It was those model aircraft engines that started me off, aged about 11 years.
But the knowledge came from all the mechanics magazines (including bike) + haynes manual and library engineering texts. Aged 14, I was servicing our family and extended family cars and at 17, taking engines apart.
Of course, you were considered a `Man` in those days at 15, so I felt more than old enough to be the rescue vehicle at 17 in my first car.
The boot was full of tools and spares and I rescued them on several occasions.
I was never actually taught or watched anyone do mech work, but worked it out myself books and magazines and in visiting scrapyards stripping cars for parts.
It stood you in good stead for later and many years later taught myself to sail by reading books and without lessons.
What surprises my is how helpless and dependent some of my friends kids are and unable to work things out for themselves. It seems they don`t have a problem solving way of thinking and still ring Dad from University because their car won`t start. They can`t help themselves, let alone their family.
I`m not being judgemental about that, but just commenting on how society has changed until I don`t recognise it.
Regards
Edited by oilrag on 21/02/2008 at 07:01
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Haynes Manuals and Car Mechanics Magazine, and Practical Classics got me interested in mechanical tinkering's. A large bill from a Vauxhall main dealer and a mechanic friend telling me that ' you could have done that service for £x' got me started on the spanners.
Do all my own servicing and most repairs now, saves me enough cash to go to a garage when I know its beyond my capability or tool kit.
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Garage does my car servicing, I don't have the time and also like to keep the book stamped and up to date; for the 1963 GMC pick-up I have (at great expense but worth it) manufacturer's workshop manuals, but the beast is so easy to work on it's unreal.
This is a common question asked on my Harley club forum; Haynes don't get such a good press there as the manufacturers' manuals which are first-rate though expensive, followed by the US Clymer ones.
I agree with a PP that Haynes don't seem to be so good now; is it perhaps because they struggle to keep up with constant changes and modifications made by today's manufacturers? Furthermore, so many items are not economically repairable these days that anything beyond basic servicing is too much hassle for me. I did a full apprenticeship as a mechanic in REME but working on modern cars simply doesn't give me any satisfaction at all.
Edited by Harleyman on 21/02/2008 at 20:23
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Always been one for tinkering in an amatuerish sort of way with stuff. As a kid I would dismantle, clean, oil, and reassemble my bike right down to removing the axles and ball bearings etc. just out of curiosity. My early cars like a Mk 1 Escort, a Spitfire and a Midget got subjected to similar treatment. Most of the time I would just pick on a particular component and take it apart to find out how it was assembled and put it back together. Fortunately, I have a reasonably good memory! The car that got the most interference though, was my dearly departed Westfield ( Sob! ). It was not built by me but I pretty much took it apart and put it back together again one winter for no real reason other than to see if I could. It had been fitted with a Ford X-Flow 1600 which was fairly vandal proof and despite my fiddling it continued to run fine. I even managed to convince myself that I might have done it some good but in hindsight I can't see how! The only Haynes manual I had was from a completely unrelated car ( Mk1 Fiat Panda...don't ask! ) but it sort of helped when it came to grasping the more technical bits as the basic principles were the same. Sort of miss doing things like that but wouldn't dare attempt anything other than very basic stuff on a modern engine.
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My father without a doubt. He was a civil servant who worked in the Admiralty, in a department with lots of technology and mechanical stuff, which he enjoyed and was good at. He tinkered for a hobby and, civil service salaries being what they were in those days, grappled in gung-ho fashion with cars when he had to pay for his own, and kindly allowed me to help and didn't give me too hard a time over my idiocies. When I was eight or ten my parents bought me Meccano sets at Christmas and birthdays so I ended up with quite a lot of Meccano which I liked a lot (sold it for a song to some hustler when I was 15 along with beautiful and probably even then valuable 0-gauge train stuff including three magnificent pullman carriages and a Bassett-Lowke clockwork Edwardian scale 4-4-0 engine and tender, given me when I was far too young by a friend of my parents...)
Adolescents are so half-witted. But I was very lucky in my childhood in many ways, and one couldn't be a technophobe or mechanical idiot after all that, however idle and artistic.
