Well..im 22..Age the age of 16 i knew absolutely nothing about car mechanics. I didnt even know how to change oil in a car. Now i can do just about anything. Anyways i took my mothers jeep to a small shop down the road and had some work done to it. The man was really nice and asked if i ever thought about working on cars. I always like demolition,fire etc and anything mechanical so i said yes. I ended up hanging out at the job a few times a week for a year or so helping out etc while he was teaching me everything i could consume in 1 day everyday i was there. Welp,3 years ago he died from heart failure and because of him ive learned a good bit along the way,apart from working on my own cars,friends etc and hundreds of hours on youtube,forums etc just learning as much as i can because of interest.


How did you get into the whole mechanics interest?



p.s share any stupid things you thought you knew about cars before you actually learned about them i.e : I though porting the heads was drilling the head of the pistons. I also thought a valve job was adding more valves to the cylinders..Oh how far ive gone since then

 

What I know I learned from my older brothers and my uncle, they had shops and I use to hangout with them and get dirty in the process, I do miss being able to do most of the work on my cars since I live in an apartment and is not allowed to do work on the streets here.
Can't really remember any stupid thing I thought about cars since it probably got corrected before I thought about it much.

 

well i started when i was 15...(34 now) my first big job was a 69 lemans that took me all of high school to complete...goal was a gto clone.
i had it done for graduation...best thing ever.




i learned with my dad...he has always been a tinkerer and shade mechanic, so i guess its in my genes. we worked on that car all the time...only thing we didnt do was finished paint job. along the way we worked on every car he has ever owned i think.

funny thing is now i am starting to realize that i am the mechanic and he is the helper...he is 56 now...i noticed it this spring...we were doing his brakes on his f150.
he went to get some drinks and lunch from the house...he asked me to take over and i did...thought nothing of it at the time. but since that day, he has been getting the tools and helping me...no matter whose vehicle it is....its an odd thing to realize. he still has advice and diff opinions sometimes...but mainly he has become the helper/guide.

back to current....

since that project from my teens i have mainly done daily driver work.
i sold the gto 2 years ago...couldnt afford to maintain it and honestly not the best idea with two little ones...so i sold it and bought the 95 stang i now have.
its great to have a spare time project again...i love the blazer but with it being a daily driver project size is limited.

now my kids by the way are 7 and 4. my daughter is the oldest and i have taken upon my self to include her in all the work i do that can be done with her helping and safely.
she looks at the mustang as her car. she started picking out colors the other day for it. honestly if it still is around in ten years then it will be time for an overhaul...to pass on tradition.

i think though honestly my best exp has been over the last couple of years, since i started poking about around here...i look at what others have done and think, thats great..maybe i can do that. so i have pushed my limits.

i guess in the end i am still learning alot...i just have alot of teachers now.


i honestly find alot of pride in being able to help others and more importantly myself with mechanical and repair issues. when i drive my blazer around...i love it...like i am sure we all do. it is a sign of who we are and what we can do with tools.

 

I just started learning a little over a year ago, I usually have my friend do most of the work on my car and I learn from him, but if he's not around when I need something done then I do it myself if I can. I'm not the strongest guy on the block, so sometimes if there's bolt rusted on or something needs to be pryed out, I can't always do it. But as long as someone explains or shows me how to do something, then I CAN do it, just my lack of strength gets in the way sometimes.

The biggest thing I've done was worked on my lower intake gasket when it blew, I had my dad's friend there helping me with it.

Other things I've done myself were change the alternator, Big 3, install radio, amp, subs, door speakers, crank sensor, distributor cap, and stuff like that.

 

I mostly learned working on the heavy equipment / big trucks we own with my pops

and mostly reading gotta admit these forums help also

 

I learned purely out of necessity. Never learned a bit from my dad as I don't believe he has ever changed the oil himself on any vehicle he has ever owned.

My first car was a '76 Camaro. I learned more from that car than any I have owned as I didn't have the money to pay anyone to fix it every time it broke down, and it was ALWAYS broke down. Got me a manual and learned on the go.

Heck, got so good at changing out the clutch that when I blew up the tranny I changed it out myself in under two hours in the parking lot.

I won't say I'm an "expert" auto mechanic but I know my vehicles inside and out and do all the work on them. I've had many people over the years that have asked for help on their vehicles and haven't been stumped yet. Though, I have to say I'm getting to the point that I'm starting to think about letting someone else turn the wrenches for me.

Not there yet, but the thought does cross my mind now and then.

 

I learned from my dad and his awe-inspiring strings of curse words. I'm the same way now. He still teaches me when I need help with the old blazer, but those times are getting farther apart with every project.

 

My father is a mechanic, my grandfather (moms side) was one, I have 3 uncles that are/were ones. Dad any my uncles drag raced. I was 5 when I went to my first street race.

Dad gave me a carb to rebuild when I was 5 to get me out of his hair, by the time I was a teen I was rebuilding engines by myself. Late teens my uncle found out I was better port and polish jobs than him so I was doing all the head work on his race truck.

 

I grew up on a farm. If you dont fix stuff yourself you are SOL and even poorer than if you didnt. But we kids were better mechanics than our dad was. Maybe because we were naive.
After spending thirty years in IT, though.. I'm a better mechanic than my bros and they ask me for advice. Reason.. they retired from GM Delphi and didnt even want to think about cars and parts. While I became interested in cars again when they started using EFI.

My first interest was electronics.. leading to 'How Stuff Works' and as I got older and understood the various Physics principles involved, WHY they did it THAT way.
- PS: Having been around Engineering all my working life you would be amazed at the number of engineers who cannot explain WHY the OE did it that way. Because it's just a job to them.

Thus I can, at the same time, bitch about the Vortec Spider injection system and explain and defend WHY GM made it that way.
The 'How it works' helps repair it.
The WHY they did it.. helps in modding. Meaning you figure out if you'll screw things up by changing them.

PS: If you really have an interest in learning about the Bosch EFI system and how all those sensors work together you cant find a better primer than the Charles Probst books. Dont be put off that he concentrates on Fords.. remember Ford dumped the CFI {Pulse width modulated carburetor, as I call it} after just a few years. He is also a Corvette fan, as you will see.

If you have a second hand bookstore, check it for any books by Probst. They are gold!

I got one at a garage sale for 50 cents. heh.

 

My father did all the wrench turning. I held the flashlight and got yelled at for not keeping the light where he needed it. The hell with that. I got into his tools when he was not there. Put the tools back exactly where you got them from!