old-guy-mechanical-work-while-sick-sucks-rant...thread

[Hogweed]

don't really need help, just wanted to bash my head against the wall and figured i'd vent here and see if the urge goes away....
the flex pipe on our toyota van was leaking so i found a cheap pipe on ebay (nice quality, not the problem) and went to work last weekend. probably should have picked a day when it wasn't supposed to snow but alas....the front connection was easy (coming off) but the rear was rusted beyond recognition. i did get some work done but the snow, wind and freezing rain started and.....now i DO have a pretty big shop that has heat where i could have been doing this work but that's another story....
ff to this weekend. i want to get it done because more weather is rolling in, need the van as it is our only awd vehicle, etc., but now i'm dealing with a bad cold! bundled up good and it wasn't that cold yesterday anyway so i figured it would be done quickly and i'd be set.
ended up out there all freaking day trying to get the bolts off the back -die grinder, sawzall, air hammer......finally got it to go and was all set to put the new pipe in when i realized the one stud from exhaust manifold had some damage on the threads that prevented proper fastening. couldn't even get the die to start to clean it up....i have success with a small triangular file to get threads cleaned up but getting cold, felling run down....i left it for today.
went out this afternoon and was able to fix the threads so both studs were functional. put it all together but the stud that wasn't bad, originally, decided to not accept the nut all the way up, stripped out and broke!!
not the end of the world but just frustrating and now it all has to come out so i can drill the stud out and replace or through-bolt it.
not getting done today because i can't be laying under the car all day and get sick(er).......
shoot me now