Cars are like me nowadays, getting too old for the job

Had a 56 plate petrol Fiesta in yesterday for a clutch because the bearing was noisy in operation. The thing I don't like about the Fiesta clutches is the amount of wiring over the top of the gearbox. Anyway once I'd got the battery tray out and wiring to one side, I proceeded to remove the two top belhousing bolts, however the one nearest the bulkhead was so tight that I proceeded to remove it using a Snap On grip socket which was fully on the stud/bolt head but when I tried to release the bolt the grip socket I kid you not fractured. Now I was stuck to get this bolt out and access was not the best. I rang Snap On asking if he had deep grip sockets and he said he had some on his van, but would not be home until around 7.30 PM. I rang him and he said he would not be home until 10 PM. I agreed to meet him and he then told me he had NO grip sockets but had some other design sockets that gripped rounded head bolts. Well this set of sockets he gave me last night did not meet that standard today when I put it on the stud/nut. Clearly useless. What was I going to do? I decided that the only thing I could do was get the dremel out and grind the stud/nut away until the gearbox came away from the engine. What a job, after removal of the stud/nut leaving the shank in the cylinder block and belhousing hole (flush) I then had a restling match with the gearbox alloy case against the steel block dowels because they did not want to part company!

Eventually after some serious levering I did manage to get the gearbox off in one piece. Using another grip socket I then removed the remainder of the stud, very rusty internally in the steel block. A trip to the breakers got me a new stud/nut and battery earth lead that I destroyed getting the stud out. It was also a challenge initially to get the driveshafts out the front hubs. Yes I know most people probably leave the driveshafts in and hanging around while the gearbox is removed, but me being me, I hate things getting in the way, so I always remove them, but they were not for coming out the hubs, hence a 12 ton hub press had a word with them and said, "You will come out", this being after I seriously heated the lower hubs where the through bolts hold the bottom ball joints in place because they were also seriously seized in, which then melted the outer CV boots so I ended up changing them also. At the end of the day though the job worked out okay, but as these cars are getting older their parts are becoming a nightmare to work with, and I'm no spring chicken and I'm certainly feeling the pain of physical work now and getting tired rather quickly each day now with these types of jobs. That was a long day yesterday.