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Have you ever gotten frustrated or a bit discouraged in your mustang build?

7K views 71 replies 64 participants last post by  RaymondinMD 
#1 ·
When I look at my box of parts of things I plan to fix or change i feel at times my rebuild will never end.
I have managed to get a few of the goals I set but lately....
Now add this Texas heat my progress has stopped.
I know I need to set some small goals to get back on the success track.
 
#2 ·
Definitely - My major focus this summer was to install an ClassicAir A/C system in the car as I live in Houston. I put a lot of smaller issues on the same plate as well, but nothing major, and what was supposed to be an A/C install turned into fixing wiring issues from PO, finding that my cowl was leaking and fixing that, and numerous other issues that you find out about when you go in to fix the "small issues". I get frustrated, especially when I am upside down in my car trying to fix wiring in my dash, but overall, once you get "over the hump", its very satisfying.

I am finally starting to put mine back together (3 months later), and knowing that I am a few weeks from driving it again makes it worth it.

I added a $500 A/C system to my garage that made working in the car at this time of year tolerable. BlakeTX has a thread of what various people are doing, which gave me some additional ideas.
 
#3 ·
Last year I started a 30 day engine swap.

Im still a couple months away from having an engine back in.

The To-Do list grows and grows. Everytime I line out one item, Im adding two more.

My 67 is in great shape compared to some of the rusty projects others have taken on, I keep reminding myself it could be a lot worse and a lot more work.
 
#22 ·
Im with you on this. I'm doing everything BUT start sanding on my car to avoid it. Granted my paint is not perfect, but I worked on it so much to get it to where it is now, once that first sheet starts sanding on the fender, there is no going back.
 
#5 ·
I think if you haven’t gotten frustrated, you’ve never really restored/worked on an old car. It’s just part of the process.

I’m dealing with it now. My car has been in paint since October.
Extremely solid/straight car, not a difficult job, but the guy is a perfectionist and has a normal operation to run while working on my car. We were finally close to paint and now have run into a rear valence fitment issue (not surprising) that’s delaying us further. I’m just ready to have my car back and start putting it together, but patience is the name of the game with this stuff.
 
#7 ·
Imagine dragging a rusty hulk around to three states for 20+ years..... Eat that elephant one bight at a time. And if its too hot, cold, windy, etc... to work on it, don't be hard on yourself. I do it for the enjoyment of it, if the weather is taking away that joy, I wait.
 
#8 ·
After my car being down& under a tarp for nearly 3 mounths after the water leak fix went into many other fixes, I found having the boxes of new parts is great when you pull the tarp off for the last time(lol) you have a lot of the add on's & changes done. Most times if you have an issue start searching the vmf site & someone has found a solution. One thing I can say is working on my mustang projects are always like a present i don't ever know what I'm going to get .
 
#9 ·
I went to look at a Mustang for sale. 1st thing I noticed as it was sitting in the driveway was the crankshaft pulley embedded in the windshield. It was a Chevy person, trying to get the alternator, water pump, crankshaft pulleys to line up with the power steering and AC. He had bought a lot of pulleys and nothing was lining up, and he lost it.

Price was cheap, I bought it, but it had to be gone ASAP.
 
#14 ·
Funny thing about the Fords I found that usually what ever I had as a kid( mostly the early windsors ) was what I had to buy parts for unlike my buddies who had chevys and most parts fit everything chevy made. Had a few chevys over the years but always wound up with a Ford . Here I am 55 years later with 6 Fords of various years in different running conditions & 3 Toyotas as primary daily drivers .
 
#10 ·
Q: Who hasn't been frustrated and discouraged with a car build?

A: Nobody!

I think car TV shows present an extremely unrealistic view of building cars. Sure, wealthy guys simply stroke a check to custom shops who do all the work in a matter of months. For everyone else, get on the struggle bus!

Please see my build thread for multiple examples of frustration and discouragement. I bought the car thinking I could get it done in one or maybe two years. Ha! After eight years, I got it on the road. But, of course, I'm still working on it.
 
