Two years ago I bought a 1991 Honda motorcycle to bring back to life as a project. Mechanically it was/is fine but needed pieces fixed or replaced to return it to running order. Just to get it to run it needed a new starter motor and a carburetor. The mufflers had their pieces removed and made an ungodly racket. I improvised a repair to decrease the noise. It was either that or replace the over six hundred dollar exhaust system, which wasn't happening.
After that and a few other details I had it on the road. It ran well enough to make the 156 mile trip here from Deposit and gave me sixty-eight mpg easily. One problem remained. Somewhere in its past abuse the directional signals were knocked out of commission. I wasn't prepared to dig through miles of wire and investigate switches and relays so i farmed it out to a small local shop that had just opened its doors. After a few weeks of investigation and waiting on parts the signals sprang to life. Even the indicator bulb lights now as the signals warn other drivers what I'm up to. 
It sits in the garage now waiting for better weather and I feel good every time I walk past it. It's twenty-six years old with only fifteen thousand miles on it and runs as well as anything of a similar size in my fleet. Sometimes persistence does pay off.