Doing your own mechanical work as the years go by!

Axle, know the feelings. Love doing my own work but when one hits one's head three times on the same thing & has a little doze under the car I begin to worry....but not too much as nobody else knows...............
Cheers
Batsy

Yep, know the feeling. Its one of the reasons I moved from a 79 series to a 200series - I can do my own servicing, but no longer need to service wheel bearings, timing belts or adjust valve clearances!

Time to give it to the young blokes Axle. That is what I do mainly these days.

Aside from just having spent a couple of years with the brother converting his American imported motor home, we let the experts skin their knuckles these days.

I only change the engine oil and air filter now. I used to love getting into it in the past but I can't think of anything I'd rather not do than my own mechanicals now.

I haven't got all the latest equipment so I figure it is cheaper to give it to someone else who has. Besides at my age I have forgotten more than I knew. LOL

Cheers, Bruce.

Yep - All too true :-)

Regards Tony

Mate

You forgot to mention all the bark you knock off and the claret dripping all over the place and not having that extra double swivel universal go round corners gizmo that you need to tighten that bloody bolt some design yobbo decided you really didn't need to get at. So off to Repco 'cause they're the only ones stupid enough to open on a Sunday anyway. And then to top it off you spill your bloody stubby 'cause some bastard must have moved the bloody spanner that was right at hand when you put it down.

Like you I'm happy having a potter around with my little projects, but there's a limit.
Nowadays I'd rather put in a few extra hours, shoulder to the wheel and pay someone who hopefully knows what he's doing.

The problem will be a few years down the track when I've got no wheel to apply my shoulder.

hey Axle,

at least you've had a good crack at it over the years. I find that just as I'm picking up on a bit of knowledge and being able to do my own stuff, I'm losing it at the other end. I'll spend more time trying to find where I've put stuff than actually fixing it. Haven't nodded off under the car yet, though - I don't think.......

Don't I know the feeling, doing a cut and polish on my old 80 series ready for sale and I can hardly move today. Still love doing my own work but I have just purchased a 120 Prado and I think it will be going in for major services instead of me gaining more aches and pains.

Cheers Rod

Mate

This thread got me thinking about a little gem I came across a few years back. Some may have seen it but those of us weekend warriors who haven't may get a chuckle. By the way I just bought myself an el cheapo creeper with a nice padded headrest, so at least when I doze off under the truck I'll be comfy..........................

TOOL DICTIONARY

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock, out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted part you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch...."

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for igniting various flammable objects in your shop. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT REDGUM 4x2: Used for levering an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbour to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog**** off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes you couldn't use anyway.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile strength on everything you forgot to disconnect.

1/2” SQUARE x 16” SCREWDRIVER: A large pry-bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

LEAD LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, it's main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 kilometres away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last over tightened 58 years ago by someone at ERCO, and neatly rounds off their heads.

JIMMY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50¢ part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

STANLEY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door. Works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts.

BUGGERIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "BUGGERIT" at the top of your lungs. It is also the next tool that you will need.

EXPLETIVE: A balm, usually applied verbally in hindsight, which somehow eases those pains and indignities following our every deficiency in foresight.

Axle
You can wrap a incontinence pad around your hand to stop the knuckles from getting damaged, and dosed up with those pills and having the tools hanging from under the Zimmer frame parked beside the ruck it might make it a bit easier. Set brakes on the caster wheels though.
With the seat removed it can carry oil bottles and cooled cask of the favourite, so it should all then be a very enjoyable and satisfying experience until you have to get up again.

Cheers
Ross M

Love your have a chat threads Axle. I don't have the knowedge or inclination to do serious mechanical work but I was only thinking the other day how many more years will I be able to do this as I lifted one of my wheels back onto the studs after a third unsuccessful search for a clatter in my rear suspension. Had to extricate myself fairly quickly the first time I got under the truck to do some checking because - wait for it - I started to feel woozy while looking up. My neck muscles were so tight I could barely turn my head more than 45 degrees each side. Daughter (physio on holidays) diagnosed the problem quickly (in case it helps someone else, the muscle is actually "connected" to the eyes, hence the giddiness) and treated me straight away. Only a few thousand more treatments before she's cleared the ledger! Still haven't found my oil sump socket. Took it out of the socket set and put it somewhere in the truck so that it was with me at all times. It is, but blowed if I can remember where!

Hi

Reckon this guy could relate to how you feel...

