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What's the most challenging thing you've ever fixed with your own two hands?

7 years ago by 90boss with 8 comments

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  • Qukatt
    +7

    PS2, trying to put it back together is a pain in the arse especially that very last ribbon cable that you have to put back in as you're closing the lid :/

  • drunkenninja
    +6

    Personally I have never really worked on anything too complicated! But I was able to fix little gadgets, laptops, desktops here and there, or fix a car window motor and straps. Just little things like that.

  • NotWearingPants
    +5

    1950s era HF transmitter. Complete drawer was about a hundred pounds. Just disassembling the beast to replace a tube required several hours, and involved hundreds of screws, washers, gears, and a fair bit of desoldering components. Tubes lasted about 6 months, and we had two sets of transmitters.

  • OL44893
    +4

    Restored an old Vox amplifier does that count? Challenging for me b/c I'm not the most electrical savvy. But it's done and was fun.

  • IridescentOak
    +4

    Most complicated: A music box with one of those carousel horses that go up and down on it. The horse wasn't moving properly, so I took apart its stand, took out the music box, and had to fix the mechanism that gave it motion. IIRC, it was malfunctioning because this one component had managed to get itself entangled in a loose piece on the revolving motor thingy.

    Most frustrating: Y'know that little horse-shoe shaped thingy on the band of leather watches? It broke off on an old, smaller watch that I had a while back, so I had to painstakingly reattach it. I nearly about cramped my entire hand getting it put back together!

  • Appaloosa (edited 7 years ago)
    +4

    An old 63 Ford Falcon. It was my first car. My dad had it towed up to our driveway one summer and said she's all yours...if you can get it running. I was 17. Took me and a friend all summer to get the parts at the junk yard, borrowed all kinds of tools to take it apart. I never thought it would work....but it did and when it passed inspection I had come of age! By the way, I always carried a spare starter, for some reason that always gave out. Could replace it on the fly, would take it back to Pep Boys to swap for a rebuilt and always carried a spare with me.

    Of course by today's standard, that was a tinkertoy. Today's car's require a PHD and a computer workshop to fix.

    • kxh (edited 7 years ago)
      +3

      For me it was a Renault R4. Great car. Went for years. Four disks at a time when that was unusual. Rear engine over the driving wheels made it a great off-road car. I think I took almost everything on that car apart and put it back together at some point. Nothing in it I couldn't identify.

  • Starlight
    +2

    A giant Samsung projector that costs about 3 to 5 thousand. And mind you, I had absolutely zero clue what I was doing.

    Due to overheating, the color wheel shattered, so I took it apart to replace the wheel with another one from one that didn't work, and it ended up being burned on the inside. So I just ended up combining good parts to get one working example. All in all, it took me about six hours.