Backyard Mechanic 101

[Jim T.]

I have a photo somewhere of me in 1967 at 3 years old helping my dad work on his Peugeot in the middle of winter. I always had an affinity for working with my hands. I bought my first car at 14 from my gf's dad. A 1969 Firebird with an OHC 6 and a four speed. I tore it to pieces and rebuilt it. I've been restoring and/or working/building cars, bikes, jeeps, houses and airplanes since. Now although I have the money to pay others to work on my stuff its very seldom I allow it because I wind up redoing most of it anyway!

Jim

[hmong337]

Since the time I laid eyes on my cousin's 1991 Toyota MR2 turbo (age 13), something in me changed and I just fell in love with cars. I was taught how to do oil changes and checking tires from my ol' man at about that age too.

I have a lot more interest in imports. So, I am totally into tuners. I read as much as I could and learned as much as possible about cars through reading and taking every auto course in high school. In fact, I wanted to be an auto mechanic. But I really didn't like that lifestyle.

Autos are a hobby for me. I certainly won't do it for my occupation.

Through all the years of working on my own stuff, I've come a long way. I've made COSTLY errors in the past but will always strive to learn lots more.

I would consider myself an intermediate DIY'er. I'm comfortable doing engine swaps and stuff like that but I still don't know everything.

-hmong337

[ben98gs]

I actually do not "remember" what got me into cars. My dad could care less and always buys a car for cheap transportation.

My mom (yes that is right) was the one who taught me how to change brakes (came from a family where basically everyone worked for GM and so my grandpa taught all his kids, both sons and daughters, how to do some of the minor maintenance items on their vehicles).

First two cars were dad's hand me downs ('85 Chevrolet Nova and then a '97 Saturn SL). I started actually trying to do performance things to the Saturn. Had the CAI, big bore throttle body and a few other minor mods that I could do without my dad knowing (he was paying for the car and did not want me to mod it). After Saturn tried to tell him the warranty was void because I put a CAI on the car and he got mad at me, I decided to buy the first car with MY OWN money. Got my '97 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP with the supercharger and it all went down hill from there. Started modding and racing my cars and basically switching cars every 6 months. To date, I have been driving ~11 years and have owned over 32 cars, some daily drivers/beaters, some stock but fun, others heavily modded and REALLY fun, others just bought and sold before I had a chance to really do anything to them.