Backyard Mechanic 101
 

I am just curious about how you guys first got comfortable/competent in working on cars? Did you grow up with your head under the bonnet with your dad or just start fiddling on your own steam or what?

I started restoring my first car, a 1973 Porsche 914, when I was 15 years old under the guidance of my uncle. This is what first got me going. He was there every step of the way during the build, but after the car was drivable, he almost avoided helping me, and at first I was frustrated, but this was the "push out of the nest" that I needed to get really going on my own. After I sold the Porsche, I got into Hondas and did my first engine swap on a buddy's car knowing NOTHING. The swap took about a week, but we finally managed to get it running. It's all down hill after you get confidence - now I'll jump head first into something I know nothing about (ahem, airplane), but the outcome is usually at least acceptable, and if not, chalk it up to a learning experience and fix the problem.

I always hung out with my dad whenever he worked on anything, and I've got a mechanical aptitude which I inherited from him but it apparently skipped a generation according to him. (His dad had the mechanical aptitude, my dad just tried to avoid having to pay the repair guy, but he can do some simple repairs if he has to.) He gave me a roll of electrical tape, a few screwdrivers here & there, eventually my own small set of tools, and he always let me try to work on anything. He eventually gave me the tools he got for his wedding - Craftsman from 1964 and they outperform today's tools by a long shot.

I was actually studying to restore classic cars for a living after I found out I truly enjoy cars, but there was a nasty incident at the auto parts store I was working at and suffice it to say permanent back injury, so I have to pay for most things more complicated than an oil change or a simple tune-up now, unfortunately.

I've always been sort of intuitive with vehicles. My favorite fix on my dad's car was a Ford straight six engine which had a HORRIBLE squeaky alternator belt. He used belt dressing, changed the belt, cleaned every pulley, etc. This went on for a couple of weeks. Finally he asked me to look at it. He popped the hood, gave it a little gas, it squealed like crazy. I told him to shut it off, asked him if it was sluggish lately. He said yes. I said to pull the #3 and #4 plugs - they would be fouled, #3 more than #4. Clean/replace those plugs and the belt squeak goes away, power & mileage go up. He couldn't figure out how I knew this would fix the belt - after all - not intuitive.

I turned it on to show him - gas the engine and it torqued one way in the front (changed the geometry WRT the crank pulley & alternator & water pump IIRC) and turned the other way in the back. No fire in the middle - it really twisted a lot!

It's much easier with the internet - can learn things I never dreamed of before, and sharing all this information about FE is wonderful. My current project is finding a CRX and trying for 80-100+ MPG.

seriously school and books is the way to go. theres so much misinformation floating around from mechanic to mechanic, the web, etc.

I started because I was too poor to pay to repair my first car. The oil sending unit blew out...so I went to the library, rented a helms manual and then went out and fixed it myself. I just told myself "it's broken already, so I can't make it any worse, and it's just some bolts/nuts that go back on when I'm done"

So now I can do anything to a Honda with the exception of rebuilding an automatic transmission. I just plain don't have a want/need for that as I've dabbled with the innards of a GM 4T60 trans before.

I also had mechanical aptitude from a very young age. I was always modifying toy cars by putting motors in them from other faster vehicles. Heck, I even made a propeller driven (air) car when I was 5 or so.

Good times, good time.

Well my dad is a "jack of all trades" and I learned what I could from him. He knew the basics of changing starters, oil, alternators, etc... And I have done 3 engine swaps on my 2 CRX's. I understand what I am doing but the mechanic at work understands a lot more then me. I just know enough to get by without paying someone else.

My dad (a farmer and an awesome mechanic) showed me things a little at a time.
I started by taking apart junk lawnmower engines.
Then started tinkering with running lawnmowers.
Then making crude go carts.
Then in junior high I got my first old dirt bike (motorcycle) that needed repairs to keep it going.
Then I bought and drove cheap fixer upper cars through high school and college and learned a little from each one's issues. In college, I was always the "friend" who would change brake pads, water pumps, starters radiators etc in exchange for a pizza or a little cash.
I guess I am still driving old cars and keeping them running, but I have moved on to working on bigger things- 4WD trucks, tractors and dump trucks.

Old Pharte Story.
 

My uncle bought a '61 Corvair the day he before he shipped out to Viet Nam just so he could see his future bride one last time. He drove the car from San Diego to his girlfriend's, then tossed me the keys. That was my first car.

The car ran so rough it was practically undriveable.

My dad brought a Chilton's manual and a box of tools out and set them next to the car, smiled, then went back into the house.

I took the top off the motor (those old, fat Chilton's were amazingly complete. Wish they still were ). I was a little unsure about what I had found, but there were only 5 connecting rods according to my count, which didn't seem right according to the picture in the book. Dad finally let me know that in fact there should be 6, smiled, then went back into the house.

Someone had thrown a rod, then shoved the piston up into the cylinder to get it out of the way and kept driving it.

I read and reasoned my way through rebuilding that car. Within a couple of year's time I built Corvairs that would outrun some of the then new big block Chevelles, at least til the Powerglide ran out gearing. lol.

READ, REASON, then DO. Today's cars are a bit more complicated than my first one, but once you understand how a component operates when its working RIGHT you can eventually narrow down what's causing it to work WRONG.

No one is born knowing how to fix things. You now have the added advantage of forums like these where hopefully no question is treated as stupid and someone will help you understand or verify your findings. I ask lots of dumb questions. Some of you are less than half my age and due to your familiarity with a particular car over mine you just happen to know twice what I do about them.

Don't be humbled, be grateful.

I had some reasonable aptitude, but I didn't get many opportunities at home to play with much. When I started racing motorcycles, I had help from the people that I was traveling with, and then I started to become self sufficient. Eventually, you just start to recognize what you can tackle, what you want to tackle, and what you recognize you can tackle but isn't valuable to tackle because of cost or risk.

Often, it's a matter of doing it. There is no substitute for getting your hands dirty.

yea ive had an intrest in cars for a long time. i helped my dad change the oil on his cars and fix stuff. then when i got my first truck my dad bought a haynes manual and went down the list of stuff that should be replaced. he sat back and supervised lol. taking auto mech in my HS helped alot too. learned how everyhting really works and fits together. ive never had my truck or car in a shop besides for tire replacement and balancing (just dont have the proper tools/equipment to do it)

i dunno i like doing stuff like that on somewhat older engines. this new crap is more annoying to work on. havign to use weird tools and have arms like gumby to get to stuff or take off 50 other things.

I got my license, a car, and the haynes book from autozone when it broke cuz i didn't have money to pay someone to fix it. gradually worked up to bigger and bigger things. after 5 years like that I'm going to school for the piece of paper so I can do it professionally.

I am comfortable with cars because I have a really good sense of how things work and how to take em apart and slap em back together. I didn't actually start with cars, but electronics. I would mess with those to make a little blinking light that I would be so proud of. my interests gradually shifted to mechanical stuff and I started reading on everything I could find till I knew how a car worked. I started with pretty small stuff on cars, working bigger and bigger till I can do some intricate jobs.

Like most I had the job of pumping the brakes and handing the tools for my father who would use the repair manual on anything he didn't already know. I did the same when I started driving at 16.later I'd ride shotgun with my cousin, racing and repairing his 66 Impala Super Sport rag top and then my 69 Delta 88 once I was the driver who still had license. Friends would gather around when anyone would have a major repair,drinking beer.helping or just watching. Everyone was into driving fast and doing whatever they could to go faster.
I repair mine now to avoid cost and I don't like it when the mechanic will not drop everything and start on MY car right away.

I basically learned out of necessity because I didn't have the $ to have someone fix my car/motorcycles and because I just wanted to know how it worked. The first few times I ripped one of my motorcycles apart I remember feeling like I was in over my head, but I managed to get them back together.

My dad has approximately zero mechanical interest, though he's done some very nice cabinet and shelving projects. So when I got my first car ('71 Ford LTD wagon, 400 inch V8) I had absolutely no background.

I got advice from friends who knew what they were doing. Eventually I and a friend changed the cam and timing chain (!) and a whole bunch of pushrods and hydraulic lifters. I was hooked. Not too long afterwards, I did a '76 Toyota timing chain solo.

I tried doing brakes on the LTD once but they were drums and the mess of springs and levers was more than I could handle; a mechanic friend finished it for a small fee.

On my first Volvo, a friend showed me how to do those brakes. She was very encouraging. Didn't have an attitude that I should already know how, you just pull off this and that an pop on the new pads and... You get my drift. So if you happen to know any women who do their own car work, don't hesitate to ask for some tips.

It started with an erector set, then lincoln logs, then lego,
then I got hooked and started taking apart everything in the house just to see how it worked. My parents didn't like that so they kept buying me toy model cars and airplanes to teach me how to put stuff together, and to keep my curiosity away from the household appliances. By then I had almost learned enough to reassemble the lawnmower correctly. Poor lawnmower. The new one was a bit expensive, so my parents bought me an old motorcycle when I was 12 and I happily wrenched on it exclusively with good success. I even learned how to ride the thing.

After that I wasn't afraid to work on new things. I can look at unfamiliar machines and know how to take it apart and put it back together correctly.

get in line buddy. :-p

haha same here.

BTW a good place to start learning the theory of how it all works (which then makes it easier to see how all the parts fit together and what they accomplish doing so.) is https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-...od-channel.htm when I first found that site, I would come home from school and just read it till I went to bed for a week or so.

most importatn of all, join a forum for the goal you want to achieve (ie, fuel economy: here) and another for the make/model you're interested in for more detailed questions about it.

I taught myself everything I know about cars, started off by changing the oil of my first car when I was 15. Soon after found myself doing tuneup stuff like spark plugs, spark plug wires, oxygen sensor, and so on. Before I knew it, I found myself changing my transmission from automatic to manual at 16/17, did a head gasket, then installed a turbo and did suspension overhaul work. I do all the work I can on a car. The only things I won't do are alignment and tires, and that's because i have no choice :D

My 'mechanical aptitude' before working on cars consisted of putting computers together for myself and family and friends. That was self-taught too.

Now whenever something's wrong with anyone's car or computer I'm their free mechanic/technician.

F THAT !!! :mad:

took the vacuum apart at age two (put it back together as well and it worked) wrecked my first car at age 4, by 6 I had rebuilt a lawn mower and by 11 I was welding cast iron. I blame my dad for all of it the love of cars the skills I've learned everything. Thanks Dad :)

I was totally self taught, as my dad never wrenched. Put a bolt on muffler on my first vehicle, a VW Bus. My 2nd car, a 1980 Honda Accord Hatchback - I learned most of my early wrenching on this but left the clutch change to the dealer. I changed my starter, plugs, and did a valve adjustment. Also did touch up body work on rust spots. Then I progressed to a 1990 Honda Civic Si and I put headers, a Jacobs High Energy ignition with a secret kill switch that saved my car from theft, and a custom stereo with my own self made subwoofer.

My current car, a 1999 Honda Civic HX - did a valve adjustment, brake flush, installed aftermarket power mirrors, and I changed all 6 coolant hoses to sillicone hoses [3 hour job]. In the future I will change the calipers to NHT powder coated calipers, and do my drum brakes [1st time]. If I think about upgrading the suspension maybe I'll try to put the sway bars, coilovers, and shocks all by myself. If I can't do it I'll let a mechanic do it. But my upcoming Timing Belt Change + CAM Sprocket Installation will be done by a mechanic who hopped up a VX.

I try to do everything myself to save on repair bills. Especially when it comes to hopping up my car! Also gonna put my JDM headlights and custom grill in myself.

I'll have a pro shop put Wincos tint on my car!

True but most people who go to school to be mechanics, never get a job being one.

The way to learn is to just start working on your car. Make sure it's a project one, and not a daily, because you WILL mess up if you're a beginner.

I've been working on cars since I was 13, finished restoring my first car when I was 16, and I've been under hoods/cars ever since. I went from Chevies to Hondas since MPG was killin me. :eek:

I think I've been mechanically inclined since I was very young, so that's kinda cheating, but I guess I started out with just taking broken small appliances and stuff apart to figure out how they work.
My dad was into bicycles for a long time... He would do his own maintenance and such and go riding on the weekends. I picked up the maintenance tidbits by watching and asking questions. After that it was a lawnmower engine or two, and similar watching/asking questions when he was doing auto maintenance.
Then came my first real project when I was 14 or 15 - putting my dad's old '74 Kawasaki S3 back together. It had been sitting in pieces for nearly two decades when I started messing with it. Luckily, everything was boxed and bagged up nicely, so very few new parts were needed.
Next was my first car - a '90 CRX DX. I tinkered with it for a while and then managed to hydrolock the motor, bending a connecting rod and trashing the starter... Pure stupidity on my part. So that threw me into my first motor swap. It was just a stock salvage motor, but cars are quite a bit different from motorcycles... You can generally pick up a motorcycle engine/transmission for instance.
That swap turned out fine... a year or so later I found a '90 Civic EX motor (same as the CRX Si) so I dropped that in and went about figuring out the MPFI conversion. My original transmission took a dump on me at some point in there, but that's not really much different than a motor swap.
A friend got ahold of a pair of CRXs with blown motors from a technical school, so I helped him install a single cam VTEC motor in it... That took a fair amount of wiring. He wasted no time in killing the auto transmission (doing neutral -> drive burnouts probably). Of course he wanted to replace it with a manual... Luckily Hondas go together like legos.
And then I wrecked my first CRX. Not racing or carving corners or other such stupidity. I was distracted and simply didn't register an oncoming Rav-4 when making a left turn. Bent the frame, it was a write-off. So I stripped what I could off of it and bought the remaining tech school CRX from my friend - my current '91 CRX.


They're not that bad... You just have to follow the manual and keep everything absolutely grit-free when working.
https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...6bf0cb1e14.jpg
https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...dc03b1ebe4.jpg
https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...efae0544a6.jpg
I'm now driving around on that trans BTW.

So in summary; if my Dad hasn't already taught me (he hasn't) buy a Geo Metro or an older Civic (Cheap and FE and I can sap you guys for knowledge) as a second car and the shop manual for it and fix everything that breaks on it myself plus do all the oil/filter/belt changes myself too. My wife and I currently just share 1 car, 96 toyota Corolla and I've never done any work on cars before so i'm a bit scared to work on that. I have done some electronics stuff and I have taken apart sanders and fans at work and put them back together without incident so I think it wouldn't be too hard. I just need a place to start.

An old metro or civic would be a great place to start. Just get a good set of tools and have the attitude you can put it back together.

i'd started with changing the oil(engine & transmission), plugs, wires, air filter, disc brake pads, drum brake pads, rear hubs, tie-rod ends, distributor, ball joints. The only thing i take our cars to the shop for is a timing belt or tires. Only because i've never changed a timing belt and i don't feel like changing the one of my wifes accord i'll do mine though when it's time. f23a is much larger than my d15b6.

My dad worked on our cars but i wasnt interested as a child. Internet helps alot.

I'd buy a honda they're very easy to work on. At least my 1990 is, wifes 99 looks very similar to my 90 under the hood, just alot bigger. yes i do realize a 2.3 liter engine is tiny compared to a muscle car. :p

P.S. i replaced my master cylinder for the brakes. i'll pay someone to do it next time.

I grew up on a small farm where we repaired what we used. My dad was a mechanic also and ran a shop on the farm where he repaired neighbors cars and equipment. I had to wash up the filthy parts back when people thought non-detergent oil was a good thing. My dad had a boring bar and valve seat grinder. He actually rebuilt engines. The valve refacing and crank grinding were done at the local NAPA. Everything else he did. He had a pretty awful temper but was an exceptional mechanic. I learned a lot from him. Also I read old "Motors Repair Manuals" because they were interesting.

We had a few small junk engines lying around and I patched them up to make them run more or less. I was probably 7 years old the first time I put a small engine together and got it started.

My first car was a "non-repairable" car. It was not economically repairable with a cracked block. I told the owner I thought I could fix it. They did not want to chance it and sold the car to us for $2.50. A brother and I drove the car for several years.
My grandfather built whatever he wanted. Also my Dad did. All four of my brothers have worked as mechanics at one time or another. It might be an inherited interest.

I was a helicopter mechanic in the US Army (1978-1984); I worked on the UH-1 Huey and the UH-60 Blackhawk, which was just coming online in the early 1980's. Army maintenance is all done from manuals. Of course I did go through training courses for both aircraft.

I'm now learning to do my own auto repairs out of necessity. Taking any automobile to a repair shop is an expensive proposition-even if they are honest and do a good job, which many aren't and don't. As a case in point, a reputable shop told me it would cost nearly $600 to replace a VX O2 sensor-as it turns out, very simple job to do. You must keep in mind their parts markups and astronomical labor rates. I did the work myself for just over $300, and it would have been even less had I known that an Ebay seller had the part for about $170 (there's a message for you: leave no stone unturned in trying to find the lowest price on the web for that part you need).

I figured that if I could break down a UH-1 helicopter tail rotor drive shaft or transmission from a manual, I could certainly handle many tasks on my car if I have the right tools and information. These are two key items to making a job come out right. Of course, one must have motivation, patience (because some jobs absolutely won't go smoothly), and the moxie to feel that you can attempt these things in the first place. Last but not least, there are websites like this one, where a novice can get information from auto repair veterans, many of whom are knowledgeable in the particular vehicle you are trying to fix.

So give it a go! I'm sure you'll do fine.

When I was in high school I bought my first clunker and fixed it up. I had help from friends that were really good. We did everything from simple oil changes to engine/tranny swaps on each other's cars. We were always working on someone's car and coming home at 2 am all greasy.......haha. That's how I learned. I never rebuilt an engine or tranny though. One time we were pulling an engine and tranny and the chainfall slipped and we put the tranny through the windshield. (my 57 Chevy). So I unexpectadly had to learn how to replace a windshield.

These days I only do all my own routine maintenance, unless there's something I can't or don't want to do. Then I take it up the street to a trusted professional mechanic friend and just pay him and be done with it........I'm getting too old for some of the stuff and you need specialty tools/equipment that I don't have sometimes.

Well, somehow I managed to double post....

When I have had a "professional" mechanic work on my car, about 50% of the time I have to correct THEIR mistakes!

Yeah, really, I got more serious about doing "everything" on my own cars after I got fed up of paying through the nose and having more problems than I started with. Before that I used to wimp out on anything that would take a day or so. Now I'd rather buy $100 tools I might only use once rather than risk a vehicle to a shop that doesn't know it's arse from it's elbow.

I grew up taking things apart and was fixing my own bikes by about 10, helped my dad with the family car and by the time I had my own car I had a couple of brake jobs, muffler change, coolant hose replacement, tune up jobs, etc under my belt, so I had the basics down. It was stuff like axles and wheel bearing jobs I used to farm out. Now it's like I go in for tires and they'll say "We offer a free 60 point.." "DON'T TOUCH A DAMN THING BUT THE TIRES AND MAKE SURE YOU DO THAT RIGHT"

m about fed up with dealing with the brakes on my chevette, if its not one thing its another...

i did replace the front coil springs on it tho, just had to rent (for free) a spring compressor from advance auto and was done in 2 days.

