My Re-Started Project and Some Nostalgia

[billrigsby]

 

After a day of tearing through crates and boxes of old Dodge truck parts and sorting through everything and seeing what was what,

I don't think I need to worry about the coronavirus I probably need to worry about the hantavirus with all the mouse droppings and mouse pee I've been dealing with.

 

So tonight I'm scanning all my old handwritten notes into the computer so I have them forever at the touch of a button.

 

Brought back a lot of memories of old computer days and doing stuff on an old Z80 based CPM machine and dot matrix printer,

who would have thought that I would eventually be working for that company Zilog that invented the Z80 microchip for 20 years before moving to Colorado.

 

Also strange how we used to do business, waiting for Hemmings Motor News to come every month, self-addressed stamped envelopes with requests for parts my "The Times They Have a Changed"

I have attached a couple samples of parts requests replies that I received and also the first few pages of my cost log that is now put into Excel.

 

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Very similar to the Direct CPM computer I had back then, they were called "luggable" computers, now it is a smart phone or tablet.

 

 

 

 

 

[Tooljunkie]

Last thing i want to do is track my spending on my projects. Especially to have evidence,in case the wife find it. 
that being said, keeping notes, taking photos is a great way to figure out what you forgot. 
my problem is if i get going i forget to take photos. One day i need to go through my photos and organize them,and put into seperate files. 
 

 

[billrigsby]

6 hours ago, Tooljunkie said:

Last thing i want to do is track my spending on my projects. Especially to have evidence,in case the wife find it. 
that being said, keeping notes, taking photos is a great way to figure out what you forgot. 
my problem is if i get going i forget to take photos. One day i need to go through my photos and organize them,and put into seperate files. 

 

 

I just viewed almost 250 35mm slides of this project, need to get them converted to digital.

Unfortunately, I do not have the wife "issue" any more, but I am anal about tracking costs.

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by billrigsby

[PT81PlymouthPickup]

1 hour ago, billrigsby said:

7 hours ago, Tooljunkie said:

Last thing i want to do is track my spending on my projects. Especially to have evidence,in case the wife find it. 
that being said, keeping notes, taking photos is a great way to figure out what you forgot. 
my problem is if i get going i forget to take photos. One day i need to go through my photos and organize them,and put into seperate files. 

 

 

I just viewed almost 250 35mm slides of this project, need to get them converted to digital.

Unfortunately, I do not have the wife "issue" any more, but I am anal about tracking costs.

I'm with Tooljunkie! Be anal about doing the work, not keeping track of how much you spend. I want to forget how much I've spent! I used to keep receipts of expenditures and it gets depressing pretty fast.  Anyhow, you're not alone. Look at the sunny-side!  Most of my productive time building my truck was when I was between wives and girlfriends. If it wasn't for divorce, I would have never finished. Lols! 

[JBNeal]

There's nothing wrong with keeping a logbook where ya can keep track of resources spent on certain tasks, gaps in work, milestones met...my long-retired neighbor hired me to refurbish her tired looking 3-car detached garage, basically gave me a blank check with a general idea of what she wanted...since I've had decades of practice keeping logbooks for my engineering work, I was able to track hours, material costs, weather delays, interruptions to tend to other work, etc...my initial labor estimate was 33% off because I found so much water damage, but my materials cost was 22% under my initial estimate, and start to finish was 6 weeks longer than I had planned due to delays from weather and defective part replacement...did all of this on basically 2 sheets in an old spiral notebook that I keep oddball notes and doodles...I do this kind of simple bookkeeping for feeding her cattle the last 4 winters, which has helped her to remember how much feed is needed and start-finish of winter feeding since her memory is kinda fuzzy on them details...when I get back to turning wrenches again, I'll be ready to keep track of the details on my projects when they're rolling again, just to have something to look at when I'm researching for my next project...ya never know when ya might need some of them details reproduced again

[PT81PlymouthPickup]

2 hours ago, JBNeal said:

