My dad is an engineer an Boeing but he has always done his own work on his cars, he started me at 5 when he was working on my moms Porsche 914. I "helped" him take the engine out of that thing at least once every couple months. I always helped him since then on various things then my interest really took off when i got my Blazer at 15. I am now almost 19 and im starting to teach him a thing or two about these newer cars lol.

My only big projects have been helping my friend rebuild a Toyota 3.0 engine from the ground up and helping my neighbor pull, rebuild and drop back in the 4.3 out of his 98 jimmy. Which was about 10x easier than my friends 4Runner lol

 

My dad was a gear head ever since I can remember. He was in a car club called the Rod Squad and we rarely had a traditional family car. I remember traveling in the 35 Dodge hot rod and his 55 Chevy with a 427 BB. He got bored with his cars fast and was always trading or buying something else. I can't remember them all, he had so many. It drove my mom crazy. I spent a lot of time in the garage "helping" when I was a kid but the real learning came with my first car at 15. A 1965 Corvair. It was cool looking to me but what a nightmare to keep on the road. Parts were nearly impossible to find in the mid 80's and nobody wanted to work on it. I have been doing most of my own work since. I have owned a few muscle cars and my brother and I built his 67 Nova. Now I am in my mid 40's I find that I want to do it less and less but still prefer the peace of mind my own work provides.

 

I feel the same way I used like to do mechanic work as a hobby as well as my employment but with the way my body is getting the work is getting more difficult for me to do.I dont trust many shops to do work that I know how to do.Seems they never do the job right and I end up having to go over their work or take it back.