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Today’s car guys vs yesterdays car guys?

Hinzel

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i turned my garage into a gym. so if i cant do it myself in my driveway using ramps or jack stands, i bring it somewhere else to have it done

though i have a 3 year old, a 3 month old, and i work a 50 hour a week job. so for some of the real pain in the ass stuff, i still bring it somewhere else to have it done
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saleen367

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I don't trust anyone else with my car. I do all the work myself ... my friend had to talk me off the ledge just to have the windows tinted.
 

TicTocTach

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I like to do as much as I can, but there's a lot more research to do before diving into a new car than a muscle car. I've owned three new cars in my life (52 for a few more months), and two of them were bought since 2007. The first was in 1986 - a Shelby Charger that was usually more reliable than the 74 Dart w/440 I drove in HS. Every other car was bought non-running and brought back to life to soldier on as a daily driver. Another 74 Dart, 73 Duster, 69 Valiant, 77 New Yorker Bro-Ham, 87 Daytona Pacifica. Only the 69 Valiant stayed with me over the years, and she's now heading towards being an autoX toy. I also picked up a 68 Sport Fury convertible as a big cruiser, and that's the only car that I have farmed out significant labor on. I needed some frame work and suspension repairs done, and I didn't have time/equipment to do it myself.

It did not go well. The shop I hired didn't repair all the things I asked them to repair, didn't repair some of the things properly, and didn't align the car to the specs I provided. I've had to redo almost everything I paid them to do - and I'm glad that I did. It has taken 2 years, but I know it is being done right.

I may take my Mustang to someone for something, but I'll have to know the shop is good. Until then, I only have mods that I can do myself - grille delete, intercooler, tune, wheels/tires. The dealership did a sub-par job on an oil change, so they're not going to get anything but serious warranty work from me.
 

Järn

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I am a car guy because I worked at GM's world headquarters, I also worked for Ford Credit, and Honda and Jaguar.
My neighbors are car guys because they are mechanical and electrical engineers who work at Ford, Chrysler, GM, Bosch, Lear, Yazaki.

I don't have to turn a wrench on my car to be a car guy...


Footnote: last big project I did was change a timing chain, 40 years ago, what a pain in the a$$ that was, even using a Chilton's manual.
 

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VooDooDaddy

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Outside of the alignment after I installed the lowering springs, no one else has turned a wrench on my car. See sig. below.

Anyway, I can't remember the last time I took one of my cars to someone else for service/repair. BTW, I'm 49 years-old.

All my mechanical knowledge is self-taught. Growing up my Dad was just the guy in the house that paid the bills. I learned nothing from him.

Not long after I got out of the USMC, I bought a 1987 Buick Regal from a little old lady down the street. I wanted to give it a tune-up, but I didn't even know how to change the spark plugs, and I had absolutely no tools. But little-by-little I learned more and more about working on cars and motorcycles. I bought more and more tools as time went buy, and I never sell tools.

Now I have (as Jeff Spicoli would say) an "ultimate set of tools".

I learned to work on cars because: 1. Early on, I didn't have the money to pay someone else, and 2. I like the satisfaction of doing things myself.

And my two teenage sons couldn't care less about cars or what it take to keep them going let alone make them better. To most of the current crop of young'uns, cars are nothing more than an appliance that gets them from A to B.

In less than a year I will be installing a TVS supercharger (prolly a Edelbrock 2650) on my 2016 GT. Outside of the tuning, I will be doing ALL the work myself. I just don't trust anyone else to do it.
 

Ed M

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For those of you that say you do EVERYTHING yourself, I must say that I’m impressed that you are wealthy enough to do your own mining, smelting, casting, design, fabrication, etc.

Mighty impressed.
 

Rover

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I'm 65 yrs young. If I crawl under the car somebody's gonna hafta pull me out by my boots. :crazy:
Thankfully, I got a buddy with a lift near me.:like:
I spent most of my life doing repairs out of necessity. It's nice to do it out of pleasure now.
 

HoosierDaddy

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I'm 65 yrs young. If I crawl under the car somebody's gonna hafta pull me out by my boots. :crazy:
Thankfully, I got a buddy with a lift near me.:like:
Real men don't use lifts. I hold the car up with one hand and wrench with the other.

 
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khsonic03

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In my 30s. Work in the software industry. I only let someone else touch my car if it's a warranty related issue or if I don't have tools to do the work myself (mount and balance tires, alignment, etc). The money I have saved on labor has been used to buy tools for my garage, so I have most of what I need.

Supercharging this winter and can't wait to install it myself. I'm with the OP, I get satisfaction knowing I did the work myself and it was done right. If I don't know how to do the work, I'll figure it out.
 

