Why do I do this to myself??, I hate not being mechanical!! Options

[MoveQik]

So I have some free time today and nothing is going on here locally. I decide that I'll finally put on the master cylinder brace that I picked up a few weeks ago from Travis Neff. Seems easy enough.

Out to the garage I go with printed instructions from Travis in hand. Splash plate comes off no sweat. Brace goes on easy enough. So I think. I start to put the splash plate back on and quickly realize that Travis showed the clamps positioned a certain way for a reason! The plate won't go back on if they aren't mounted just so. Ahhh...lets try it again. This time FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS! So I turn everything and I still can't get the friggin plate back on. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/headbang.gif) (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/headbang.gif)

I somehow take the easiest modification and make it an all afternoon project! I would guess several of these braces have been sold and I'll bet all of them have been installed in about 30 minutes. This is just the wrong hobby for me. It is no wonder why I had to take my car to the local shop to be reassembled after I "restored" it. I'd better stick to wood working!

Back out I go to try and get the plate back on. I'll get a bigger hammer this time.

[jasons]

You know sometimes maybe most times, its not matter of ability. It just Murphys law.

If you ever need help or want to have a look at my 914 factory service manuals, just let me know. You're what like 3 miles down Cactus from me?


Oh yeah let me tell you my dumbass story...

I had a 62 ragtop bug too. It had a well built 1915cc motor. Me and a buddy built it, he has years of experience at this. We got it installed and the F'er was fast as hell. I decided to install a deep sump on the bottom of the motor to hold more oil. I got it installed no prob. It had some dirt and grime in the sump after the install so I wiped it out real good with a blue paper shop rag. Well, like a bad surgeon some how I left a shop rag in the sump. It ran like a MF'er for weeks maybe months. I mean I drove it like it was stolen 5500-6000 rpms shifts all the time. Burnouts, second and (rare but it happened) third gear chirps. One cold (well AZ cold) morning, I was warming the car up and it just died. Tried to start it again, nothing... seized.
So took it apart and what did I find in the sump? An old blue shop rag clogged the oil pickup. So I rebuilt the motor with bigger heads and a bigger cam!