Matainance on our vehicles, is damn near equal to our health issue

though at the time he was ~one year younger than you are now...:)

Cheers
Greg

Axle! You're only 34yo, What are you going to be like at 60!! ;) Michael

Hate to you Axle you don't have to old to find mechanical work hard........ We ran job applications for field service positions in our service trucks and some of fthe applicants had the right skill and trade qulifications but found it hard to keep up to me and some of our other guys who like me were born in the mid to late 60's..... Theses guys were 10-15 years younger......... Comments like how do i do it, thats hard, thats difficult, can't do it on site, thats heavy and a bunch of other comments.

But it's one thing i think about is how long can i and some of our guys keep going for, as you know working on earthmoving, mining and heavy vehicles takes a lot out of you and you need a different mind set.

Yes dropping things can be a pain especially if you drop something in the belly pan of a Cat D11R or from a Komatsu PC 5500........ You feel every step.

Had a interesting email come through from the IAME about heat stress....... It said be careful with young workers as they don't know their limits....... Middle age know their limits and work accordingly........ Older worker rememberer how they use to worked when they were young and still think they can work the same.

Yet another cracker post, Axle, & well supported by Rosco & others...good stuff gents.
Long gone are the days I could swap a piston in the old Peugeot before morning tea,
while the childbride changed a wheel in her tennis dress & remained blemish free.
Now its a job getting the bonnet up & damn exhausting checking the wheelnuts.
And how come that nut is always that 15mm size & I broke the spanner last week ?
Once I'd flick the new wheel on the hub with a bare big toe...now its gutbusting using
all available limbs.
However, using the same medications as Axle, I remain calm & plod on....
cheers.....oldbaz.

I do all my own mechanical work, have seen too many stuffups from the dealership "experts" to have any faith.

But I know how you feel Axle, have just done front wheel bearings, pads, replaced 4 shocks, changed gearbox, t/c and diff oils on my 75 series trayback ready for this years winter work trip.

Will be 77 next, crook knee, working in 30+ temp. it was no picnic. But the job has to be done, thank goodness for when 4pm. rolls around and some serious "rehydration" can take place.

Just hope I can keep going at this for a few more years, its a bugger when one thinks about how little time is left to do all the things one still wants to do.
mike

First. we need to understand when we are older, we need to do more than what we need to do in the way of exercise to keep the body able to do what we need to do.

The other thing is we need to change the way we do things.
We need to plan better, and use aids baught and contrived to do stuff we no longer can..and realy never should have in the first place.

For example buy or hire the gearbox jack, rather than tryng to get it in there on a scateboard and grunt it in by hand.

Bigger, taller, stronger jack stands can get the vehicle that extra 2 inhes higher, that makes working on hubs a sit down job, rather than a crawl on the ground job.

And of course realise your limits.

I was in the local 4wd shop a while ago.....this "Old bloke" ...a bit older than me......had come down, just to get the nuts on his suspension cracked.
The large mechanic with the long bar, put the 4wd up on the hoist, cracked the nuts and did em up again, and this very capable bloke went home to do his own suspension upgrade.

My brother is 10 years older than me and his knees are buggered.....he's built himself a good strong bench and has some lifting gear.......if he can, he gets whatever it is on the bench and makes a stand up job out of it instead of crawing on the floor to do it.

If we are to continue to do what ever it is.....we must rely on experience and rat cunning rather than strength and enthusiasim.

cheers

Mind you - all this "I get someone else to do it" works well until you're broken down in the middle of woop-woop :-)

40 series = giant meccano set....

Your a good man Axle. Age however does 2 things. It gives you wisdom to overcome the handicaps that Age places on your physical ability. The trick off course is to recognise that your mind thinks the idea is a great one but your body disagrees. Wisdom says take your time and only undertake the work when you are in the mood and are feeling fit and have plenty of patience. Ignore Wisdom at your own peril or take a risk with a young know it all mechanic who'll do it for you for a slab or 2..!

Keeps you fit and mind active Axle - make sure you change the wheel set every week to maximize on/off road performance , another long weekend is almost here and off we go again - this time we will be on a track I gave up on last time - so sure to need a bit of extra servicing with a hammer next tuesday.

Hi Axle, old age has not only caught up its bloody well overtaken me.
Tried to do an oil change on the wife's car, and had to go to the handbook just to find the oil filter.
Now what was I taking about?
Told ya,
Bushy.