They said it wouldn't work, you did it anyway. How did that work out for you?

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Kern Dog

Kern Dog

Build your car to handle.
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Being a rebel can be rewarding when it works out for you....and it can be embarrassing when it fails and everyone saw it coming.
Do you have stories of where you were advised to NOT do something and you did it anyway? How did it work out?
Maybe you were advised TO do something and you didn't. How did that work out?
Did you buy that house? Go out with that woman, Take that job, buy that car/sell that car....What?
Some people have regrets, some don't...they say that all the experiences they have had shaped who they are today.

I once took a job with a municipal school district as a maintenance Carpenter. The Foreman from my previous construction job thought it was a bad idea because of how the rivalries and nepotism were in government jobs. He was absolutely right about that. I was still a gung-ho, go getter type and the government types didn't like an employee that worked hard and was always staying busy.
How about you?
 
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When I found the Barracuda I said I could sell my Harley ('09 XR1200) to buy the car and get started on it...
Everyone said "Noooooooo, Don't Do That!"
I did it anyway.
I'm Much Happier now with my '65 than I ever was with that "Two-Year-Only" Harley Sport Bike.
SportBike guy's didn't like it because, Harley... Harley guy's didn't like it because, SportBike...
Everybody Likes a Barracuda!

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Years ago, I had detonation problems with a 440/493 that was right close to 11 to 1. I assembled it years back and the rotating assembly came from back east, the supplier said it would run fine on pump gas. I was inexperienced at matters of high compression engines so I trusted him.
That engine knocked at anything over 1/2 throttle. I posted threads all over the internet and got a variety of responses, some were "truths" that I didn't want to face. Some were well intentioned but bad advice.
I ended up adding thicker head gaskets despite many advising against it based on the belief that a loss of quench would make it knock worse.
It actually worked out well. It ran fine and no longer knocked.
One of the "truths" that was mentioned was to pull the engine, tear it down and replace the pistons. Years later, I did just that. I now have dished pistons and am right at 9.8 to 1 and don't knock at all, plus it is faster than ever.
 
Back in 1984 my girlfriend was house hunting with me. I told here the area I wanted in and that it had to have at least a two car garage. Working a lot I told the realtor I wanted at least three listings so I could do drive-byes before I had a viewing so I could weed out ones I wasn’t interested in. Well she kept giving me one or two so we went on a ride after driving by one and I saw a sign exactly in the area I wanted in. Single car garage ranch with two acres. So I bought it in 1984, got married, had two boys, got divorced in 1999, rebought the house I paid for to buy her out. 2024 and I’m still here loving the 36-28 shop I added in 1991.
 
Kern Dog said:
How about you?
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I took on a job back in around 2013 upgrading domestic power supply revenue meters. Easy work, but at the interview the boss said I might not enjoy the work as it was well beneath my pay-grade so to speak. Also I had been self-employed for a few years and he was worried I might get bored fast.
They gave me a chance, and I excelled of course.
I had several people at houses give me stuff to take away for free (I don't know why) - I was given a weed-whacker by one old lady who's husband had died. I handed it in at the office on the following Monday at the team talk. That was something else I enjoyed.....I had a story most weeks, and I'm sure the guys looked forward to that part every week. :lol:

One of the first things was to pass the aptitude test...easy, but the driving test was a horror show. They employed this little squirt of a Fijian as the Instructor, and he was a real a-hole. He claimed I didn't look around when performing a 3-point turn. I pointed out that I had excellent peripheral vision, and I didn't need to jerk my head around like a side-show clown. He wasn't wearing that....I had to be on probation for 2 weeks driving....whatever. :rolleyes: The vans were fitted with GPS tracking...or so I was told. It was two months before I got a call to ask where I was so that the Tech could fit my GPS......I asked why I hadn't been told that earlier.

Anyhoo, the worst part of the job was running the PDA to record all the data and take pictures. Damn Motorola couldn't make a decent handheld if their lives depended on it. The stupid thing kept crashing, and of course then you were 'supposed' to re-run the job from the start to keep everything sequential. Stuff that....I fudged most of that...easily done. They asked if anyone was interested in Saturday work so that they could catch up on the contract. I volunteered. One Saturday and it was all over. The first job was done in 45 minutes. The second took an hour and a half. The third was nearly three hours. I drove home after that one. Never again. No PDA Help Desk on a Saturday to reset from the office.

We were on hourly rate, because they used to be per job. Some guys were a bit slow, and some jobs were unfairly balanced time-wise, so to be fair to all staff it was decided to pay hourly plus a bonus for good numbers. I got my bonus every week.....some didn't. I came back to the office one day just after lunch to get more supplies....the boss called me in and said that I was showing a good run that morning - 11 units swapped by 1:30pm.
Some guys hadn't even done 2-3 units in the same time. Most of those guys were sacked not long after that.

