How did you gain your car knowledge?

I'm 17 and learning. I was just wondering how all of YOU guys and gals learned about cars, o No: because I want to learn to! So far I've had to learn all by myself, with books and v8buick.com, which is a big help. The Buick world is a small pocket of the auto society so answer everyone's questions and help it grow so it will one day be bigger than Chevy.

 

I was fortunate. My Grandfather was a master mechanic and enjoyed teaching me. From the time I can remember he and I were tinkering on something. My Dad has no mechanical skills which was tough since I have always been mechanically inclined. Good thing my Grandpa was willing to work with me.
Now fast forward 40+ years. My Grandson is exactly like I was at his age, so he and I are working together on my 68 Vert.
My suggestion is to meet someone who will help you, but dont be afraid to try new things on your own. With the internet you can get unlimited information so do some research and you can fix anything.
Good luck

 

I always liked Buicks... When I was 5 years old, they were already my favourite cars. I questionned my father about them and I would always ask him to stop and look at those that were for sale but his knowledge about Buicks was very limited... He liked (and owned) Volkswagens with diesel engines!
However, he did told me (while we were looking at a red 67 Wildcat for sale in a service station) that when he had an accident with his 70 Volvo, he drove a 64 Wildcat for over a month while the body shop was repairing the accident. He remembered that it was an impressive and powerful car! He also had a 76 Century Custom coupe for a few months but sold it before I was born to my uncle and traded it for a 77 Grand Prix. Then he had a 78 Bronco and an 1980 Rabbit diesel (which I remember hating)...
When I was 9 years old, I told to a family friend how I liked Buicks and he said: "I have a 76 Buick that I bought brand new in my garage, it has only 10000 miles, never been out in winter, I'll show it to you". I thought he probably had a Skylark or something like that. When he opened the garage door, I said wow! an ELECTRA! he said no, It's a LIMITED and he was wondering how I knew it was an Electra since it is written nowhere on the car! There were very few Elecras here in Quebec compared to LeSabres and smaller Buicks as people buy cheap cars here.
He ordered his dark blue Limited coupe with no a/c, an AM radio, no tilt steering or door locks but it did have a white full vinyl top, wire hubcaps, cornering lights, light monitors, and an elecric rear defroster which made it look like it was a loaded car from the outside!
When I bought my 68 Wildcat in 1992 (I was 15 at the time) All I knew about old Buicks was from cars I looked at, books and magazines like Collectible Automobile that I bought. I ordered "The Buick A Complete history" when I was 12 from a local bookstore and I remember having paid 55 Canadian $ for it... I have read it so much that it was falling in pieces when I bought a newer edition and gave it to a friend!

Owning the cars made me learn other things... I'm still learning a lot about them!

 

School of Hard Knocks. Started with a 1973 MG, a 1975 Olds Omega, 1967 SS Impala, 1982 Olds Cutlass Ciera, Mazda RX7, 3 Chevy trucks, and my Buick GS.

 

The hard way... my dad would ask me to fix his truck. So, he'd hand me a repair book, and the tool box. I had to figure it out, he'd provide any additional muscle needed. That later evolved into getting paid for repair work, as I was cheaper than the shop, and he had back problems.

Other than that, learned quite a bit from my mom. Oddly enough, she was a mechanic in the army.

 

I always liked working on cars since I was little and helped out my uncle with his and his friends race car, usually grabbing tools and such. I got my first vehicle ($350 farmers special chebby truck) and it would die all the time and barely run and my dad is limited to the 2 bolt rule, if it needs more than 2 bolts to be removed, he won't/can't do it. So I spent more than a few hours under the hood of it and looked things up on the internet while trying things over and over and got it running. Ran well enough for me to use it to learn to drive in with my grandma in the passenger seat while driving at night on the interstate I even tried my luck at bondo with it which didn't go too well, lol. The basics never change and you never stop learning though.

 

I had a neighbor that was "hotrodding" a 1940 Ford Deluxe convertible with a 283 and later 327 Chevy engine.I helped out alot with that car at age 15. My Dad always had Buicks.He always said that they were dependable cars.So I guess that's why my first car was a 1967 Buick GS 400 4-speed.The rest of my automotive knowledge was self taught.I would go to the local library to the reference section and read the professional manuals...............John

 

By breaking what I wanted to learn about! seriously, I don't really know a ton about cars. Oil change, maintainence, stuff like that, the only time I learn about something new is when something breaks. My Dad teaches me a lot, he'll sit outside with me and walk me through it.