#11 ·
I'm on year 21 of my restoration, there has been many days of frustration and disgust. I have moved 2 houses, had my car in a shop for 7 years waiting on metal work and primer, and another 5 years wrenching on it in a storage unit when I had time. Now It's finally in its own garage for the last 3 years and I have managed to put in a drive train. Only 6000 more things to do. Find a small goal to occasionally re-inspire why you bought it in the first place. Mine will be brakes and lines this month (I hope..lol)

Happy Wrenching!
 
#12 ·
Every time I do something to my 67 vert I'm like thank you lord that at some time someone did( probably paid to have it done) all this work on this car for it to still be in the condition it is. But at the same time as I start something I'm always afraid that as I peel things back its gonna BE OMG ! Never having fooled with a mustang vert ( only the 57 fairlane& 61 galaxie verts as a teenager) I 'm not sure if some of what I think are repairs on the pans & inner rockers are not in fact some not so great factory install of the extra parts to stiffen the car up . The 57 & 61 were both full frame cars & were in fantastic shape ( unknown to my stupid self at that time) & did'nt have any of the welding I'm seeing while working on the interior projects. Any way I 'll still take the small setbacks
 
#13 ·
I only get to see the problems and imperfections up close, hear every one of the little noises and the whines...is it about to break or has it been doing that forever? and it always electrifies me when I take her out and see other people's reactions to the car. I sometimes fixate and think after all I've done is it really just a polished turd? Then I see her again through other people's eyes and remember how special a 52 year old running driving car is to most folks...and that I've paid almost no one (an exhaust guy) to do anything and that I started out with nothing but a roller chassis with a blighted interior.

I find two things that help, are to keep lots of photos, even if you don't post them online to look back at the progress from say a year ago. You think to yourself....wow I really didn't know jack back then and now look how far things have come.
 
#15 ·
Mine sat for 15 years when my ideas exceeded my ability. I bought a 429 and a C6 for my 67. I took out the old 289/c4 and got lost in all the things I needed to do before I could do what I wanted. I finally got it mostly finished and back on the road last year after 4 years of working on it. I took the engine out just before my son was born. He thought it would be cool to work on it together in high school. He is 21 now. I was actually that guy people approached about the mustang in the field, saying I was going to fix it up some day. Give it time.
 
#16 ·
Money. Nothing on my (nearly 10 year) build was done on credit so there were times when actual work stopped while I saved up for the next purchase(s). When a largish chunk of money would come in I tried to buy a more expensive thing on my list figuring eventually things would progress at a quicker pace that way, faster downhill so to speak. For instance, even though it would just hang on a stand for years the engine was one of the first things I bought. This wasn't very smart of course, but for me, knocking the big ticket items off early meant commitment and made the light at the end of the tunnel seem brighter.

Sometimes I would talk to myself, alone and out loud. I would point and say silly things like "Hey Mr. Cowl, guess what? You're done and I'm never going to have to weld on you again".

I never, ever stopped working on it, even if that meant just doing research (ye olde cantankerous VMF search function) or poring over parts catalogs, revising lists, or planning ahead.

When frustrated I would envision it done, driving it wherever my imagination took me.
 
#18 ·
I've experienced frustration on small tasks like the occasional broken bolt or whatever, and I certainly have been stalled by budget when I was originally building my fastback years ago. That was discouraging.

With that said, I think almost 30 years of classic ownership has taught me patience and to embrace the process, so in the big picture, I would actually say no. At this point, the planning and doing is at least as much fun as the driving. That took a big philosophical shift to get to that point though. Now that we're building my daughter's coupe, I smile through every task, even the parts that aren't inherently enjoyable.
 
#19 ·
It always happens. Good thing is I can walk away for an hour, a week, a month....
it‘s a hobby, and they’re old vehicles, things don’t always fit as planned, and projects snowball into bigger projects. Getting past the challenging part is rewarding in the end, as I still thoroughly enjoy driving the car.
 
#21 ·
I'm about to finish putting the engine back together, and haven't so much as touched the body in over a year. My biggest fear is that I'll eventually find that there is no shop that will do the cut & weld rust remediation needed for less than the car will be worth when it's done.

Half the time I want to just kick it into gear and get it finished. The other half I want to post it for sale and eat the loss. I have come to the realization that I like the engine work, but don't like the project work and quite frankly I'd be happy to see the thing just go.
 
