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ZMotorsports Shop Projects 2.0

aka Larry

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Joined
May 2, 2012
Messages
8,120
Location
Eastern, NC
My wife and I spent most of 2025 heavily involved in our local Jeep club, especially with our annual fund raiser. We had a committee of nine of us that did 95% of the work for that big event and our thanks from the officers were micromanangement, and literally no actual thanks (words) after we raised $12K. That $12K was more that double what they had ever rasied in the past, so clearly we needed more oversight. :rolleyes: The icing on the cake was our committee wasn't consulted or asked to participate in how the money was spent after we did all the work to aquire it. :mad:

That experience left a bad taste in our mouths, and our entire committee left the club in December of last year. I guess we aren't even missed as not a single officer (or other member) has reached out to us to ask why we all left at once.

Sorry to put my personal rant in your thread Mike, but it seems our past club experiences somewhat align.
 
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ntsqd

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Joined
Jan 22, 2005
Messages
1,018
Location
Lower left coast
I am a charter member of two clubs. Both happen to be off-road oriented. Neither has rules, elected positions, or much of anything beyond a name. They're my kind of club. I've been exposed to the more, shall we say "normal" kind of club, with rules, officers, committees, and all of that; and they're not for me either.

One club just had it's 25th anniversary bash in Big Bear, CA. The Big Bear event has become their signature event and it is well known in the Early Bronco community. Even that event is lacking in officialdom. If you're interested in helping with the big dinner on Saturday night you look up the others involved in that and ask how you can help. If you want to go on a particular trail run and no one has organized one you just became the run leader. Post up when to meet and where, and if you're limiting the number of rigs on the run.

The other such club is fairly dormant these days. It started with a group of my friends who were all driving off-road vehicles. None of which happened to be a Jeep. We borrowed a term from my grandparent's GMC Coach club days and called the club the "S.O.B.'s", which stands for "Some Other Brand". Since then a couple of us have purchased a Jeep. An XJ for a long time friend, and an SJ for me.
 
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zmotorsports

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Oct 20, 2009
Messages
21,549
Location
Northern Utah
My experience with the HAMB and a local RV club convinced me that clubs were definitely not for me.

I can understand and appreciate using the term, "regret," Mike. Clubs are tricky and it seems that no matter what the genera, I saw it in our local VW/Audi club before that imploded, I've heard about it in the local hot rod clubs, I think its unavoidable.

All that to say, now that you have a grandson that seems to be into all things with wheels and motors, combined with the fact you have a cool Jeep and new muscle car, it should be easy to dip your toes back into going to local shows, cars & coffee type events, etc.

I would view it as a learning experience and while sometimes cold turkey is a great move, lessons can always be learned.


Yeah, although I am a complete gearhead, I have found out that "clubs" in general are just not for me. I sat back and observed the various behaviors from people at the car show on Saturday, and it seems there are a couple of specific traits that are common and I don't think I possess any of them, plus I am less tolerant of people in general these days. However, an occasional show or cars & coffee may not be a bad thing to partake of once in a while.

That being said, I do almost envy the comradery that many of them have. I watched my cousin interact with his fellow clubmembers and friends and it was admirable. Unfortunately, something I have dealt with my entire adult life is once people discover what I do for a living, they tend to not be "friends" as much as opportunists. That is also one of the things that drove me away from those clubs back in the 90's and even the local Jeep club. My reasoning for walking away cold turkey was simply to keep my sanity and get away from the opportunists.
 
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zmotorsports

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Oct 20, 2009
Messages
21,549
Location
Northern Utah
My wife and I spent most of 2025 heavily involved in our local Jeep club, especially with our annual fund raiser. We had a committee of nine of us that did 95% of the work for that big event and our thanks from the officers were micromanangement, and literally no actual thanks (words) after we raised $12K. That $12K was more that double what that had ever rasied in the past, so clearly we needed more oversight. :rolleyes: The icing on the cake was our committee wasn't consulted or asked to participate in how the money was spent after we did all the work to aquire it. :mad:

That experience left a bad taste in our mouths, and our entire committee left the club in December of last year. I guess we aren't even missed as not a single officer (or other member) has reached out to us to ask why we all left at once.

Sorry to put my personal rant in your thread Mike, but it seems our past club experiences somewhat align.

No need to apologize Vincent. Sounds like very similar experiences.

I remember doing quite a bit of work on the grand prize giveaway back in 2002 during my time in the second car club. It was a Corvette bodied go-cart and I did some welding and did the paint & body work on the car. Plus, I also packed it around to nearly all of the local car shows that season as the giveaway was at the raffle in September. I hauled it around in the enclosed trailer with our 1940 Chev. coupe and sat it up for display AND sold raffle tickets at each of the shows. When the club had the plaque made for the car it merely showed the car club's name with no mention or credit of any of the work that I did, where I was trying to drum up business for my shop as well as help the club. My dad passed in July of that year and lost all interest in pursuing helping the club any further and walked away completely.

I put my car in storage in late summer 2002, covered it, put it up on blocks and didn't touch it again for nearly 4 years. When I got out of the funk of losing my dad I got the car out of storage in March 2006. I had planned on showing it and putting it back on the dragstrip a little that year, but I went to one show in early 2006 and it just didn't feel the same. The car went up for sale and that was the last of my car show days.

My son and DIL did get my wife and I to go to a local car show a few years ago where we ran into the gentleman whom I had built the yellow 1936 and worked on the red 1957, which kind of sparked the flame a bit, but that was the last car show I had been to until this past Saturday.
 

Jehannum

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Joined
May 3, 2012
Messages
1,389
Location
Albuquerque, NM
I guess I should have been more clear Scott. I'm not regretting leaving either of the clubs that I have been a part of, I do think I regret walking away from the car scene however. Both of the local car clubs I was a part of got under my skin as far as poeple wanting something for nothing once they saw what I had to offer. It was the exact same with the local Jeep club I became a member of decades later. It was especially troubling and frustrating during the pandemic when every idiot came out of the woodwork to buy a Jeep and go off-roading, which is why I dropped out of that club in 2023. The national Jeep club we are a part of is "ok", but the wife and I are only able to participate in one or two gatherings a year, so not all that involved.

I'm not wanting to get back into any clubs, but I am wishing I wouldn't have completely walked away from the car scene all those years ago. Now that I am wanting to build something else, I am at the point of all our discretionary funds going towards paying the house off as soon as possible for retirement and boosting our portfolio, so I can't bring myself to "splurge" on a car project at this time.
"Something for nothing" is what drove me away from the Z club a couple years back. The ratio of comradeship to freebie requests just got too damn high to tolerate anymore.
 
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zmotorsports

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Oct 20, 2009
Messages
21,549
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"Something for nothing" is what drove me away from the Z club a couple years back. The ratio of comradeship to freebie requests just got too damn high to tolerate anymore.

It is really sad that people are that way. The car clubs were bad enough, but the local Jeep club during the pandemic was absolutely horrific. Newbie's to the Jeep world bought Jeeps and then EXPECTED everyone else to hold their hands. I conducted several training seminars at our local monthly club meetings showing things from basic routine maintenance to trailside troubleshooting and fixes and the people didn't want to learn anything, just expected me to fix their ****.

The straw that broke me was during a monthly club run in early 2023 when a guy was trying multiple times to get up an obstacle and as his Jeep was hopping I approached him and mentioned that he either back away and call it a day before he broke something OR string his winch and pull up it. But he was hell bent on getting up it so it a little throttle didn't work a lot would. Next attempt he snapped an axle joint. We got him out of the way and I went to get my Jeep, backed it down the trail as my tools were in the back. I was going to show him how to disassemble it to get the broken shaft out and how he could be able to drive it off the trail and home. I began tearing the front axle apart and he was nowhere to be seen. I looked up and he was sitting on his lawn chair BS'ing with others eating his sandwich for lunch.

That was it for me, I was done after that and dropped out of the Jeep club before the next meeting. I didn't receive one single phone call or text message from the few I thought were friends asking why I quit, so I guess I wasn't missed. I did get a phone call from one of them last month asking if I'd work on his Jeep because he has "replaced everything he can think of and it still won't run". I simply told him I wasn't interested. That was the first time I had heard from him in 3+ years.

The car clubs weren't quite as bad, but it seemed like I continually got hit up about doing work and then when I gave them quotes I would get the whole "you're going to charge me?" or "but you'll give me the club discount, right?" Very little mention of the quality of work they were getting, only concern was how cheaply they could get it.
 

signcrafter

Well-known member
Joined
May 9, 2012
Messages
12,559
It is really sad that people are that way. The car clubs were bad enough, but the local Jeep club during the pandemic was absolutely horrific. Newbie's to the Jeep world bought Jeeps and then EXPECTED everyone else to hold their hands. I conducted several training seminars at our local monthly club meetings showing things from basic routine maintenance to trailside troubleshooting and fixes and the people didn't want to learn anything, just expected me to fix their ****.

The straw that broke me was during a monthly club run in early 2023 when a guy was trying multiple times to get up an obstacle and as his Jeep was hopping I approached him and mentioned that he either back away and call it a day before he broke something OR string his winch and pull up it. But he was hell bent on getting up it so it a little throttle didn't work a lot would. Next attempt he snapped an axle joint. We got him out of the way and I went to get my Jeep, backed it down the trail as my tools were in the back. I was going to show him how to disassemble it to get the broken shaft out and how he could be able to drive it off the trail and home. I began tearing the front axle apart and he was nowhere to be seen. I looked up and he was sitting on his lawn chair BS'ing with others eating his sandwich for lunch.

That was it for me, I was done after that and dropped out of the Jeep club before the next meeting. I didn't receive one single phone call or text message from the few I thought were friends asking why I quit, so I guess I wasn't missed. I did get a phone call from one of them last month asking if I'd work on his Jeep because he has "replaced everything he can think of and it still won't run". I simply told him I wasn't interested. That was the first time I had heard from him in 3+ years.

The car clubs weren't quite as bad, but it seemed like I continually got hit up about doing work and then when I gave them quotes I would get the whole "you're going to charge me?" or "but you'll give me the club discount, right?" Very little mention of the quality of work they were getting, only concern was how cheaply they could get it.
It ***** to be taken advantage of Mike. I am all for helping others out with advice or my time, even for free to a point. But it has to be appreciated and also I need to at least feel like they would help me out if I ever need anything. I'm very self sufficient and very very rarely ever need or ask for help with things. But you learn real quick who would be there for you when you need it and learn who is worth donating your time for. I don't ever expect anything in return if I offer to do something for free for someone, except to know it is appreciated and to feel like they would do the same for me. I've been taken advantage of and burned many times in my life and move on and make a mental note of it. One thing that really catches my attention is those that I help that ask how much they owe me right after I'm done. A lot of times if it's a smaller thing I will already have decided I'm probably not going to charge for it. But when someone asks me how much they owe it shows they appreciated whatever I did and value what I did and more importantly are willing to put a value to my time, at least that's how I take it. There's about a dozen restaurants that I can take the family to eat and never get a bill, and I never paid for a beer back when I drank more. I still charge these places when I do work for them but they know I charge fair and will take care of them because they take care of me. I think as we get older our time becomes more valuable and we get more picky as to who/what we donate our time to, at least for me.
 
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zmotorsports

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Oct 20, 2009
Messages
21,549
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It ***** to be taken advantage of Mike. I am all for helping others out with advice or my time, even for free to a point. But it has to be appreciated and also I need to at least feel like they would help me out if I ever need anything. I'm very self sufficient and very very rarely ever need or ask for help with things. But you learn real quick who would be there for you when you need it and learn who is worth donating your time for. I don't ever expect anything in return if I offer to do something for free for someone, except to know it is appreciated and to feel like they would do the same for me. I've been taken advantage of and burned many times in my life and move on and make a mental note of it. One thing that really catches my attention is those that I help that ask how much they owe me right after I'm done. A lot of times if it's a smaller thing I will already have decided I'm probably not going to charge for it. But when someone asks me how much they owe it shows they appreciated whatever I did and value what I did and more importantly are willing to put a value to my time, at least that's how I take it. There's about a dozen restaurants that I can take the family to eat and never get a bill, and I never paid for a beer back when I drank more. I still charge these places when I do work for them but they know I charge fair and will take care of them because they take care of me. I think as we get older our time becomes more valuable and we get more picky as to who/what we donate our time to, at least for me.