 

@16 years old I got a job in a salvage yard after school and weekends, learned ALOT doing that...taking stuff apart, learing what interchanges, building stuff from the frame up those type of leason, then Vo-Tech, these things helped me on the body side of it, as far as the mech end of things, I still don't know much, I think someone else said "school of hard knocks", I think the same applys to me on that.

 

.....just the way you are doing it - except there was no internet back then, so you've got a huge advantage.

My Father knew basically nothing about working on cars but his best friend was an ace mechanic - so he was always there to answer questions. Today, he's amazed at what I've done with my GS.

Basically, I was in college and had no money to pay someone to fix my car. I figured the mechanics at the service stations were no smarter than me (a bit cocky, but I was studying Mathematics and Computer Science). I figured all they had over me was experience....and with the right tools and manuals I could figure anything out - If I could learn Calculus how much more complicated could a Carb. be ??

The Most important thing is to study and document whatever you are working on before and during DisAssembly because you are eventually going to have to put whatever you take apart back together again.

Its Really easy to rip stuff apart and strip it down .....its another thing alltogether to be able to put it back correctly and have it work.

 

My Experience

I started helping my older brothers at the tender age of seven (I had very small hands). I quicky learned the correct tools (no metrics then), :Smarty: Through the years we did everything a man could do to a car in the back yard. ou: With extra beams and a come-a-long in the garage, engine R & R was a snap. :beer Anyway, when I was old enough to drive :3gears: I would go down to the local salvage yard and spend the entire day just removing and replacing parts, sometimes interchanging parts to see it they would work with each other. I also attended Burgard Vocational High School in Buffalo N.Y.. This is an aviation and automobile school. Learned alot. Books are great, but nothing beats hands on. Just get a good shop manual (glue it to yourself) LOL, and study it front to back :sleep: , then get your hands as greasy as possible taking things apart. Don't forget safety glasses and steel toed shoes. Good luck, and don't forget :Comp: , V8Buick is here for you.

 

What little I have -

We still had Auto Shop when I was in H.S. Now you'd have to go to a vocational tech program to do any tinkering on cars. Back then (late 70's) you might go straight from Gym class to metal shop, woods, or auto shop. Nice way to break up the day.

My Auto Shop teacher had a couple of cars that the kids did free work on. There was an oddball Ford that he drag raced. A Falcon or Maverick or something with an inline 6. Then he had a clip job 55 T Bird that several classes of body shop students bondo-ed back into one piece.

That's where I learned tuneup basics, rebuilding carbs, etc. My first car was a '68 Firebird 400 that taught me about LOTS of other things that can go wrong with a car. I never had anywhere near enough money to hire people to work on my cars, so I spent more time under them than in them. My dad is good hearted, but not much of a mechanic. He was not afraid to work on stuff, but by the time I was a senior in High School I was helping him out rather than the other way around.

There's a certain urgency to working on something Sunday night so that you can get to work Monday morning. That's where most of my "skills" come from - desperation!

 

Alot of trial and error. Just keep at it till its fixed.
I was to poor to have a repair shop fix my cars, so I had to take on the repairs myself. I had a friend thats dad was mechaniclly inclined so if I got stuck I could call him. Later in life I learned alot from a cousin that was always doing some project on a car. When I did my first engine it was over his house with a Chilton book.
I learned alot from books and the internet too. But hands on was the best way i think.

 

On A chevy of course!

First car 72 Monte Carlo. Flat Cam ( I think I drove home on 6 cylinders) :laugh:

 

My Dad is mechanically inclined, but never worked on cars. When I turned into a car nut at age 18 I made two good friends, one a Pontiac guy and the other an Olds guy. We all worked together on each others cars. We still all get together at least once a year at Christmas. A couple of years ago, over a few drinks, we discovered that each of us thought THE OTHER TWO knew what they were doing and we were there just to learn!!!!

 

I must have been destined to be a car guy!.....As a kid, I liked to play with my 'Hot Wheels' and work on my bicycle.... At 15 I bought a dead '66 GS from a friends older brother.... and then I just jumped in and did it!
I read alot...Car Craft, Hot Rod, PHR, the tech books sold at the speed shop, whatever. The factory Buick chassis manual is one of the best learning tools...get one of those. It'll explain how things work, as well as how to fix them.
:Smarty: If you can take classes, do it. Your local vo-tech school may have night classes. You might even be able to work on your own car there. I attended auto body in vo-tech for a year, that gave me the basic knowledge to start doing body work on my and my friends car. Tech manuals are avail from the major paint companies like PPG, Dupont, BASF, etc. Great info. Get one free from your local auto-paint supplier.
Modern technology has brought some great learning tools! The internet.... Check out forums like V8 Buick, autobodystore.com, and hotrodders.com.
And digital cameras, allow you to document how parts together before you take them apart, as Alan suggested.
And it helps if you buy a pos that breaks down all the time! My college car was a '67 Fairlane with 289 and 4 speed that I bought for $200 (1979). The trans broke, so I rebuilt the trans in my bedroom. The exhaust fell off, so I replaced it in the parking lot in January....when you HAVE to fix something, you learn how to do it!

