No, no..No! These are not the AMC variety Gremlin, these are the invisible and untraceable variety. My next project install was to be the power steering pump. I went to the last spot I remember seeing it, and it is not there. I think....maybe I put in in the bed of the El Camino. I found my torque wrench. Maybe I should repair the A/C delete panel. Where is the resin. I look in the paint cabinet and its not there but there is the fiberglass cloth. I need scissors to cut it with, but the scissors are not on the peg board. I can't find the resin, but this is a small patch...I wonder how Gorilla Glue would work? I found the sandpaper I needed last week, so I'll put it where I can find it next time. I need a piece of cardboard to put the panel on. Hey here are the painted brackets for the power steering pump. I wonder where it is? I found the coffee can full of bolts for the brackets. Here are the hoses., and under them is my 9/16ths box end...I lost it last week. I found it honey! My drill has the drill bit I was looking for yesterday. SOB! Here is the lid to the power steering pump. I must be close. Why am I carrying the Gorilla Glue? Oh yeah...where are the scissors? Probably the same place as my flex plate, and the intake gasket I never found. I bought a plug for the end of the transmission so it wouldn't leak while I was moving it around, but the plug disappeared too, and later re-appeared under the car after I had taken out, refiltered, and put the transmission back in. Wait, here is the spring for the column shift linkage. I need to install that before I lose it again. I still haven't found the correct bolts for the trans mount. Maybe I should check the coffee can. I need to get the brake line splice on too. What did I do with the spring and where did I put the wrench? Here's the cardboard...what did I do with the Gorilla Glue? OK...Spring on, and when I find the scissors I'll cut the cloth and patch it...done! Here's the distributor...oh yeah I need to prime the oil pump! Transmission lines......speedo cable. It is time for lunch. Does anyone know where my power steering pump is? Oh here is my breaker bar...missing since June. I'm hungry and thirsty. Maybe I should plug in the radio. I need to organize.

Ever have one of those days? Oh here's the resin! Put it where it belongs!

 

No judgement at all, but some rainy day when you don’t want to start a car project, take a day or 3 to organize the garage. Start with coffee, swap with beverage of choice as late afternoon arrives.

I did this last Spring and it’s great finding stuff where you’d expect it to be. Or reach for something and you don’t have to go the auto parts store to get it.

I’ve come around to the opinion that if you don’t know where it is, you don’t know what you’ve got, so you don’t know what you can fix. Organizing helped me a lot - screw by size, nuts, bolts, tools, sandpapers, paints,etc, etc, etc. Plus a clean garage is fun to work in.

my 2 cents
Chris

 

It sounds like my situation. Age made it worse. My gremlins are better organized than I am. Sometimes a project has to be put on hold due to their efficiency.

 

You're not to blame. We all know who did it. They live in my garage too.

 

I know how that goes. But as I've gotten older I am almost obsessed with putting stuff away before starting any thing else. Now a days I start something and don't consider it done until all the tools are put back and the floor is swept. It doesn't always work of course. I have a friend who helps me a lot and I help him. He goes to garage sales and buys junk all the time. Whenever we need to work on something of his that moves, we do it in my shop where I usually can find tools. But last summer we installed 2 garage door openers at his place. I took over as many tools as I thought we would need, but of course we needed some others. We needed a pipe wrench which he went down in his basement and looked 15 minutes and came back empty. So we used a scary pair of visegrips which were bent and junk. Later we found his pipe wrench in the garage which was the old cast iron kind that was worn out. I tell him that if you can't find something you don't have it. "I have it somewhere" You might just as well throw it away then you know you don't have it and won't spend a half hour looking for it just to go to the store and buy one ! Funny story though and believe me I can relate, as much as I try I still have those Gremlins also....

 

I'm so glad this happens to someone else besides me. I often go buy something I "need" and when I take it to the place I want to put it up there's usually at least one of the item already there.Sometimes several. Now what did I have for breakfast?

 

Know your pain all so well. I had three places of storage during my restoration, a mini storage 10 miles away, my attic, and the shop. So some of my searches took all day, and sometimes going back twice. I found that planning the next task was to go find all the parts and had a place set up just for these parts, when the space was empty and the task complete it was on to the next. Not that it was completely successful but made it more manageable.

I am finding the older I get that I need time at the end of the day to put everything back in its place. At 62 this alone can be harder than you think the next time you need it.

 

You think 62 is bad, wait until your 75. Suffer from CRS (can't remember $hit)

 

Sounds like it is time for some 5S methodology!

 

I built a new building & had great intentions of organizing everything. It worked to some extent as I labeled all drawers & organized my tools for the most part.

Due to the large building size, anytime I do not put something back in it's proper spot, it can take me 1/2 hr to find it.
This gets increasingly difficult if working on multiple projects... as you have to look in 5 different places.

I found it easier to buy more wrenches, ratchets & screw drivers so they can be in many places at once.
Now I don't have a favorite screwdriver, I have 3 of the same, but still occasionally can't find one.

I have 3 18mm Deep Craftsman sockets, somehow all 3 are now broken, but amazingly enough they are always in their correct location.
It's the remaining good one that still gets lost.

