ever want to bang your head on the wall, watching someone else....

Grumpy

The Grumpy Grease Monkey mechanical engineer.
Staff member
ever get frustrated watching someone you thought knows better potentially damage parts or screw up?
have you ever want to bang your head on the wall, watching someone else....
look we all make mistakes I know I made hundreds but I learn from my screw-ups.. and try hard to prevent recurrences.

I was helping one of the neighbors kids (hes about mid 30s) try to replace the horn button in his 1968 road runner steering wheel, it does not look original, as it looks fairly new, and basically had what might be, a shiny wood ring surface.
but its surface was covered in what looked like a patchy bunch of old dry grease finger prints, semi dried ketchup and maybe old honey, or duck sauce, and general dirt mixed with old waxy build-up which looked rather less than appealing or sanitary, so I mentioned that and the kid grabbed some course steel wool to clean it off......
I stopped him, and reminded him that a replacement steering wheel that looked that good originally probably cost north of $140,
I pointed out that ROUGH STEEL WOOL, would absolutely destroy, what appeared too be the polyurethane finish on the wood ring steering wheel.
I asked if he has an old wash cloth or towel and if he has any white vinegar, and windex, he stated he had some in the kitchen so I said, get an old coffee cup and fill it 1/2 way with water and put it in the microwave for 1.5 minutes too warm it up then drop a tablespoon of windex and a tablespoon of white vinegar, in the warm water and bring the cup and the wash towel out here.... he looked at me like I was insane ... but followed the suggestion, and in about three minutes he returned with the hot water mix and old towel... I poured about 1/2 the contents onto the towel and then used it to rub all the crap on the steering wheel surface off... it looked better than it did in years, i then suggested he have a couple paper towels and some spray furniture wax and rub the surface down to seal and micro cracks in the polyurethane finish on the wood ring steering wheel.
then after it looked like I would no longer get the PLAGUE from touching the steering wheel I helped him get the horn working,
 
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