 

Read, Ask Questions, and by Making Stupid Mistakes!

I read, read, and read some more. Chassis manuals make great bathroom books! :laugh:

Ask questions. Which is why I like places like this so much. :TU:

HAVING to fix stuff is a great teacher. Working on a farm and a ranch, there's always the need to turn a wrench if you want to eat.

Don't be afraid to take something apart, as long as you have at least SOME idea what you're doing. If you don't then go back to the read / ask steps...

And when you do something absolutely, incredibly wrong, admit it, fix it, and use it as a learning experience.

 

I think if you have the interest, you will find ways to learn! Used to read a lot of Hot Rod mags at school and was usually just given the older ones to keep! Hate to say it but back then, it was simple compared to now! When I finished high school, we still had all non-computer controled cars at my house! Took my drivers test in a RWD with a stick. What a different world now!!

I went on to a school that GM and spent two years there while working at a dealership. I worked there for a while and then took a job at a small shop closer to home and worked there for 6 years. Worked at a few not so good machine shops and worked for a car rental place for a while and just got burned out on it. I NEVER minded the actual WORK but that isn't the only part of the job.

For me, what started as a fun interest turned into a way to almost make a living. I really wish I would have just kept it as a hobby and went on to a four year school to study something like engineering.

For what it's worth, most of my friends who have nice cars, have never worked on cars for a living!

Ken

 

I learned to "identify" cars, first, by Years, and Makes, and Models, and then to know the Differences between them (Bumpers/Grills/Headlights/Taillights designs, Fender badges, Engine sizes, etc.).

Do your own research, with books about Classic Cars (if that's what you're interested in), and learn about ALL cars, not just "one" brand. Always keep an open mind to what you learn, as you might learn more than you expect (such as, Which "Chevelle" parts are interchangeable with Skylarks?!)! :Smarty: :TU: If you "know" (study, learn, repair, own) BOTH of those cars, you will have TWICE as much "knowledge" that will benefit you, in the long run!

Hot Rod magazines are not necessarily the best place to "learn" from, because how can you MODIFY something, if you don't even know what it is, to BEGIN with? o No:

In other words, BEFORE you decide to Pro Street your '69 Impala SS, 427, 4 Speed, you might want to research to confirm that there WERE "ONLY 5 MADE", FIRST! (as a buddy of mine just found out, recently! :shock: ou: :spank:

I learned how to repair my Skylarks, with a Chilton's manual (that I still use, to this day, for basic repair). Don't just try to fix something, READ about it, FIRST! OVER AND OVER, if you have to, but READ FIRST! Or, Step by Step, Read, Repair, Read a little more, Repair a little more...

Everyone "learns" differently, but whatever works for you. :TU:

I repaired my own vehicles for 12 Years, before I decided to go to an Automotive Technical School (Now, Hot Rod University), for 1 Year, to earn a Diploma in Automotive Technology, and learn the "Right" way to repair/restore my Buicks.

While some guys will PAY "someone else" $10,000 to Restore their car,
I spent $10,000 to LEARN HOW TO RESTORE MY OWN CARS! :Smarty:

I have the "knowledge", and now I have the CARS, I just have to put the 2 TOGETHER! :TU: :grin:

If you like working on cars, collecting cars, etc., then an Education from an Automotive School is "worth it", just because of the money that you can SAVE, if you know how to fix your own car, instead of PAYING a "mechanic" to do it FOR you!

I would agree with Ken, that an Automotive "Career" is not a good choice, from a Repair perspective, as most guys I know (and even here on this Board) get "burned out" from working on them. (How many cars are FOR SALE, because guys just "Don't WANT them, anymore!"? More now, than ever! :Smarty: )

Get a job in Banking or Financial Services (where the REAL money is, and always will be), and then you can pay for your cars, that way! :TU: :Smarty:

Keep your interest in cars, as a Hobby, for FUN! If you don't enjoy it, it's not a Hobby anymore! :TU: