JasonJ
Rear Admiral
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2001
- Messages
- 4,163
Re: Working on Cars...
I have done a lot of mechanical work in my life, ranging from engine rebuilds to whole vehicle rebuilds to everything in between, and have no formal training at all. My obsession began at an early age with dismantling various things throughout the house. My older brother noticed this and started buying me model cars, then Hotrod Magazine issues. I was obsessed, all I cared about was mechanical things. I checked every book out of the library. Shop manuals for cars, boats, you name it. If it had an engine and performed a function, I read and read and read on it. My actual tinkering that resulted in things being fixed was bicycles. Then it graduated to lawnmower engines, things like that. My first car was brand new, so not a lot to tinker with, but I had buddies with broke down cars. I worked on them. Over the years, I have had things come up, and I just dove in. If I needed a tool, I went and bought it, which has resulted in a massive amount of tools that I have now. I repair everything on my own, I taught myself how to weld, you name it. <br /><br />The first steps you need to take is to have a basic understanding of how a mechanical device works. If you know how something works, it is easier to understand what could be causing it to not work. For a lot of people, when they open the hood of their car, they see a mass of metal, plastic, and hoses. They know that mass does something, but they have no idea how or why it does it. Me, when I look under the hood of a car, I can point to anything in there, tell you what it is, what it does, and how it does it. That is only because I have played with the stuff for a good 27 out of my 35 years of life. It is not something you learn in a day, and natural aptitude plays a huge factor as well. I am fortunate, my father is an aeronautics design engineer, has worked for McDonald Douglas, Lockheed, and Hughes Helicopter. Having that sort of lineage has helped me to understand mechanical things more easily. My Mom on the other hand thought the red oil light on the dash meant there was oil in the car, and when she was left smoking on the side of the road, she then learned the true meaning of the oil light.....
I have done a lot of mechanical work in my life, ranging from engine rebuilds to whole vehicle rebuilds to everything in between, and have no formal training at all. My obsession began at an early age with dismantling various things throughout the house. My older brother noticed this and started buying me model cars, then Hotrod Magazine issues. I was obsessed, all I cared about was mechanical things. I checked every book out of the library. Shop manuals for cars, boats, you name it. If it had an engine and performed a function, I read and read and read on it. My actual tinkering that resulted in things being fixed was bicycles. Then it graduated to lawnmower engines, things like that. My first car was brand new, so not a lot to tinker with, but I had buddies with broke down cars. I worked on them. Over the years, I have had things come up, and I just dove in. If I needed a tool, I went and bought it, which has resulted in a massive amount of tools that I have now. I repair everything on my own, I taught myself how to weld, you name it. <br /><br />The first steps you need to take is to have a basic understanding of how a mechanical device works. If you know how something works, it is easier to understand what could be causing it to not work. For a lot of people, when they open the hood of their car, they see a mass of metal, plastic, and hoses. They know that mass does something, but they have no idea how or why it does it. Me, when I look under the hood of a car, I can point to anything in there, tell you what it is, what it does, and how it does it. That is only because I have played with the stuff for a good 27 out of my 35 years of life. It is not something you learn in a day, and natural aptitude plays a huge factor as well. I am fortunate, my father is an aeronautics design engineer, has worked for McDonald Douglas, Lockheed, and Hughes Helicopter. Having that sort of lineage has helped me to understand mechanical things more easily. My Mom on the other hand thought the red oil light on the dash meant there was oil in the car, and when she was left smoking on the side of the road, she then learned the true meaning of the oil light.....