I completely agree Scott. Like you, I have given work away when it is a small job or something when I know it will be appreciated and often when I know they'll be back with a bigger job, I figure I'll eat this one and catch them next time. However, it needs to be MY decision on when or if to do so. If someone tried playing the "club discount" or something similar, I generally charged more out of principal, especially because I didn't want them to come back.

Also like you, I try to be self-sufficient to the point I hate asking anyone for help, even my son. I will struggle through something before I will ask for assistance almost to fault.

I am to the point now in life that I am not trying to drum up business and not wanting to be part of an organized club to feel like I belong. If someone hits me up to do some work and IF I have time and IF it is something I want to do, I might take them up on it on, no guarantees though. I am content with not being part of a group and kind of just want to do my own thing, whatever it is that day.
 

Grant Gunderson

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Joined
May 17, 2013
Messages
2,340
Location
Bellingham, WA
Ok speaking of presses my Framco#3 arbor press IMG_7316.jpeg
Does 90% of what I need. Plenty of power and lots of finesse.

However I’m starting to find I need something that’s got more girth for pressing off drive gears / freewheels. I’d love to find one of the massive #5 or larger floor standing arbor presses but those are damn hard to come by.

So think it’s time to get a high quality hydraulic one. Finesse is more important than power. Whats the recommendation? I’ll often be needing to use it with custom made drift / holders. Might make some sort of gridded threaded plate system to fold / center custom tooling etc unless that already exists
 

545_days

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 30, 2016
Messages
602
Location
Texas
Maybe it is over 20 years of industrial project management, but telling people no doesn't bother me. As a result, I don't feel like I am taken advantage of because I haven't been.

My advice would be to rejoin the club scene but draw clear boundaries. It's easy to say that you are not interested in outside work, or what your rate is for any particular job you might consider taking.

As far as club discounts go, whatever you might choose to charge is the discounted price. Also you don't owe anyone any explanation as to why your prices might vary from job to job or customer to customer because you are retired and don't have to work for anyone.

If some people are ****-hurt over this, don't worry about it. Take jobs you think you will enjoy and pass on those that do not interest you.
 

swsman

Well-known member
Joined
May 5, 2021
Messages
706
Location
Earthbound
It is really sad that people are that way. The car clubs were bad enough, but the local Jeep club during the pandemic was absolutely horrific. Newbie's to the Jeep world bought Jeeps and then EXPECTED everyone else to hold their hands. I conducted several training seminars at our local monthly club meetings showing things from basic routine maintenance to trailside troubleshooting and fixes and the people didn't want to learn anything, just expected me to fix their ****.

The straw that broke me was during a monthly club run in early 2023 when a guy was trying multiple times to get up an obstacle and as his Jeep was hopping I approached him and mentioned that he either back away and call it a day before he broke something OR string his winch and pull up it. But he was hell bent on getting up it so it a little throttle didn't work a lot would. Next attempt he snapped an axle joint. We got him out of the way and I went to get my Jeep, backed it down the trail as my tools were in the back. I was going to show him how to disassemble it to get the broken shaft out and how he could be able to drive it off the trail and home. I began tearing the front axle apart and he was nowhere to be seen. I looked up and he was sitting on his lawn chair BS'ing with others eating his sandwich for lunch.

That was it for me, I was done after that and dropped out of the Jeep club before the next meeting. I didn't receive one single phone call or text message from the few I thought were friends asking why I quit, so I guess I wasn't missed. I did get a phone call from one of them last month asking if I'd work on his Jeep because he has "replaced everything he can think of and it still won't run". I simply told him I wasn't interested. That was the first time I had heard from him in 3+ years.