The final straw came after about 7 months when I was at a house where the dog was chained up and trying desperately to get off and kill me. I had to step through dog poop to get to the house, and to cap it off, when I started disconnection, the owner went for a dump inside. Normally that would be OL, but the toilet window was a fixed open louvre, and it was right next to the meter box out on the deck. I nearly gagged from the stench.....he must have had a big night on the 'pork bones & puha'. (weeds found in roadside drains)

I went home that day, decided I was going to quit, and went to see the boss the next day. He thanked me for my service, and wished I could stay, but after telling him all the stories.....he was fine about it. Storied like rolling up to a job and the bene's (beneficiaries) were laying about drinking booze, smoking weed....and this is mid-morning. I hated seeing my tax dollars being squandered in that way.
 
I wanted to buy a restoration 1971 Demon project when I retired. EVERYONE said it is cheaper to buy a nice one finished......EVERYONE was right.
 
Back in the 80’s I was happy and content with my job, until my brother in law at the time talked me into going to work with his company, a union rough crew building condos and townhouses. My boss, also my high school buddy, said…”you won’t like it, I give you a week there”. So I go, work all week, nobody talks to each other for fear of the yelling and screaming foreman, lunch time was silent too. So many things I do were questioned, like calling number back before you make a cut to make sure you have the piece correct, lest it be thrown back at you in disgust. No time to do anything right, but plenty of time to mail my speed square down to the floor with about 40 nails. Thursday was truss day, a big day, and a dangerous job if you’re a rookie, which I was not. After trying to knock me off the rack with a crane full of piggyback trusses, I quietly decided I’d had enough. So after work that day the Forman comes up to me and says…..

Foreman….”what do you expect to be making here?”

Me….. “well to tell you the truth, tomorrow is my last day”!

Forman….”why is that?”

Me….”well, I’m used to having to fix this ****, not **** it up in the first place”!

Friday comes, and he couldn’t have been nicer to me. Friday is also the day that checks come, so as soon as the boss’s son brings the checks (10am), cords get rolled up and they all head over to the scab job they’re doing on the weekend. They ask if I’m coming and I say “yes, and I’m buying the beer”. They all look at me in wide wonder, as apparently no “newbie” has ever bought the beer before, let alone lasted past first break on Monday.

Had they just been human instead of assholes, they would’ve had a much better crew, and I might’ve stayed. I drank a beer with them , bid my farewell and headed home. A couple weeks later I got a check in the mail for full union wages! As I stood back on the roof at my old job, I pondered why I ever left, but I still laugh about it to this day!
 
I'm not sure about them telling me it won't work, because I never listened to them in the first place.

That's worked out quite well for me, actually.
 
Kern Dog said:
Being a rebel can be rewarding when it works out for you....and it can be embarrassing when it fails and everyone saw it coming.
Do you have stories of where you were advised to NOT do something and you did it anyway? How did it work out?
Maybe you were advised TO do something and you didn't. How did that work out?
Did you buy that house? Go out with that woman, Take that job, buy that car/sell that car....What?
Some people have regrets, some don't...they say that all the experiences they have had shaped who they are today.
Click to expand...

Yea, built/hot rodded a car against everyone’s advice and went faster than they did.


Kern Dog said:
I once took a job with a municipal school district as a maintenance Carpenter. The Foreman from my previous construction job thought it was a bad idea because of how the rivalries and nepotism were in government jobs. He was absolutely right about that. I was still a gung-ho, go getter type and the government types didn't like an employee that worked hard and was always staying busy.
How about you?
Click to expand...

Found the same crap at my job. I lasted the years to retire. The super slow pace drive me nuts to the day I retired. The laziness of most of the coworkers drive me nuts, even worse were the co workers putting more effort into avoiding work or ducking out of sight to avoid work was more effort than just doing the dang job.

Even though I seen some of the bosses kids get hired, they were not allowed to work in the same department and area as Dad. (Or Mom) A rare few had a untouchable air of arrogance about them like they couldn’t be hurt or get in trouble.

Never was I happy about them being so wrong. A few laid the price and no longer work for the company. Such a foolish move!
While I’m not ever happy on someone loosing there job, some just act and perform so badly, they do it to themselves.
 
Can't put 340 heads on a 273. Did that could not have run better. Can't put 340 heads on a 318, it'll be a dog, wrong again. Can't run too big a carb on a small engine, maybe not a Holley, but a Carter AVS, TQ, Quadra-Jet, you sure can. Some times you just need to try stuff.
 
Decades go, my father -in- law would tell me... that I could step in a chit hole and climb out smelling like a rose. I never asked IS i was smart, or stupid and just lucky!! But my motto was ..do something, even if it is wrong.
 
