Unmotivated: what do?
 

So over the last 6 months I purchased my Miata, wrecked it then fixed it, did some weight reduction and started gathering parts to turbo it. The plan was to have all the turbo related parts acquired by May. Check. I was planning on having it up and running by mid-May, end of May at latest. A week or so ago I was in a bad dirt bike accident and shattered my pelvis into a half dozen pieces (resulting in some internal bleeding and other complications), fractured my tibia, and got a pretty good concussion resulting in quite a bit of memory loss. I finally am having surgery Monday. They expect me to be able to work on cars and go back to work by the end of August. WTF?? :vash:

I've been very irritable because I've been sitting in bed the past week and literally can't do anything. I'm pretty upset the car has to sit there for the next few months and I cant do anything to it.

I'm getting unmotivated and have found myself looking at other cars on craigslist and what not. You guys ever get unmotivated and consider selling everything off? I bought most of my parts used and feel I could get 90% of my money invested back. Should I just sell it off and start fresh when I'm healed?

Bone up on your megasquirt installation... From memory you could even order one and test it on your desk but i'm not sure. Assuming you'll be running MS and not another standalone.

I have my megasquirt and a jim stim. I just have no motivation to even touch it or play around with it.

This happens to me quite a bit too. Taking the Miata out for a drive helps me get my ---- together and reminds me why I won't get rid of everything and sell the car.

When you're in the physical condition to drive the car, do it and see how you feel. It doesn't really make sense to sell everything off if you're going to do it all again later. It's not like your parts are going anywhere while you're healing. I'd keep going.

Same thing happened with my VR4, ended up losing motivation and parting it out. I had 3 cars at the time so it was definitely a bad idea for me to keep it.

You have to decide for yourself what you want out of the car- for me, part of the fun is tearing it apart and putting it back together. It doesn't matter if the car is down for a while since I have a daily though.

Good luck with it, and I hope you have a speedy recovery.

Man memory loss always scares me.

We've all had this moment of unmotivation. For me it came last year where i kinda wanted to sell my miata for something else because nothing was going right. Luckily my family focused my mind at my plans and the work i had done to the car so I didnt sell it. After i got ---- figured out my motivation is all back and nearly a year later, i'm still enjoying my miata quite a bit. I dont know if you can walk around because of your injuries but you can also check out some local autocrossing meets. That should get your heart pumping.

He shatered his pelvis a week ago, and you're asking if he can walk around?

Err my bad i missed the shattered pelvis a week ago.

Can't really drive nor do much of anything. I'm at the point where I'm stuck in bed and can't do much without assistance. Not sure if I'd do another Miata right away as other types of cars and hobbies have caught my interest. I tend to jump from one thing to the next pretty regularly. If I did do a Miata again, I would start with a 1.8 torsen equipped car right off the bat.
Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Just busting your chops.


I do the same thing. The trick is to find something else unrelated, and obsess over that for a while. Eventually, that pales, and you go back to the Miata. Rinse and repeat.

Yeah man. Hope surgery goes well and you get healed up soon.

While you are stuck in a bed, get a copy of Rosetta Stone and learn another language. It will be at least something productive for you to do.

I tended to do that with motocross. But I'm starting to become weary of the sport as this is the 2nd crash in the past 3-4 years that has taken me out of work and pretty much life for a few months. I need to tone it down a little.

I've always been into remote control stuff... Racing? Crawling? Flying? :P

Watch love the beast and remember the connection you had with the car from the start.

I've already gotten into some other hobbies and found ways to catch my interest. That's why I'm asking if you guys think I should maybe just let her go. There's no special attachment I have with the car. I could just as easily pick up another one next year if I decide to do it again.

You've been through hell, I can't comprehend that so this is by no means a comparison to your condition. I recently had some very minor health issues that keep me from wanting to go work on the car even in a minor capacity. The constant discomfort and symptoms mean I have not opened the door of my garage for 2-months, I literally had to go look and see if the car was still in there today.

When I feel better and can put the turbo back on the car and replace the window, I'll feel that I'm 100% again. I think you will come back to it and completing the work, although far away now, could be something that shows you that you've overcome the medical issues that you experienced earlier.

I guess the other question is, given your current physical condition, if you decide to part it out, can you? Do you have someone else to uninstall and ship parts?

I'm sorry to hear about your misfortune. Try to give yourself some time to heal without making any decisions wrt projects etc.

I haven't really experienced anything like what you are, but i did break my arm snowboarding one year and had to pull out of a track day i had already scheduled and paid for. I was quite upset about that because instead of looking forward to summer and track season, I was going to PT and trying to get use of my wrist back again. Once I felt better, my interest in cars/hobbies returned with a vengeance and i threw myself into all of the ideas i had cooked up over the preceding months. If anything like this sounds possible, I would encourage you to keep the parts there handy so you can knock that thing out as soon as you have the mental and physical energy, (which isn't that car away, the body heals pretty fast).

best wishes to you for tomorrow sir

Nothing has been installed on the car at this point. Besides clutch and pressure plate, most of the work was body and suspension damage repair. All the parts are sitting in various boxes in the garage.

I'll sit on it for now or at least until something more convincing comes along. Hopefully as I start recovering, I will rekindle some of my interest in it.