Things I've learnt while building my Hot Rod

Some of these things are personal experience and others are things I have learned while observing others. All good lessons in life!

If you think it could happen, it probably will. Learnt while holding a part between my legs while using a wire brush on an electric drill. I thought.....ooohhh that could catch on my shorts then I might end up wire brushing my leg.....nah should be all right. Guess what.....I wire brushed my leg.

If you think it could happen, it probably will. Learnt while holding a piece of steel down with my foot while I ground it with an angle grinder. I was only wearing my jandals at the time and thought that grinder could do a bit of damage if I slipped.....nah should be right I'll hold it real tight.....Guess what.....I have a nice chunk out of the side of my jandal and a scar on my foot.

If you think it could happen, it probably will. Learnt while lying on my back under the car tightening a bolt above me. I thought.....ooohhh that spanner would hurt if I slipped and dropped it on my head.....nah should be all right. Guess what.....I got a black eye.

Fibreglass resin doesn't look good on your wedding band.

Fibreglass resin sticks real well to your wedding band.

Wives get mad at husbands who get Fibreglass resin on their wedding band.

Brake parts cleaner gets Fibreglass resin off wedding bands.

Brake parts cleaner stings like a bastard if you get some on the cut on your hand.

Brake parts cleaner in a cut on your hand is nowhere near as bad as when your wife found out you had Fibreglass resin on your wedding band.

You feel like a dick when you come back to your car at a gas station after paying for the gas and you climb into the right hand side of the car and then remember its left hand drive. You feel like even more of a dick when the guy in the next lane says "not your car is it mate"

Never leave your car without the handbrake firmly on even if you believe you have it in Park.

Open car doors and Garage door openings don't agree with one another.

If there is just one rock in your garden and your car is reversing toward that garden without a driver....it will find the rock.

The time you think it will take to build your hotrod should be multiplied by 'X' to the power of 3. The estimated cost of building your hotrod should be multiplied by a similar factor.

You shouldn't wait to get motivated to go in the shed. You should go in the shed to get motivated.

No matter what you build someone won't like it.

Opinions are like bums. Everybody has one.

Trademe is a great source of parts. Make good use of their automated e-mails to send you a list of items to look through everyday related to a key word. This keeps you aware of stuff that is being listed and means you get an early heads up. This is particularly important if the item has a Buy Now.

In hot rodding you make good mates with people when you least expect it.

Good mates are easiest to find when you aren't looking for them.

Just giving people the time of day and having a good chat with them brings you more reward than ignoring people because you are too busy trying to reap reward by working at something.

Spending 10 more minutes pondering your hot rod build and thinking things through will save you hours of wasted effort.

When your wife says ooh yes that is interesting. She is not at all interested.

By taking the time to do even the smallest things slowly and carefully on your hot rod, it will add patience to your approach and the end result will show the extra care you took. For example don't tear that electrical tape , take the time to cut it with scissors.

Chrome rusts. You must keep it protected with polish.
If you don't polish the chrome..... it has a tendency to fall off.

When checking stuff out on Trade Me use the link at the bottom of each listing "More Stuff You May Like" as that takes you to other similar items that might not have found otherwise.


Other people don't work to your time frames.
Never say "oh no hurry mate, just fit it in when you can"

There is more wiring in a car heater/air conditioning unit that there is on the Starship Enterprise.

You can work out any wiring with a lot of patience and a circuit tester. It all comes down to electrons flowing from the positive terminal to the negative terminal.

There is much more reward in doing something on your hot rod yourself than there is in paying someone.

When embarking on something you have never done before, observing and listening to others that have done it is valuable but the real learning is in the doing.

If you are not patient and tenacious don't build a hot rod.

Always search expired listings on Trade Me. This gives you a good idea as to what similar items sell for. It is also a great source for finding an item that you want but is not listed at present. You can often ask the seller to relist the item, then buy it.

There is always someone who can do a nicer job than you can. Accept it and just do the best you can.

If you are looking at building a hot rod start a blog. It helps to keep you motivated when you can look back at all the things you have done so far. Its great keeping friends in the loop with where you are up to. Others offer ideas and encouragement. And by far the best bit is that it is great for keeping a record of the build for your kids and grandkids to read.

If you build a hot rod and join a club you won't suffer from loneliness.

Its more fun building a hot rod than driving one.

By doing one thing on your hot rod every day you will make good progress. It might be researching something, pondering an idea, buying a part or making something. All these things will inevitably get you there. Watching TV won't.

Three drops of hardener per tablespoon of Polyester Resin for Fibregalss. If you want it to harden more quickly or in lower temperatures add an extra drop per tablespoon. If you don't want it to harden at all don't add any hardener. Your shed will stink like fibreglass for weeks and you'll have to scrape off the fibreglass and resin that hasn't set so you can start over. The scraped off fibreglass looks like candy floss. The scraped off fibreglass doesn't taste candy floss.

If you want to see what you will look like in ten years time don't wear a hat when sanding fibreglass and your hair will go grey.