The car clubs weren't quite as bad, but it seemed like I continually got hit up about doing work and then when I gave them quotes I would get the whole "you're going to charge me?" or "but you'll give me the club discount, right?" Very little mention of the quality of work they were getting, only concern was how cheaply they could get it.
Mike,

This reflects on people as a general rule, certainly over the last couple decades.
One is to drop everything and help out on a whim, when "that" someone needs a small favor none are to be found within "friend" group.

Like you I was always the guy that would show up without being asked if there was a vehicle project/house repair/truck bed was needed etc.

Over the years I have scaled that way back, removed leaches out of my life, and generally do as much as possible solo.
Do not like asking for help, unless it is something hard to manage by my lonesome. We are all busy, everyone fighting their own battle.

Back in February I had a work related accident and mangled my right leg ankle pretty good.
It required a surgery and it has been a fight to get better/regain mobility since.

Was not able to cut grass, any vehicle or household repair, even groceries... First 5 weeks I was no weight bearing and stuck between a couch/recliner life.

Saw even more of what I refer to as "acquaintances" say let me know if you need anything, and go silent for the duration.

Blessed with a few real friends, and my mother being there in my recovery every step of the way.
Single fellow here, no dependents.

I am back to doing small stuff around the house, vehicle maintenance, even rode my scooter a few times already.
Still holding back on a proper motorcycle ride.
As they say things are falling in place, some additional life lessons were learned.

Rest of my time is filled with work (light duty for now), and physical therapy 3 times a week.
Bossman has me running our dock, clerical and some other bits - good to be out of the house and working...
Onwards and upwards.
 

PugetDude

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Joined
Mar 13, 2013
Messages
22,562
Location
Superstition Mountains, AZ
Don't want to pollute your thread with a long winded club story, Mike, but it's typical of your experience.

I was president if our local RV club for a year. When we decided to move back to AZ I let the membership know 3 mnths in advance that someone needed to step up and take over the leadership and the finances. Crickets... 2 more reminders... more crickets... not one response. So, the day before we left i closed the club bank account, had a cashiers check made out to a local kids charity and left town. Sent a good bye email to the membership with a copy of the receipt informing them of their charitable donation.
Holy hell broke loose...I was accused of being a scammer, an embezzler, and a thief... for a year...
**** 'em. Done with any clubs.
 
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zmotorsports

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Joined
Oct 20, 2009
Messages
21,549
Location
Northern Utah
Don't want to pollute your thread with a long winded club story, Mike, but it's typical of your experience.

I was president if our local RV club for a year. When we decided to move back to AZ I let the membership know 3 mnths in advance that someone needed to step up and take over the leadership and the finances. Crickets... 2 more reminders... more crickets... not one response. So, the day before we left i closed the club bank account, had a cashiers check made out to a local kids charity and left town. Sent a good bye email to the membership with a copy of the receipt informing them of their charitable donation.
Holy hell broke loose...I was accused of being a scammer, an embezzler, and a thief... for a year...
**** 'em. Done with any clubs.

Well I'm glad I haven't had quite that bad of experiences with clubs Scott. WOW!
 
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zmotorsports

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Joined
Oct 20, 2009
Messages
21,549
Location
Northern Utah
Working in the shop last night and took a break so I stepped outside to admire my thick green lawn and I just had to snap a couple of pictures as it has recovered nicely from the partially plugged filter last week.

For you rock hounds, can you honestly say that your rocks look better than a nice lush green lawn????? :bounce:
lawn1.jpg

lawn2.jpg
 
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zmotorsports

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Joined
Oct 20, 2009
Messages
21,549
Location
Northern Utah
I'll propose that because you have both lush green grass and rocks that your yard is superior to one with either grass OR rocks.

I like that Keith. When someone (other than myself) tries to make the argument which is better, rocks or grass, I can respond with gusto either way because I have both. :bounce:
 

Finallygotit

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Joined
Jul 6, 2013
Messages
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Location
Tucson, AZ
For you rock hounds, can you honestly say that your rocks look better than a nice lush green lawn????? :bounce:
Mike, not just a yes but a "Oh hell yes!"

For me I tried to make that picture perfect lawn for years and was never able to do it. Knowing what I had gone through to get a lawn looking good reminds me of the time and expense every time I see one and say to myself, "No thank you". Sorry bud.

:beer:
 
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