Biggest jobs you have completed in the shortest amount of time.

The biggest issue with the hobby of old cars or even repairing your daily driver is finding time to do the "big" jobs such as replacing internal engine parts, or other major driveline components. In this thread we shall discuss times when we finished jobs far sooner than expected. The absolute madness that can stem of having to complete a project on a deadline has given me an even bigger respect for full time technicians and mechanics.

I think my best performances in terms of completion time relative to job difficulty was a camshaft/valve train parts replacement on an AMC 258 within the span of two evenings, this included taking the radiator support off of the Jeep CJ8 it was mounted in and reinstalling. I am a firm believer in that quality should not be rushed; but at the same time, I do get satisfaction from seeing myself complete a job completed quickly and nothing leaking or grinding after the fact. The only reason I rushed this particular project is because I had a beach trip planned the week after I did it and the rental cabin was already booked. I figured I would rather pay for parts than to pay a cancellation fee.

One of our tow trucks broke a crank in the parking lot when I started it up in the morning. Was a 73 K20 350 4 spd only had PS. Needed to do a jump start about 6 blocks away. Idled the truck down and back to take care of that call. Then yanked the motor out rolled it over on another pickup tailgate. Installed a crank kit. Truck was running again same afternoon. Was fine until we used it after Mt. St. Hellens, ash stuck the rings.

LS swapped my buddy's '93 OBS in 13 days. That's probably the only real big and quick job I've done. There's plenty of others that I've had a deadline and happened quicker than I would've liked but still wasn't fast like y'all are talking about

Swapped lift kits on the red truck in right at 2 days I believe. By myself. 59 years old. Won't do that again.

fast 99 said:

One of our tow trucks broke a crank in the parking lot when I started it up in the morning. Was a 73 K20 350 4 spd only had PS. Needed to do a jump start about 6 blocks away. Idled the truck down and back to take care of that call. Then yanked the motor out rolled it over on another pickup tailgate. Installed a crank kit. Truck was running again same afternoon. Was fine until we used it after Mt. St. Hellens, ash stuck the rings.

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We were living in the Fraser Valley (lower western part of BC, Canada) when Mt. St. Hellens blew. We had ash landing on our stuff too - can't imagine how bad it was at ground zero.

I went from one working light (with most wires gone elsewhere), no fuel gauge, no speedo, exhaust leaks, leaking rad, blown muffler, bad brakes and some much more - to a road legal truck in about 1-1/2 months. I'm still not done and I just brought home a better box to repair and install. Projects are never done until you don't own them anymore.

Oldbear42 said:

We were living in the Fraser Valley (lower western part of BC, Canada) when Mt. St. Hellens blew. We had ash landing on our stuff too - can't imagine how bad it was at ground zero.

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A week or 2 afterward went to Tri cities for a tow back to Spokane. Tri cities was closer to ground zero. They got 4-6 inches there, here about 2. The county had furrowed the ash into the center of the streets. Was 2' high. Never though it would be possible to ever get rid of the stuff. Took a few years but nature has a way.

I’d say for me is getting my Dart back on the road. I purchased it October 30th 2020, it had sat since 2015 or 16 (when the owner passed) at a minimum. Thinking that may have been closer to 10 years.

New fuel system from tank to carb, rebuilt front suspension, converting to later A body disc brakes, rebuilt rear drums, wheels, tires, general tune up, patched rear frame rails where needed, and some floor patches.

Drove out of the garage November 25th 2020.

Alignment and safety inspection, and plated December 21st 2020.

If Im recalling right, it took that long to get inspected as that worked with my schedule (going to trade school and working full time), and Rodger, my wheel/tire/alignment/inspection guy gets very busy. Good reason for it, he is a real car guy himself, he will listen to how you want something done, not just what the machine says and get it in the green or toe and go. He does it right.

So between 1 month to get it function, and short of two to get it legal is not bad in my book.

OK @legopnuematic ,but in reality Spencer, you are a helluva lot younger than most of us old guys.......lol......and you do extremely good work!!!!!!.....it takes days for me to get my mind around what I'm gonna do.....oh look a puppy!!!!

When I was 16/17 drove up to a machine shop in the morning, pulled the heads(350SBC in a 70 C20) in the lot, walked into the shop and had them rebuilt, walked to lunch, parts store to get oil, gaskets, etc. Machine shop knocked them out in a few hours and I had them back on and drove out a few hours later early afternoon.

Also in HS, with 1 or 2 friends helping, more than once, towed my vw in to autoshop monday morning, pulled the motor and tore down to short block during class. Tuesday would split case and possibly be able to line bore if needed. Wednesday would clean & reassemble short block, Thursday i would finish motor and Friday back in car and tune. Autoshop was a 2 hour class so roughly 10 hours but I would usually skip another class and get an extra few hours in.

Nowadays, those jobs would take me weeks or months. If i am being honest, maybe take me a year.

There was a time....

I bought a clapped out 79 K5 Blazer for resto last fall. The previous owner's son sold it to me. He said the old man was tooling home one afternoon when the transmission went out. He limped it into his garage and pulled the transmission and transfer case, hung a 2WD cross-member, found a driveshaft from Gawd knows where and installed a turbo 350 from a C10. Took him about 10 hours.
I asked why he went to such trouble. "He had to be back to work the next morning and needed his Chevy so he used what he had."

Mine was not long ago at all. And it was actually on my square. Found out a day in January this year that the oil pump drive shaft that's driven by the distributor, was broken, because a screw got sucked into the oil pump (pickup tube fell off). This was about 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Dad and I had the engine pulled, separated from the trans, rolled, removed oil pan, stuck in a new oil pump (with a welded pickup tube), reinstalled oil pan, and assembled everything back together. We had the engine back in and fluids topped off that same night, before midnight. However due to the speed of the job, and late hour, we slept on it, and re-checked everything the next morning before firing the truck back up. But, less than 24 hours from start to completely finished.

75 Monte 350, timing chain in an evening, had parts laying around so was back on road next day. Subaru fuel pump in two days after driving back to the city to get parts and tools since it broke down while deer hunting in the deep woods, Magiverd it to the main road using a Mountain Dew plastic bottle with a hole in it and gasoline (fuel injection), I drove while cousin injected the fuel. Lately, tow roped the Grand Prix to the auto parts store to diagnose MAF sensor, replaced and back on road within two hours.

About 25 years ago we were wheeling my '80 SB out at Uwharrie and the trans burned up. Yanked off the trail & into the campsite about 7PM. Pulled the tranny & had running again when the Ranger came by at 10PM to remind us of "quiet time". Now...who's gonna ask me why I carried a spare tranny with me???