When I was 20, my friend and I rebuilt the engine on his 1970 Cortina. It was a 4-door sedan - "The Green Box", as we called it.
How Old Were You When You First Started Wrenching?
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I always had the mentality of taking things apart to see how they work.
At age 11, I bought a minibike from my cousin... that's what really got me started though.
At age 11, I bought a minibike from my cousin... that's what really got me started though.
ls1mike
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I was about 20. Had a Dodge Daytona Turbo that blew a head gasket.
I learned on my own as my father was no mechanic even if he liked cars. He was a great sales and marketing guy. Cars didn't really mean much to me until I became 12 and then yeah these are great. However, the first thing I taught myself was how to detail a car when car detailing wasn't known. This was 1966 and my father brought home a loaner 1966 Plymouth 2 door which I thought was cool looking but it wasn't clean enough. By the time I finished it was immaculate in every nook and cranny. When my father brought it back the dealer asked who did this and wanted to offer me a job. My father told him I was 12. My cars are still immaculately detailed today. As for mechanical stuff I did my first oil change at 14, in the summer of 1968, on the Cougar my father had and I still have today.
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Jeez, this is a good question. I guess 12. Dad would take me into the dealer to help with new car preps.
But honestly it was probably my grandfather that got me started. He’d take me to his workshop and give me some tools and let me just kind of fool around with stuff. Usually wood, saws, sanding. I loved it back then. Miss those days.
But honestly it was probably my grandfather that got me started. He’d take me to his workshop and give me some tools and let me just kind of fool around with stuff. Usually wood, saws, sanding. I loved it back then. Miss those days.
I started around 1963 when a pack of matches was a tune up tool.
We used the thickness of the paper match to gap the plugs and used the match book cover to gap the points.
Then while the engine was running loosen the distributor turn left till it stumbled turn right till it stumbled and set in the middle off the two.
We didn't have much money as kids.
We used the thickness of the paper match to gap the plugs and used the match book cover to gap the points.
Then while the engine was running loosen the distributor turn left till it stumbled turn right till it stumbled and set in the middle off the two.
We didn't have much money as kids.
I started doing oil/filter changes, plugs, wires, cap/rotors and brakes at 14-15yrs/old. This was in the 1980s. An older brother bought me a beat up old Honda 70 trail bike at 13 that I used to bomb around the streets on evading the police. LOL. He was always working on something, which peaked my interest at maybe 12yrs/old. I was always fiddling with lawnmowers, gocarts, snowmobiles, etc. as a kid.
Nice one! I bought a cheapy handheld tach-dwell meter way back when, and still remember the rule of thumb for dwell: 60° for a 4-banger, 40° for a 6, and 30° for a V8. (In each case, divide 360° by the number of cylinders, and take 2/3 of the result. Never worked on a 5-cylinder, but by the formula its dwell would be 48°. Likewise, a 3-banger would be 80°.)
In practice, the manufacturers' specs varied from this a bit. I think Chevy inline 6s called for 37°, and Japanese 4-bangers specced 52°+/- 3°.
A typical tune-up involved:
- Clean and regap the plugs (typically 0.030").
- Change the points and condenser, and gap the points. (Don't forget to lube the rubbing block on the points!)
- Check the dwell, and adjust as required. (GM V8s were a joy - with the little pop-up window on the cap, the points could be adjusted with a hex key while the engine was running.)
- Check the timing, and adjust as required. 4° BTDC seemed pretty common.
- Set the curb and idle speed, typically to 750 RPM. The later carbs had the anti-dieseling solenoid too, and sometimes there was an adjustment for fast idle.
- Set the mixture, typically 1/8 to 1/4 turn to the lean side of best idle.
Hotly debated questions of the day:
Do the plugs every 6 months, or go a full 10,000 miles?
Change the condenser every time?
Cap and rotor - change with plugs, or every 2nd time?
Those were good days!
16 years old, around 1990, working on a junk '82 Cutlass Supreme. Managed to pull out the V6 and swap in a 350 from a 70's Delta 88. Pretty proud of myself at the time though the car was a piece of junk.
When I was 15, so in 2006. Ill never forget my dad had bought a brand new 2006 Ram 2500 with the 5.9 Cummins (which he kept with only 120k miles in immaculate condition until Hurricane Ida ruined it this past August), we decided to change the oil on it ourselves. My dad had a bucket cut to hold 3 gallons of oil and another one to put the filter in. Well, I mistakenly put the filter bucket under and pulled the plug. I was just laying there watching the oil drain. Before you know it there was oil all over the cement and in my hair. My dad was PISSED. He drug me out from under there and sprayed my head with the hosepipe as I scrubbed it with Dawn soap 
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