What was the first car you worked on regularly?
- Thread starter vavavroom
- Start date
- Joined
- May 4, 2025
- Messages
- 108
1995 Ford Ranger I bought from my uncle when I was in highschool. It was his farm truck for many years so it did loads of low speed driving with short run times, so despite being fairly low milage it was pretty worn out. I spent many weekends from the age of 16 to 18 working on that truck. Sold it when I joined the navy.
Bud_One
Site Donor 2025
Oh I remember those Metro's very well... all 3 raging cylinders of em
Yup. My Dad showed me how to do it. Hard to believe that was 40 years ago
87 trans am gta then an 84 mustang gt.
I kept it for 10 years/100K miles. It had that lousy 307 engine.Iit. Hope you were able to keep it for a good while.
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
LoL. Wife had one of those 307cui engines in her '72 Chevelle when we got married. I tuned it up and got it to running well. Still it was nothing special. Since the wife drove it 40 miles a day round trip to work she was glad she could pass lots of gas stations without stopping. Once I discovered the usual body cancer all over underneath , I sold it and put her in a 1972 Olds Cutlass 350 cui 4bbl. I loved and she did not. I kick myself to this day for selling that one.
A 65 corvair was my first car. I was 18 and knew squat about caring for cars. I started with oil changes and graduated to front wheel bearing repacking (they were easily washed out with water). Several friends showed me how to use a timing light, replace and set points and condensers to become a pro at simple tune ups. I did replace the shocks once or twice as well. Back in the 60's and 70's it was very "uncool" not to be able to do basic maintenance on your car.
1964 Austin Healy Sprite. Points, plugs, condenser, set dwell and timing every 5000 miles. Replace radiator hoses every 10,000 miles or so and freeze plugs as they pop out on the highway.
Taught me how to fix cars, and taught me BMC new little about building them.
Taught me how to fix cars, and taught me BMC new little about building them.
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2022
- Messages
- 335
71 toyota Corolla wagon, rebuilt the engine but couldn't find a Webber carb to fit correctly on the intake. so adapted the cable to make it fit.. then ran the car up to the muffler shop and had them run a single exhaust pipe out the side.
my 1968 ford bronco
MolaKule
Staff member
My grandpa's 1948 Plymouth.
51 Chev with Power Glide. Got a deal on it due to a rod knock. learned about babbit and shims.
My 1968 aircooled Beetle. Did EVERYTHING (and I mean EVERYTHING) in it except body work, upholstery, and the transmission in the 30 years that I owned it. There was no internet for most of those years, but I had John Muir's humorous book How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. That book is still available today to purchase brand new.
A 1937 Nash Ambassador straight eight with twin ignition and enough steel to make 3 or 4 Hondas.
Family sedan.
Smoky
Family sedan.
Smoky