This is meant to be humorous so enjoy my pain. Three weeks ago I set out to swap my newest 74 Corvette's Magnaflow dual exhaust for Doug's ceramic coated headers and side pipes. What should have been a 4-5 hour job.

I get the duals off fairly easy. Then while the car is on the lift, I figure the trans mount is a ragged so I replace it, after all I was right there, (I had 3 of them on the self so no big deal). Got that done then I noticed the clutch linkage is about shot, so off that comes, again I was there. A new linkage is installed. I bring the car down and off comes the alternator and the air conditioner compressor and is moved out of the way. Manifolds come off easy.
I break for lunch. I come back and my friend, who is the tire tech for Phoenix Racing in the SCCA and Pirelli World Challenge, Is working on the car, (it's his lift). The a/c compressor is on the bench, the evaporator is on the bench, and most of the dash is out. He looks at me smiles and says, "We're here we might as fix this thing to". So a new heater core is ordered as well the VIR eliminator evaporator system. It takes 2 weeks to get all of that stuff. So we might as well change to an HEI ignition, "While we're here". So that is installed. "While we're here lets replace all the fuel lines and fuel pump". My friend is killing me! Finally we are set to put on the headers. We loosen the motor mounts, jack the motor up a little and the headers bolt on perfectly. I say why don't we replace the motor mounts, "while we're here". With a perfectly straight face he says "no they look good". I'm dying here. This is central Florida, it's been 100 degrees and 95% humidity! Later we get the pipes on. When we put the alternator back on, it's great. The a/c compressor is bad so I find one at Autozone. It goes on, after some fab work on the mount. Then neither of our hands can get passed the hood to the fitting on the condenser. Off comes the hood. We mark everything for hood alignment. Even drill the hinge plates and insert small dowel pins to assure alignment. Lines hooked up and hood goes back on, after an epic struggle with, THE ALIGNMENT.

The car is running, has a/c and sounds great. I am crippled, heat exhausted and beat down. Damn that was a blast. hope you all see the humor here, I had no choice but to laugh during this. I hope those who read this long post say, "Well, we're here".

 

Perfect description of every car I've ever worked on... I have over a year in my '68 for what started as a 3-month thing (just swap the front clip... yeah right). The upside is it will be much nicer than I originally planned. The downside is I have another 6 months to go... Your story is hilarious in a sick sort of way.

 

Have you been spying on me?

 

My last "while I'm at it...": New universals became a complete rebuild of the rear suspension including offset trailing arms and fiberglass rear spring. I even got new lug nuts because it seemed like a sin to put my old lug nuts onto the brand new studs poking out of my brand new wheel bearing assemblies. Which had brand new disks and brand new stainless e-brake hardware.

Funny how those things work.

 

I'm known as "Might as well Bill" because while I'm into one thing, I might as well fix the other.

 

This was a great thing, as we moved along with it my wife kept asking "are we there yet?" She pitched in and helped as did my buddy's wife. There was a lot of cussing and laughing, and amazement as how bad people mess up things in order to save a few dollars. I left out all of the wiring we had to do, to undo some that was already done. LOL It was fun for the wives to see how different my friend and I are at work. he talks and raises cain. I don't say anything while I work. It was all good.

 

Good job, good story. Most of my car got fixed when went to replace my dash light bulbs. Fixed and replaced the gauge console, radio, cortesy lights ,wiper switch,headlight switch, jamb switched, oil gauge line which is direct cause of the need to replace the carpet, wiper motor, header gaskets, electrical regulator thing ( cant think yet,6am ,no cofee yet), hard top,
Decklid cables to original rods, rear end shims and alignment, new tires, clutch linkage and springs. It was fun and kept me busyfor a few months last winter. And I loved every second of it, except for the oil filled carpet part. That was expensive.

 

"Inside every small problem is a great big problem, struggling to get out."

 

The OP sounded like one of my many "automotive misadventures"......

 

Lol
Sounds like ever car I work on
Brought a c4 was going to fix a few things spent 40k so far and still not on the road
So I thought stuff this went and brought a c3
Will just fix a few things lol
Well it's no had 10k spent on it
New interior
Hydroboost
Dakota dash
New shockers
Rebuilt callipers
New brake lines
So I thought I'll get my c30 in and do a few things
Lol u guessed it
Add vintage air ac
Dekoda dash
Turbo 700
One peice Windows
New interior
New every thing on the front end
And still off the road