, something else goes wrong. Last week while on a test drive the entire front wire harness got fried along with the alternator. This was because it CAME WRONG FROM THE MANUFACTURER. now this week the transmission (that WASrebuilt by Certified Transmission) is acting up.It wont shift out of second, and now the reverse doesnt work.

sorry for the long post.
Ineeded to vent

 

Best advice is learn to rebuild everything on the car yourself. That way you know it is right and you only have yourself to blame if it screws up. Not only you can blame yourself, but if you have an intimate knowledge of each part of the car, you will know what is going wrong, where it is, and what part you need to fix it just while driving around..

it could be worse, your car could still look like mine do..

 

When ever you start to think nothing else could go wrong thats when things really start going wrong... classic cars are a real &@#$&

 

Thumpin is on the money. Do it yourself! I am a cert mechanic, gave it up for politics, but more people need to know how to work on their own cars instead of relying on the grease monkeys. Trust me, the know less than you do and get paid WAY too much. Cars aren't rocket science, just common sense. Buy a good set of factory manuals and go for it. Just my .02

 

+2 trumpin455

it sucks...but you will enjoy it so much better...and when something esle breaks, and you will be able tofix it, and not like. Damm how much is that going to cost.
Somewhere on here someone posted before. When something breaks, just replace it with profromance parts. so eventually you'll have all new parts.

But until then, just be glad you are finding mistakes or problems now. Not when you are going down the road and the lower control arm falls off. Im in the process of replacing them. The Damm Nut was finger loose.

Finding mistakes or problems now seems like a pain. But its a blessing in disguise.

 

Every rebuild has a shake down period. Just part of the game.....
[&:]

 

Thats very true. it seems that I will limp a new engine/trans around for a week or so before I get on it, then I go progressively farther from home with it untill I know that the thing will stay together.. Finding all the bugs right after getting it running helps you make sure it will be good for the long haul. You dont want to fry the wiring harness while you are middle of BFE on the Power Tour or some other high profile thing like that now do you?

Be happy it died right away and not somewhere it could have burned to the ground while you watched..

You do have a fire extingusher right?

 

ehh thats kind of funny to mention the fire extingusher.....i drove around in my elky after i put everything back together.

Just make sure its fully charged. Ethier get the dispolsable or the ones that get recharged.....and if you have one that is a rechargeable, make sure that they get checked every year.

At least thats what we do at my company that i work for....so then I being in mine to get checked. I think the company that checks ours is FireMaster.

http://www.firemasterweb.com/

a recharageable one cost like 40 bucks. Its small enough to carry and you can use it for your kitchen too.....not a bad idea at all. better safe then sorry