My husband put a Chevy engine into a '49 Ford dump truck, and I seem to remember these sorts of conversations....
For decades here on the farm it was fix one thing after another, as we never had money to do it properly. That's finally changed "He got what he wanted." but it took 5.5 years to do it, military disability. So now things get fixed right. Doesn't stop the next thing from breaking though....
But at the end of the day, if we've succeeded at at least one thing, we don't feel like it was wasted...