#24 ·
There are two ways that I have found to get me out of motivation slump. The first way is simple, find a hard deadline and promise yourself (and others around you for peer pressure purposes) that you will be done at that point. This could be your anniversary, for instance, and you promise your wife you'll take her out to dinner in the Mustang. Or, in my case, tell yourself that you are leaving for a roadtrip on day X no matter what, floor pans or not!

The other way is to re-experience why you wanted to rebuild the car in the first place. The best way to do this is the get a ride in a friend's/fellow VMFer's Mustang to remind you what the end product looks like. If you don't know anyone who can give you a ride, the next best option is to just do a lot of reading/watching the stories of other people finishing their cars and getting out and enjoying them. That usually gets me motivated enough to get out there and turn some wrenches.

Now go get it done and keep us updated!

Ken
 
#25 ·
Now add this Texas heat my progress has stopped.
You have your heat in the summer and I have the cold in the winter. Frankly, I would rather have the cold as I have a garage. Once you get working, ypu don't notice the cold to much. I also have a propane heater I can run for 30 minutes to take the edge off.

We could move to southern California and have good weather all year. Wait. What am I thinking????
 
#26 ·
Hash tag ME TOO, LOL. I've gone through burn out on my car so many times I lost count. The other thing that impacts my car project is is that all kinds of other things that have to be done have to be done and take time away from working on the car. I also have a serious health condition that makes me really tired a lot and pretty much kills my motivation and enthusiasm. I am not giving up on it though.
 
#27 ·
I have had several, but there is one that sticks out in my mind..

Back in 2010, I had just finished installing my motor and trans, and got the car fired up. I was elated! Tore the car apart, got the mechanical bits back in, and it ran!

But a few weeks later, the engine started running funny. Random misses, backfires (more like a pop thru the carb), which would cause the car to buck rather violently under power. This went on for months... advice from fellow car friends, every carb and timing adjustment I could think of, spark plug changes, triple checking firing order... nothing seemed to cure it.

This chump was definitely stumped.

It got to a point where I started thinking to myself “You know what, i’m just not cut out to be working on a car. I obviously don’t have the chops to work on cars” I started thinking about selling the car. Months of not being able to get the car running right, doubting myself, I figured it was time to move on.

In my moment of self loathing, I was staring at the engine, and a little something caught my eye. I had trimmed the two wires coming from the distributor (i have a MSD billet dizzy) when I wired up the ignition. So, when following the purple and green wires, when it got the to point where I had shortened them, I made the bone head move of crossing them (instead of green to green and purple to purple, it was green to purple and purple to green).

I corrected the wiring snafu and guess what?? Ran like a champ. Crisis averted. Lesson learned and unforgettable.


Sent from the interwebs... where else?
 
#29 ·
These posts are motivation on a screen! In a sadistic way, it's comforting to hear the realities of building a classic Mustang, delays, hardships, moves...etc. I only recently got back in the game - 30 year hiatus to raise a family, career and all the bullsh_t that comes with life. I eased back into it by restoring old farm tractors 15 years ago. That taught me patience (Grass Hopper). I graduated back into this Mustang a few months ago thinking I was buying a "done" car. Nix that, the fantasy lasted a couple days - had to make mods & changes.... for every task I complete, I find two more, and three more...etc. For me, when I get frustrated, I step back and regroup. Doesn't always work but I'm still learning. What we do here is a gift and a privilege. At the end of the day or the end of a build, that satisfaction is explosive. They'll have to pry my 9/16 open-end wrench from my cold dead fingers - ha.
 
#30 ·
I got discouraged plenty of times.
Discovering more rust than I thought, and having to remove even more metal, etc., etc., etc.
There was a time that I wanted to take a torch to it and cut it up and take it to the scrap metal dealer.
But I reasoned that the closer I got it to completion, the more money it was worth. So I kept pushing, little by little.
I continued to push, and over the last two years have completed enough so that now it is only one or two days away from being started after having not moved under its own power for over 38 years. :)
I've also never quit on anything in my life, and I was not going to break that record, no matter how painful.
 
#31 ·
I've put the car on time out for a few months before. It can help you avoid just throwing parts at it when dealing with some bizarre issues. Also gives you time to ponder the problems.
 
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