Hey guys, I’m new at this whole tuning thing, and I want to learn as much as I can about working on cars. Maybe a few of you could just post how you learned to work on cars, be it a technical school, family member, friend, website, ? Please help me out here I’m tired of not knowing how to do simple stuff! I greatly appreciate anyone who is kind enough to help me out!
Self taught. Learned on smaller motors first. Dirt bikes, ect… just experimenting. You’ll never learn shit from a book
not always true, yes doing it is better than reading it, but I stole a Helms manual…well barrowed off of a friend with intent of not giving it back 
that thing is a Bible to me. Best thing i did was found a well known local mechanic and a bunch of buddies that were really in to cars and there was a lot to learn from them.
So are all Helm’s manuals vehicle specific? There isn’t just one omnipotent Helm’s manual right? LOL I know alot of people are probably going “He doesn’t know what a helms manual is?!?!” I know I’m such a noob. :stick: I’m gonna be the guy, poking you with a stick, and asking alot of questions, but only for a little while. I just hate being the annoying guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about!
I owned a bunch of piece of shit cars
Learn a good trade yourself. I learned bodywork. So I do body work for J-tec and he does all my mechinical crap. Don’t try to work on cars unless its intake header exhaust or simple crap like that. It blows!!!
i bought an lt1, lol
and spark plug changes are “easy maintainance”… ha!
Learned off people is the best way to do it.
I started learning things from my dad, and then experimenting on my own car(bad idea) from a haynes manual doing whatever I saw fit, and then went to school at UTI for about a year and learned everything I wanted to from there.
Another way I learned a lot was being a porter at a smaller car shop.
When we weren’t busy I’d talk to the techs while they worked, ask them questions about things and saw how they did stuff. I picked up a lot of things that way. Of course making sure it didn’t bother them that you poked around before hand
Don’t get me wrong I don’t know a whole lot myself, but the most of what I do know, that’s how I got it!
:bowrofl:
90% of my friends are guys…and Im not afraid to get dirty…so I always jumped in.
My uncles and my brother are mechanics. I wanted to go to wyotech after high school but My uncle layed the law down and said nope…
Still wish I would have bc I hate relying on others.
My best advise is to just hang our similar peeps…but ones that really know what they are doing.
Make friends with a reliable garage that dont mind you hanging around tinkering with things.
go break it tear it apart put it back together and have a deep pocket so you can buy more stuff to break tear apart and put back together
I made friends out at school through a car club and we would have “mod meets” every couple of months and I learned how to do simple, basic things to cars (brakes, intakes, oil changes, neons, etc.) Plus, I was lucky that my first two cars were really shitty and learned how to do speed sensors and window switches. Then I worked at a Honda dealer for two summers and learned some more, but not a whole lot.
It’s all about connecting with people who are more mechanically inclined than you. That way, when they do any work on their cars, you can be an extra set of hands. That’s how the majority of people learn their shit.
I started with bicycles then dirt bikes. my buddy got a 66 plymouth fury III when he was 15 and I helped him with that alittle. full restore and build. learned alot from him and my dad and just taking random shit apart and checkin it out. reading helps as well. drove like a pure dickhead when i finally got my first ride, 87 dakota v6, broke the tranny twice from dumping it haha. man i beat that things ass, wow.
my dad ownes a shop
-Myself. Pulled small gas engines apart, repaired, tinkered, put back together.
-The No-Longer existing High School Power Tech series of classes. (10th grade - Small gas engines. Learn parts, pull apart, fix, rebuild. 11th grade systems on vehicles, Working on classmates cars and project car. 12th grade working on classmates cars, work on restoration project.) I don’t think I learned anything in high school that stuck, except for in that class. Really was beneficial. Learned the systems, functions of the systems, parts, what the parts do, how to build or replace them, body work, engine building/repair, simple fabrication, welding, cutting, painting, etc. Was a very good program.
-Friend’s cars. Friends with Hondas, or Friends with old pickups.
-Owning a Chrysler Product.
buy a DSM you will find yourself fixing it more times than drivin it!
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read.
not so much read to tell you what to do, but read to get an overview. when you work on cars, you cant remember all the things. if you are too ignorant to read, then you are to ignorant to work. -
observation.
everything external of the engine is very straight forward when you think about it. everything is held on via nuts/bolts/screws. it is a matter of figuring out how to go about removing said nuts and bolts. this is where observation comes into play. observe how stuff is laid out, and think–if i were a factory, how would this have been put on.
3)broaden your horizon.
by this, i mean work on anything you can for knowledge sake. i can honestly say i think i worked on just about every brand of car in the usa. i can probably name brands people never heard of. being stuck in one brand doesn’t let you think holistically. granted, if you specialize in a brand, more power to you. but stuff you learn from other makes carries over. jetting pita stromberg carbs on a triumph makes f-ing w/ a solex on a vw seem like cake.
4)spend time.
if you wanna be a wrench, get use to working 45+ hours a week,and having a pissed off or no girlfriend. because if you are a car guy, not only will u work 45 hours+ at your job, you will no doubt have your own car that you put time into after work or side jobs. girls don’t like being second fiddle to 4 wheels.
5)open mind.
don’t be a “i know what im doing leave me alone” person. even if you “think” you know what you are doing, if someone has a suggestion or comment, at least listen. Experience is knowledge. learn from other people. this is how you learn tricks to doing things. and there is a lot of time saving tricks. just on a honda/acura–if you know what to do, you can change a trailing arm bushing still on the car in under 15 minutes per side, book pays 3 hours per side. that means 6 hours pay for 30 mins work if your flat rate…
- analyze
know why you do what you do. i know it sounds stupid, but try to analyze what you are doing. example–tranny has a blown clutch. why? driver abuse, wear and tear, leaking seal, etc? always think of what caused the problem. because fixing one failed part doesn’t always mean the problem is solved. this goes for trouble shooting stuff too. have to think in a flow chart…
by breaking stuff.
seriously, a civic/integra is literally the '57 chevy of our generation, with the b series being our small block. im not trying to knock ford or chevy, as i have owned an SVO mustang and five liter mustang, as well as a turbo 3.8 and an LT1. its just a sign of the times. in the early 90’s when the import scene blew up, the B series was king, and that still holds true in certain circles.
buy yourself a short ram intake on ebay for $50. install it all by yourself, and that feeling of accomplishment, mixed with the sound and butt dyno, will give you the the itch to do something else. if not, well you only spent $50, and you now have an air filter which you never have to replace, and your car runs better and gets better mpg
learned from doing my own work or working with my friends doing their own work. takes alot of time which i no longer have since im married now ha ha
by breaking stuff.
hung out at circuit city road shop to start…then friends garages and body shops watching and ‘supervising’ most of the time.