Where there’s a will, there’s a way part 2

In an earlier post I mentioned how my brother and I used to try to build everything we needed, and we would attempt to fix anything. I mean literally anything. Sometimes we succeeded and sometimes we failed miserably. We had fun just trying though and I wish more people now days would get into being more self sufficient. There is a huge amount of satisfaction in doing things with your hands, and having it turn out well.

I recall once we were rebuilding a car engine and it came time to reseat the valves. Once again we were out of luck because it was a weekend and the local car parts store was closed. That meant no valve grinding compound and no reseated valves until the next week. We weren’t about to accept that verdict after working so hard to finish that engine so we put our not so brilliant brains to work to find a way.

Find a way we did! We mixed some Ajax cleaner and some oil together into a paste, dabbed some on the valves, put the valve stems into an electric drill one at a time and give em a spin, and it reseated the valves perfectly. All we had to do was wipe off the home made grinding compound after we finished. That ol’ motor ran like a top and once again we came through for mere pennies, saved money, and had some fun; not to mention learning more self sufficiency.