Sugar Bear

What lessons, methods, procedures, advice etc. do you know now about working on cars that you wish you knew a lot earlier in the game? Please include any mistakes from which you learned.

Mine is boring but is important to me, protect yourself and co-workers. Wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) as the situation dictates e.g., gloves, eye protection, hearing protection and/or respirator.

oldcutlass

I wish I had bought up muscle cars back when they were $500 a pop and stored them for 40 years. I started working on cars at a fairly young age.

BangScreech4-4-2

Hope you didn't learn that the hard way!

firstoldsmobile

That old cars weren't meant to be restored. They were throw away cars, sending them to the junk yard after they no longer were operational. The biggest headache is they never were meant to be taken completely apart and put back together. NOTHING fits back the same as it was taken off. A simple thing like replacing a trunk deck lock.

fleming442

That's true with most cars, especially German marques. Aftermarket trash quality helps nothing.

Most valuable tip: transfer slots in carb venturis. If you can see the blades open, you went too far.

Second most valuable tip: fitech is overpriced garbage. (aka- don't fall for gimmicks, even if they've had 10yrs of "development")

Tedd Thompson

That someday you will get old and all the easy stuff will become difficult, Do it while you can

Back in the day $500 was big money just to park something for 40 years... Tedd

Fun71

I learned that I am at least as good a mechanic as someone I would bring the car to for work (and likely much better than many), and since it was my car I was much more invested in fixing it correctly than they were. Had I known this earlier I could have saved a bunch of money that I wasted having someone else do work that many times I had to redo.

rocketraider

Enough to know when to leave them alone, and not to even bring another one home.

no1oldsfan

Boy amen to that. People these days have no idea. You couldn't sell a V8 car. I bought so many cars under one thousand dollars. Including my SX. 750 bucks. My brother paid 750 for his real 69 440 6 barrel Road Runner. The list goes on and on.

I too started working on cars very early.
Again Amen to that. I have had so many injuries broken bones etc etc etc. I have issues wrenching for too long. My hand will lock up. Plus they just keep coming at you.

Tj Pal

Wish that at a young age I would have closed the hood and opened the books. Maybe I could have had a high paying job, and hired a dummy like me to fix my car. Lol! Maybe get a little more use out of this broken down seventy year old body of mine. Lol.

Andy

The value of proper tuning, using dial back timing light, vacuum guage and not being afraid to go inside a carb..I could always swap engines, waterpumps, rear ends etc but the tuning portion I have started learning the last 10 years.. I have replaced heads, pulled engines apart but have never personally rebuilt one, that may be my next adventure

solly

[QUOTE=Tedd Thompson;1437791]That someday you will get old and all the easy stuff will become difficult, Do it while you can


Tedd is so, so correct ! things that I could and would do in a heartbeat I can no longer do !! and I miss that !!
as far as repairing, do it right the first time and use OEM or quality parts !!

fleming442

Pffft, OEM ain't what they used to be and "quality"? What's that? Everything thing is garbage these days.

allyolds68

Build high ceilings and invest in a two post lift

Tj Pal

More than anything, patience!

Cossack

Patience and the ability to walk away from any particular job for at least a little while instead of continuing on in frustration. Also wearing safety glasses as I lost vision in an eye because I was in too much of a hurry to be bothered putting them on.

ELY442

I've been a auto/diesel mechanic for 38 years and I wish I've learn about electrical. Now I work for NYC MTA and all I do is grease (5) buses a day and call it a day.

chip-powell

Like people have said before..."If only I knew what they'd be worth today."

I remember working in my Dad's garage in the late '70s and early '80s. Buy'em, fix 'em up, sell 'em. That's what we did. $500 for a '69Camaro 'vert, normal. Those things were everywhere. Remember when no one would touch a '57 post? It was Bel Air or nothing. Now those are going for big bucks too. I remember that I had to talk him into buying a '70 Yenko Monte Carlo for $1200, because I knew that he could flip it for $2000. The only one that he kept for a while and drove himself was a '63 409 Impala that he picked up for $3000. He drove it for about 6 months, and then traded it to a guy to get our driveway paved.

Sometimes I'm almost glad he's not around anymore (not really, I miss him every day). If he saw the prices that these things are going for now, I think that he would have thrown up.

newmexguy

They also rusted in most parts of the country that had humidity and or a lot of precipitation. Which was most of the country.
However many vehicles in the southwest didn’t have that issue. Instead the interiors dried out and turned to powder, or exploded. The paint burned off, and the outer panels “flash” rusted. Yep many yards in New Mexico were crushing A bodies into the early 00’s. You could take the things apart with hand tools. No torch needed. A little WD 40 and a wire brush was helpful. Quality really dropped after the ‘72-‘74 model years. More plastics, less metal. I’d much rather fix up a ‘71 Chevelle than an ‘81 citation. An old body on frame car is much easier to restore, than a nineties job with miles of extra wiring and plastic parts. And little to no restoration parts support for the nineties job.

matt69olds

The best advice to someone wanting to get into old iron was given to me by my dad years ago. While my dad had lots of tri 5 Chevy, many Buick Gran Sports, and other muscle and big cars, he was never a gear gear. He always appreciates a good looking, well running car.

Anyway, he told me years ago that engines, transmissions and mechanical stuff is easy to fix, find the best most rust free car possible!! If your looking a 2 similar cars, the more solid of the 2 will be a better bargain at twice the money.

We took a family vacation to Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, etc a few years ago. It’s depressing to see parts cars out there nicer than the stuff we try and fix here in the Midwest!