This may be an odd question, but I was thinking about it while forming new brake lines for Brutus the tow truck recently. I despise forming and flaring brake lines and I always manage to choose projects that pre-bent lines are not available for. It is definitely a skill that I have come to learn the hard way as I think most guys do. I have probably wrecked, kinked, short cut, and otherwise mangled a half mile of tubing since I started working on my own cars half a lifetime ago. I am admittedly getting better and I made up the tricky rear line in one shot yesterday. Even my painful, ancient flaring tool proved up to the task and rewarded me with two clean and leak free flares on either end of the line.
While I hate the actual process of doing the work, I do like laying there under the truck looking at the line I bent up and fitted. Maybe because I don’t actually own a fancy pants tubing bender and just about every bend was made with either my thumbs or around a small curved die. It is the classic car guy feeling of looking at something and thinking, “Yep, that was all me.”
Some jobs just suck before, during, and after. Brake work for example. The best possible outcome is that the car stops in about the same fashion as it did before you started the job and there’s not much to show for it. At least my humble brake line is a little shinier than the one on the other side. Those brake pads you just busted to put in? Not so much.
So today’s question: What job to you hate doing on your car but actually dig the results of after you have finished?
(these are NOT my brake lines!)
Changing the fuel tank on any vehicle. Have done my share because I live in place that loves salt on the roads and none of my rides are newer than 2002. You never think about it until a leak or another reason to change it
Anyone who has ever owned an old Triumph motorcycle knows the perils of top end oil leaks. Rebuilding the rocker boxes usually leads to the discovery of aluminum threads pulled out of the head, and next thing you know you’ve just invested yourself in a whole top end rebuild.
It is gratifying though to have at least one riding season before the new seals start weeping! Lol
cooling systems…. flushing, and cleaning them so they operate as designed is not my idea of fun.. It always takes twice the time, and effort that it “should”.
Bleeding brakes, always hated it, always will.
Changing plug wires on my ’95 Caprice. For a big car, its amazing how they squeeze those wires behind the A\C and exhaust manifolds.
I too hate brake lines! The whole job sucks. Annoys me to no end but having good tools helps tremendously.
built the exhaust with x pipe out of a wack of mandrel bends and a couple of sticks of three inch pipe . Pita but it looks and sounds awesome .
mine is painting… bodyworks not my fave but at least you can see where youre going and do a bit more if its not quite right – paint though you have to cross your fingers, blast away and hope it comes out right ( Iknow, I know, if you know what you’re doing it shouldn’t be an issue ) I’ve done a number of paint jobs now to an acceptable standard but nothing worse than to be halfway through and get a big run, or a bug flies onto it (or, like my last job I had to re-do, right at the end a big blowfly landed on the paint and started walking around..picked him off then tried to just spray over the mess he made – which caused a run, which meant start again….)