Never do a brown eye while standing on the back of a moving Ford Bonus while cruising at the Beach Hop. When the brakes are applied your butt will continue to travel at the original speed of the truck and go through the back windscreen of the cab. Broken glass and bums are not good friends. Novus....show us your crack!

If you drop your cellphone down a portaloo while at a hot rod event you shouldn't retrieve it as your hand goes blue and it grosses your friends out.

If you retrieve your cellphone from a portaloo and it still works try and remember not to leave the phone in your pants pocket 3 weeks later when they are being washed as this will stuff your phone. Assumption is then that clean water is more harmful to cellphones than raw sewerage.

If while you are at a hot rod event and someone comes to your group trying to sell you something, you should revert to your basic instincts like animals in the wild. You should move away slowly and allow the weakest of the herd to be captured by the salesman so that the rest of you can be spared. Thats right, you bail on your mate. Then you go and watch from afar and giggle like Hyena's at your friends misfortune.

Mates love taking the piss, like the time when a smart arse holding a nut under the car while you tighten the bolt from above, looks up and announces he thinks he can see the weight you thought you had lost.

There are blokes who can clear a six car garage with one fart.

Some bolts are left hand threads. If you try and undo them like a right hand thread bolt you actually tighten it and you will eventually break them or strip them. Either way you are buggered.

Banana skins in the diff do quiten it down but can only ever be a temporary fix. There is no replacement for rebuilding things properly.

Not everyone who charges for their work knows what they are doing.

Not everyone who offers free advice knows what they are doing.

You can drive your hot rod all day well below the speed limit but rest assured that one time when you roar away at the lights there will be a mufty cop watching you.

When you drive a hot rod every man with a big Audi or BMW X5 and a very small pecker, has to show you how fast his car is, by passing you at the earliest opportunity.

When you make friends with other hot rodders, not everything you do will be hot rod related. You will help people shift house, remove spa pools, dismantle buildings, go fishing, have BBQ's and hear about the arguments they just had with their wife.

Some swapmeets are stink. But even the worst swapmeet is better than just lying in bed doing nothing.

People trying to sell stuff at swapmeets must like taking all their crap for a ride on the trailer just so they can cart it all home again.

Cheap Hot Rod parts end up costing you as much as the better quality more expensive one. Its just that you learn a lot more if you buy a cheap part, like how long it takes for a tow truck to arrive at Waitakaruru on a Sunday afternoon.

When torquing down bolts put oil on the threads so you get a more accurate torque reading.

When driving a hot rod you have to be prepared to be friendly as you will be waved to by all sorts of people who are excited to see your car. Some will give a simple wave while others will give you strange salutes like "Westside" or "Yo Homey" while others will hang out their windows with their camera like self appointed paparazzi.

Lifting the body off the chassis of your hot rod is something that happens regularly throughout a hot rod build. Its a good excuse to have your mates round to give you a hand and to have a beer as you all stand around marveling at progress to date.

POR 15 paint is almost as permanent as a tattoo.

POR 15 paint can be removed only by mechanical means when it is dry.

You should not use a disc grinder to try and remove POR 15 paint from yourself as it hurts like a bastard.

There is nothing better than seeing the face on a kid when he goes for his first ride in your hot rod.

You can't rely on memory. Always make to do lists when building a hot rod.

Its a great feeling when your hot rod is featured in a magazine.

Looking at many other hot rods for ideas and clues on how they went about a task can save you lots of time when you embark on the job yourself.

Picking a paint colour is the hardest part of a hot rod build.

If something should happen to your hot rod, remind yourself it is only a car.

If you are having the slightest hint of a charging problem get it sorted. You can rest assured when the damn thing won't start it will be the one time you really need it to start....like when you are holding up every other vehicle who is meant to be filing out of the paddock to join the procession down the main street for the Beach Hop parade!

If you are having the slightest hint of a charging problem get it sorted. You can rest assured when the damn thing won't start it will be the one time you really need it to start....like when you have a mates coffin on the back of your hot rod truck and you are meant to be taking him for his last ride down to the crematorium.

Just cause your passenger mate went into the shop while you pumped the gas, never assume he paid for the petrol while he was in there. It is just as likely that all he did was go to the bathroom. You won't find this out however until you are nearing the next town and there is a police road block.

If a friend in your group doesn't appear to be following you any longer, don't assume he has broken down and don't rush back to see if he is okay. You might just find that his delay was because he had been detained by an officer of the law for speeding......oh and guess what.....in your haste to get back to help your trouble stricken friend.......you get pinged for speeding too!

When you are soldering and have a hot soldering iron, be careful where you put it, they have a tendency to melt anything that gets in their way, including your hands. I have found that improvising with a hook to hang it off the end of the bench is a good idea. Don't forget though (as I did) when you go to work at the end of the bench. Mmmm I can smell sausages!

All wires in a car come prepacked with smoke in them. If you get the connections wrong the wires automatically let the smoke out to tell you, you have it wrong.

When you are really thirsty and take a good gulp of "Lift"lemon drink....first make sure it is "Lift" and not a toxic caustic cleaning solution that instantly dissolves all the lining in your throat.