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gregsdart

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For those of you that say you do EVERYTHING yourself, I must say that I’m impressed that you are wealthy enough to do your own mining, smelting, casting, design, fabrication, etc.

Mighty impressed.
You have to be kidding. You obviously feel quite inferior.
 

gregsdart

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Each of us picks what we choose to do on our ride. My 65 Dart drag car? I build my own motors (sans machine work),transmissions, rearends, chassis, suspension. But I bought a 19 GT so I wouldn't have to work on it, just have fun. To each his own. Too much ego involved when people look down on others for what they did or didn't do!
To me car people are a wide spectrum, young, old, from those that admire a nice looking car but couldn't tell you a thing about it, to the 6 year old Vietnam war refugee that saw a mustang over there, and made it to this country and became the LEAD ENGINEER on the 2005 retro Mustang!!
Accept everybody for their level of involvement. There is always someone sharper or more dedicated to the sport!
 

Joe B.

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Kids used to grow up with some mechanical experience, usually from helping dads and vice versa, starting with fixing the bicycle.
Me, when I was 60 reached my pinnacle, cam swap, headers, port and polish cc heads etc. on my sbc.
Now at 70, oil changes, tire rotation, axle back, cosmetic stuff. Time marches on.
Glad the new cars don't need much.
 
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I do the majority of work myself, but if there's something that would be much faster to pay a buddy with 100x the experience to install for me, I'll do it. Case in point, the springs and sway bars installed on my car were done by professionals that cost me much less than the time and sweat I'd have to put in to it.

Beating your chest because you work on your own car is silly. Nobody really cares.
 

GreenS550

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No bashing anyone, just want to know!
I’m 55 and have gone fast pretty much all my life in several different cars, from different makers, starting with Ford, going through imports, chevys and for the last several years back to ford, where I’ll stay.
I’m struggling a little with how to put this out there without offending anyone.......so I’ll just jump in. Does anyone work on their own cars anymore? Don’t get me wrong I do know that a few do, having read some good stuff on this site.
Growing up, if you wanted a fast car, you turned wrenches.....I see people buying bolt-on kits for S550’s and then talking about labor prices....it’s bolt-on... at the same time I do understand that some require they be installed at a dealership to retain warranties.
Even here in Va where I live, I’ll go to get-to-gethers, shows, drag track, etc and listen to guys spout all the tech, and how their cars hook, make power, etc and in the same breath state it was built/modified by mr xyz......out of the couple hundred enthusiast here with newer Chevy and Ford cars only a handful have done any of the work themselves. I’ve done stuff to my different cars over the years that I didn’t know how to do, but I learned, through trial and error, blood and sweat, tears and a lot of cursing.
Maybe it’s just me....I can’t be proud of my car if I’ve paid someone else to make it what it is.
I'm 64 and have worked on my cars off and on since the early 70s. Cars today are quite different. Like electronics. In the "old days" with some reading, talking to guys, garages, etc, you could figure out what was wrong. Those of us, like me, would tear the transmission or engine apart. Figure it out, fix it if we had the money and time and be back in business.

Those days are long gone. We can no longer change jets in our carburetors or put a cam and lifters in, look at the lift and duration. Nope, those days are long gone. The timing of camshafts, injectors, etc require complex knowledge of how the CPU works. There are teams of IT people just to determine how the engine will work at optimum.

The transmissions are even more complicated than the engine. Specifically the automatic transmissions. A local Mustang shop owner told me his 2011 Mustang GT is going 9s and he never touched the trans. The old c-6, turbo 400 or 727 would have its guts laying on the dragstrip in 2 seconds flat to allow it to handle 1,000 rwhp untouched. In fact it would have to be so modified as to not recognize it to handle that power.

Engine design is similar. They are so much better. Precise measurements allowing regular 8,000 RPM pulls with no damage. This kind of stuff was only dreamed of in the day I was young. It require a level of knowledge much removed from the average poorly educated goverment school kid. Heck, Baltimore has ZERO high school kids proficient in math among the 13 high schools there! They can't do their times tables. I'd hate to see them tear an engine apart. Frightening!

But, yes, we can build an engine. Tune it? not really without a computer and serious software. But, we certainly can put together a great rotating assembly, I suppose. What amazes me is that in the era of Youtube, we can see what others have done and do it ourselves! Great escape from the day in and day out of our jobs.

I've built and had some amazing 60s muscle cars. None of them even comes close to the S550, Challenger or Camaro of today.

Then we have the fantastic aftermarket that makes great "bolt on" like a Whipple, suspension components, etc. I've done 2 installs of superchargers and am about to tackle the oil pump gears on my '19 Bullitt. Can't wait.

Like you, Kent, I am excited to get er done and see how it all works out.
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