Started young by taking apart watches, clocks, repairing the TV(vacuum tubes) building soap box cars, took off top part of scooters and rode it down hill(bunker hill California 1953, looked like a skate board!). Building model air planes, ships(Built the Flying Cloud & Cutty Sark with full rigging and figures),battleships, cars. Did all this on my own without help from parents. They worked long hours. So when i got my first car i was happy, read alot to see why and how it worked. It was a 1953 Chev four door sedan. My dad blew up the engine. It was an automatic. I went to the bone yard and found a good truck engine with 3 speed transmission. Pulled it out and got it home with help of some friends, jerked out the bad engine and tranny and installed the new engine and trans. Cut hole in floor for new linkage, installed clutch pedal, did this by myself with a little help from my younger bother. It started on the first try and drove well. Added Vibrasonic and rear speakers, under dash record player( Played both 33 and 45's) with fader, amp for radio. Installed all this myself. More or less i was self taught and was not afraid to make a mistake or ask questions.

my first vehicle was a 1989 mazda b2200 that i got for $50. upon start up, it would pour blue smoke from the exhaust (good for making people who blocked me in a parking spot move). i drove it that way for most of a year until i blew a head gasket. the local mechanic wanted 1200 to fix it. i just said what the hell and started tearing it apart. took about a week, with just me and a haynes manual. truck ran strong until i sold it a few months later.

i bought a 1993 saturn sc2 after that and basicly had nothing but problems when i first got it. i replaced: ects, egr valve, driver seat, left rear fender, front wheel bearings, cv axles, trans axle twice (dont spin the tires in a saturn), radiator, alternator and a few other things. i did all this by myself with a manual and maybe a friend if i needed extra muscle.

my current car, 2000 chevy cavalier, i have replaced the entire air conditioning system, both cv axles, all four struts, brakes all around, fixed numerous electrical problems, installed tires, aligned the wheels, installed a tach, tune up, and a bunch of other small stuff plus my mods.

it just goes to show that even if you dont have any experience from a young age, you can still work on your car successfully. up until 6 years ago i couldnt tell you anything about a car. now i work for an auto repair shop and i take my first ASE cert. test thursday.

like everyone else said, just get a manual and a good set of tools. and here is the best piece of advice i have ever recieved... "if it aint broke, dont fix it".

It should be "if it aint broke, lets fix it".

IF they have a similar design of differential to a neon, and throw/carve up the differential pins, then maybe the "diff pin saver" brackets made for neons could be adapted to use on them. I've got a pair installed in Marvin, to protect him from winter wheelspin.

i never came across one. only thing i ever tried was welding the pin. it worked, mostly. by that, it just prolonged the inevitable. when i had the supercharger on it, the tires would break loose at about 6k every time. but i traded that car in at 250k miles and it still ran strong. but now i dont drive fast or hard enough to worry about it. i'm not even sure my cavi can even spin the tires. its got the 2.2 ohv motor. and at the price of tires (even with my discount 4 uniroyal tiger paw awp II cost me $200) i can't afford it anyway.

The brackets are meant to work a bit better because they keep the pin in place by covering the hole each side, but because they leave it free to rotate it doesn't scuff when the pinions get heavily loaded. It's just a piece that bolts onto the ring gear bolts and extends up over the diff pin ends, probably easy enough to fab a pair up. Another approach I've seen just uses three strips, a long one to wrap all the way around the diff housing over the pin ends, and two strips folded over it each side and bolted to the ring gear bolts to keep it in place.

so who is the PRO :D :D

Therein lies the entire secret!:)