There's nothing wrong with keeping a logbook where ya can keep track of resources spent on certain tasks, gaps in work, milestones met...my long-retired neighbor hired me to refurbish her tired looking 3-car detached garage, basically gave me a blank check with a general idea of what she wanted...since I've had decades of practice keeping logbooks for my engineering work, I was able to track hours, material costs, weather delays, interruptions to tend to other work, etc...my initial labor estimate was 33% off because I found so much water damage, but my materials cost was 22% under my initial estimate, and start to finish was 6 weeks longer than I had planned due to delays from weather and defective part replacement...did all of this on basically 2 sheets in an old spiral notebook that I keep oddball notes and doodles...I do this kind of simple bookkeeping for feeding her cattle the last 4 winters, which has helped her to remember how much feed is needed and start-finish of winter feeding since her memory is kinda fuzzy on them details...when I get back to turning wrenches again, I'll be ready to keep track of the details on my projects when they're rolling again, just to have something to look at when I'm researching for my next project...ya never know when ya might need some of them details reproduced again

I agree with JBNeal. I didn't mean to sound insensitive, just trying to convey that if working on a vintage truck build, I've learned it's not healthy to focus on dollars spent. Most of us working on these old Mopars are frugal by nature, but the love of our vintage vehicles is worth much more than dollars and cents spent. I'm as "anal" as they come. I keep a journal on all the details of my truck, but I no longer focus on how much I've spent, which is way too much! I think most of us would agree owning, restoring, and mainataining our classic autos is a losing proposition when it comes to money?

[billrigsby]

1 hour ago, PT81PlymouthPickup said:

I agree with JBNeal. I didn't mean to sound insensitive, just trying to convey that if working on a vintage truck build, I've learned it's not healthy to focus on dollars spent. Most of us working on these old Mopars are frugal by nature, but the love of our vintage vehicles is worth much more than dollars and cents spent. I'm as "anal" as they come. I keep a journal on all the details of my truck, but I no longer focus on how much I've spent, which is way too much! I think most of us would agree owning, restoring, and mainataining our classic autos is a losing proposition when it comes to money?

 

 

 

Nothing insensitive about your response whatsoever. We all know preserving history costs a lot of money, we also know we'll never see a positive return on investment unless you're cutting corners.

 

Recently this kind of record-keeping help me in the sale of my 1950 Willys with a 1995 Chevy Vortec V6 power unit and lots of extras. Needless to say I didn't get what I put into it, but when I could prove what I put into it it helped in the negotiating.

 

At the time, about two weeks ago I was still contemplating selling this Dodge project, which I have listed on a number of the local and not so local Facebook vintage truck pages. The buyer brought his brother along because both of them are into old cars then he thought he might be interested in purchasing it. When he saw what I had and what I had done to it, and since he was in the middle of a Shoebox Ford project he was not ready to take on another one. But seeing everything I had there and how close I was he suggested I just complete the task.

 

So that's about how we got to this point.

 

This record keeping is just my anal-retentiveness kicking in, I could tell you right now, not counting today's expenditures what it has cost me to live in this house so far this year, and at the end of the year I'll have an average daily and monthly cost.

That's everything from mortgage, property taxes, utilities and repairs, down to a dollar breakfast at McDonalds.

 

What did we do before Excel  ?

[Eneto-55]

On 7/24/2020 at 9:48 PM, billrigsby said:

 

 

 

 

Very similar to the Direct CPM computer I had back then, they were called "luggable" computers, now it is a smart phone or tablet.

 

 

 

 

 

Our first computer was also a Kaypro II.  But I would have said that the floppy drives on ours were horizontal, not vertical.  (Probably just bad memory on my part.)  But it died a long time ago, and I just kept parts of the aluminum case for building other things (until we moved back to the States in 2003).  The only things I still have from it are the power cord, and the blue plastic floppy disk case, which works for CDs.  We bought it in 1984, and moved to Brazil the following year.  It lasted 6 years in that humid climate.  Probably could have fixed it, but the technology had moved on so far by then, that we switched from the CP/M operating system up to an MSDOS laptop that we could power off of a single solar panel & a car battery.  That opened up many new possibilities as to what all we could do while out in the remote Indian village where we were doing Bible translation work. 

[ggdad1951]

I tracked FEFs expenses to the penny.  Several reasons, but the most important was insurance issues.  If I ever have to desl with it, I can point to the material cost and give a time/cost number to repair damage and they can't bat an eye.  Also it was nice to know what the damage was.

[dcotant]

Loved the Kaypro picture. Remember Microcornucopia Magazine? I worked for them from 1981 to 1985, and drove my 1949 Dodge to work!

 

[Eneto-55]

5 hours ago, dcotant said:

Loved the Kaypro picture. Remember Microcornucopia Magazine? I worked for them from 1981 to 1985, and drove my 1949 Dodge to work!

 

Found this picture of how I remember the floppy drives were positioned on ours.