Edited by Lud on 21/02/2008 at 23:19
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Come to think of it, I blame Meccano for my obsession with fiddling too Lud! My eight year old's modern plastic version is a totally inferior shadow of the stuff we had. It doesn't even cause bleeding when you abuse it. How can this possibly prepare the budding tinkerer for the real world?
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The disappearance of proper Meccano, following actually its dumbing-down into themed outfits which any idiot could see were carp, seems to me to be one of the greatest tragedies to hit the rational nipper in recent years. I find it hard to believe that it would now be too expensive. I quite agree about this five-year-old's big fat plastic rubbish. No one would want that. Perhaps this is all a conspiracy to make Britain fall behind India and China in tinkering.
No doubt you had the tail end of the green strips, red plates Meccano they had in the forties and fifties when I was small? In the thirties it was even more luxurious looking, the plates being blue with a gold diamond pattern on them and the strips I think being painted silver...
My uncle who died the other week had some of that, but I never got hold of it except when visiting my grandparents about 1946.
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The biggest influence on my spannering took place when I took my first car for a new exhaust to a fast fit type of establishment and endured a seventeen year old telling me what was wrong with my car when I didn't really have a clue myself. He proceeded to tell me all sort of parts needed replacing and I wasn't really sure whether I was being had.
From that day I vowed I'd learn to fix the car myself as if the kid in the shop could do it then so could I. I'd also know if I was being lied to in future. The prices charged had a large influence too.
I find the internet is a huge boon for home repair. Every problem has been documented by someone somewhere. I think its a shame as I'm about the only person I know in my age group (Early thirties) who will have a go at fixing their cars. Everone else my age that I know treats them like fridges and televisions. "No user servicable parts inside". I feel/know that I'm acting like my dad's generation in relation to cars.
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This is a bit of a tangent, but I was told of a type of spanner this week whereby the spanner grabs the faces rather than the 'ends' for grip, hence never flattens the ends of a nut/bolt. I think it was called a Mac-something 4wd, Looked brilliant, and apparently unobtainable....
Peanut
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Hi Peanut.
What you are referring to is known as 'surface drive'. They are produced by a number of companies, both as sockets and spanners. I have some by Sykes-Pickavant, and they do what it says on the box, namely, put the pressure on the flats, rather than the angles.
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'Spannering' Influences?
Neccessity is not only the mother of invention, but often the father of education.
I was still only 17, had just passed my test, and bought a seven year old Sunbeam Rapier Mk V (final fastback shape). It cost me £200, had no MoT and the big-end bearings were knocking.
One of my mates was an apprentice mechanic. I bought a simple socket set and a jack, and a hammer, and with his help took the engine out, rebuilt it, did everything else that car needed for it's MoT, and put it back on the road. What I learned from him (- his name was Brian Bell - if you ever read this -"Thanks Brian") was the basis of my car DIY skills.
Yes, workshop manuals played their part, but to be shown how to do something, then do it for yourself, is still one of the finest educational methods.
And the Rapier? Sold it a year later for £600!
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I do most of my own servicing and repairs because of the lousy service I've had from garages in the past (eg: charging for new rear brakes and the car then failing the MOT on them because the work hadn't been done!)
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My father, who was an apprenticed marine engineer. He turned his hand to repair/make anything. With his encouragement I spannered on a series of maintenance intensive BMC cars (and a Renault 18) at the kerbside in all weathers. After he died , I started buying Vw's and paying someone else to service them.Turned to motorcycle maintenance where I had a chance of keeping warm in my shed.
Most of my tools are rusting away now I regret.
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i was first interested in motive power ever since my first Mamod steam engine , i know its not an internal combustion engine but the idea is similar , then i went on to single cylinder motobikes and i was really chuffed when after a lot of swearing , blood letting and knuckle skinning i managed to replace a bent valve and timing chain on a honda 125s and it went like a rocket, ive always had a haynes manual for every thing ive ever owned that had an engine bolted to it, i can read a haynes manual like other people read a best selling novel
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Thanks.
I think I'll track down a set: seems such an obvious idea.
Peanut
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