I recently lost my large sledge hammer, not that it fits in any drawers so it has to be in plain site, or so I thought.
Maybe I need more of them also.

Once I lost my lineman's pliers, I could not find them anywhere.
3 days later I found them with my wifes gardening tools... I'm told they cut rose bushes nicely.

 

This fairly well sums up 5S:

 

There's a guy on another forum who has a signature line of "Organized people are just too lazy to look for stuff".

I fight disorganization, but I don't win.

 

Usually when i start looking for the parts or tools to finish my current project I find something else i couldnt find before and start another project !!!!

 

Thanks Chris....I think I need professional help...organizing my garage could result in finding things that need fixing before I can organize my garage, and I could get lost in the wave! I will take your advice as we have rainy days until about April. I need to quit stashing stuff in coffee cans too!

 

I had noticed that it seems much more severe in the last year...I sometimes lose a wrench, socket or screwdriver 10 seconds after I last had it, and find it sitting in ...what else...a coffee can! I need to hire a referee, who throws a flag or blows the whistle whenever I try to put something down. If I put it in the right place or even a usual place...I'd save hours every time I do a 15 minute job. BTW...I still haven't found my pump. It still has on the pulley and one of the brackets. It is too big to stay lost for days of looking. Do you suppose there is a poltergeist? Ancient Alien? Brats next door?

 

Haha...Maybe I should not leave food and drinks out, yes?

 

Many of my current tools exist because my Dad would get frustrated looking, lived near a Sears and bought another. For me that method would work but the nearest Sears, Lowes, or any place with quality tools is 27 miles. I have so many irons in the fire, I just move on to the next thing know that eventually it will appear. My Dad had the added excitement of having me borrow his tools and they wound up in my tool box until he needed them. Even after I moved away, I would get calls about pipe wrenches or levels, etc. Maybe it is genetic....or...maybe the Gremlins hid in the tools I got when he passed.

 

I have bought and replaced dozens of 7/16, 1/2, 9/16 open ends...that I am sure were on the engine with the hood shut, or even more fun, fell but NEVER hit the floor! I have a set of sockets from Montgomery Ward, another Craftsman, and a lot of sockets not from either one haha...but I have the drivers from the best still. Somehow those never get lost!

 

I am so pooped out it is all I can do to get up the stairs and wash my hands. I seem to have all day marathons more lately with "simple" projects, like intakes and transmissions, cross-members, and the like...a couple hour job that wrecks my back for a week! I am not liking that I have a better memory than my body can live up to!

 

Ohhh man.....What?

 

Uhhhhhhhhh

 

You can paint a sledge like electric blue or safety orange...it is a but harder to lose. My safety orange power steering pump is still missing however.
Yes I can always find many duplicate sockets of the size above or below the one I need. Having 3 sets narrows it down sometimes!

 

Yes...I could us it....Sustain seems a bit difficult

 

Yes me too

 

Exactly! Dad?

 

If your memory is so great, you should remember where you last lost your tool.

 

I'm working on my Mom's way of locating lost things, "where did you have it last?" It's not where I remember so it must be Gremlins!

 

Buddy wanted to borrow my harmonic balancer installer, so I went in the toolbox to get it. Found it easy enough, but then I started wondering what all the other tools in that drawer did. I knew when I bought them...

There's also the matter of tool-eating cars. I have 5 of those. No telling how many sockets are in the frame rails or who knows where else in them.

 

We've come a long way since the Model T toolkit. I guess the tools we buy are directly proportionate to the depth of work we try, I have many tools bought for one project and a portable tool box with most of those things inside. That way I don't have to look through them unless I need them. In my hunt for sockets of all three drive sizes, it seems the MM ones don't stay around, and I have a couple giant ones that I used on the oil filter on a MINI. Apparently BMW hasn't mastered the spin on filter. I will probably never use it again as the MINI was a piece of junk and I scrapped it. I lost an oil filler cap that never did show again. I have found a couple of wrenches and screwdrivers in cars I bought. I guess it is Karma or some sort. BTW I broke my favorite, and most used wrench today. A swivel socket on one end and open end on the other with a long handle in between, 1/2" Cheap set...but as I recall it was bought in the 80's in San Diego to work on my TR-8! RIP trusty swivel socket, you served me and my 20+ cars very well! I still have the 3/8, 7/16, 9/16 and 5/8, but the 9/16 is close behind I think!

 

I just found this thread and am soooo glad I did. I must have the cousins of your Gremlins living in my shop. Now, take all of the issues all on this thread have described, mix it in with my ADHD and you get... I don't know, I can't remember!

 

Complicate mine with, I am a perfectionist and you get a recipe for stalling! I would have changed my disc pads yesterday but I couldn't find my allen wrench. Somewhere I quit looking for it and changed my shock absorbers, and broke my favorite and most used 1/2" wrench with a swivel socket on one end and open end on the other. Damn the shock bolts came off hard! I love shop guys with their air guns!

 

..."Chuck'sheimers."
Al's got nothing on us.