I could swear I tried to planner map the sides but got all wrapped aroudn the axle. The model has a lot of beveling on all the hard edeges and each side has lots of faces extruded out so there are "sides" nested inside sides. So I am finding it difficult to select the faces on the "side".

I also need to figure out how to hide stuff I have already mapped because it's getting majorly confusing. It does not take long to have a jumbled pile of mappings all stacked on top of each other and then its a mess trying to pick them apart.

But I'll keep banging at it.

I still hate it though. I would not mind if UV layout was horrible, and tedious, and labor intensive, if it took a reasonable amount of time. I can deal with a certain amount of pain. But for me I want to model and texture. I see UV layout as drudge work and the fact that I have to put significantly more time in uv unwrapping compared to the time I spend modeling and texturing is just getting me down.