Never drive a spool on the street. You'll spin out, kill yourself and any bystanders nearby. :rolleyes:

Same with a roll cage on the street. Don't do it. :poke:
 
I was about 15, had a neighbors 392 auto out of a wreck, on a tripod, trying to roll it over to my dad's retired 51 Austin Van.
Friends said it wouldn't fit, I asked them to pass me a bigger hammer, they forever after called me "inertia" . . - among other things . lol
 
I have had good judgement about the women that I have been with. There have been NO instances where I was warned against chasing any specific one, though those do make some great stories. I have known guys that did NOT heed the warnings of others and they probably could tell you stuff that is entertaining as well as embarrassing for them.

I've never bought a car or house that turned out bad either.
Looking back, it seems that I don't have many stupid mistakes on the big things, just with smaller issues. There are plenty of instances of saying, writing and posting stupid things for all to see.
 
At the time I was fixing many cracked aluminum heads in Ford Escorts by having them welded. A shop next to me had a Chevy Luv which is really an Isuzu. The shop insisted that it couldn’t be fixed because the crack was through an oil passage and the clearances would be too tight after milling the head flat. I took the head to my head guy to be welded and he drilled out the oil passage and pressed in a steel tube to take care of the crack in the oil passage. I gave the head back to the shop to install. A couple of days later to tell me that they were right about milling the head because the trucks compression was all over the place wouldn’t run. I had them move the truck to my part of the shop where I checked the compression and again it was all over the place. The motor had a double overhead cams so I checked the cam timing. They had just thrown the motor together and must have never lined up the marks. I reset the cam timing and did a compression test and all was good. I then had the other shop finish it up and the truck ran like new. The one thing I left out is because it was 4-wheel drive you had to pull the motor out in order to get the timing chain removed. This because you have to remove the oil pan and the 4-wheel drive components won’t allow you to drop the oil pan.

Bottom line is I did want the other professional shop said couldn’t be done and I only do this as a hobbyist.
 
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barbee6043 said:
But my motto was ..do something, even if it is wrong.
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To quote Winston Churchill
"You can always count on the americans to do the right thing...even if the have to try everything else first"

mcodecuda said:
At the time I was fixing many cracked aluminum heads in Ford Escorts by having them welded. A shop next to me had a Chevy Luv which is really an Isuzu. The shop insisted that it couldn’t be fixed because the crack was through an oil passage and the clearances would be too tight after milling the head flat. I took the head to my head guy to be welded and he drilled out the oil passage and pressed in a steel tube to take care of the crack in the oil passage. I gave the head back to the shop to install.
Click to expand...
Half a lifetime ago, I was working as an overhaul mechanic for an outfit that sold rebuild engine
Mostly German, and mostly diesel

There were several engine models, which if the came across my bench got a aluminum dowel in the heads oil passage and then got the head and block galley tapped for a rerouted oil line
 
Wife's parents and many of her friends and cousins gave us 6 months when we got married in '82, at her 18 and me 20. We're the only ones still together, almost 42 years later, unlike all of those relationship "experts"!
 
You must have been a real charmer.
 
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dadsbee said:
Wife's parents and many of her friends and cousins gave us 6 months when we got married in '82, at her 18 and me 20. We're the only ones still together, almost 42 years later, unlike all of those relationship "experts"!
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She must have amazing patience. :) :poke:
 
Kern Dog said:
You must have been a test charmer.
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LOL. She just has a thing for the mechanically inclined I guess, met her on a school trip to DC and our bus died in Gettysburg PA. I crawled under it with my pocket knife and got us moving again.. been together ever since!
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CFD244 said:
She must have amazing patience. :) :poke:
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Yep.. she even let you visit our Camp for an hour or more! LMAO !
 
dadsbee said:
LOL. She just has a thing for the mechanically inclined I guess, met her on a school trip to DC and our bus died in Gettysburg PA. I crawled under it with my pocket knife and got us moving again.. been together ever since!
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Yep.. she even let you visit our Camp for an hour or more! LMAO !
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Great story......BTW.....We're back in Temagami the second week in June.
 
My wife told me not to buy the G8, should have listened. Thankfully that's my only real **** up.
My brother is notorious for not listening when told to stop doing stuff (or to not start in the first place) or being by people that do things he can't handle long term. It always comes back to bite him in the ***. I've finally given up on him after he finally listened to us and bought his buddies 02 Malibu instead of the fun cars that he kept breaking. He then proceeds to hit and run a parked car while literally days away from getting his occupational license after everyone told him to be patient and wait for it to show up in the mail. Like damn dude.
 
dadsbee said:
LOL. She just has a thing for the mechanically inclined I guess, met her on a school trip to DC and our bus died in Gettysburg
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I edited my post. “Test charmer?” What the heck?
Tiny phone screen.
REAL charmer.
Carry on.
 
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