When I was in college, I had a 1950 Ford coupe. I bought it from a local old guy for $900 using one of those credit card checks. I can vividly remember limping it home from his house in Oklahoma City to my apartment in Norman, OK. The car was pretty ... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
great read ryan. When I was 15, I had a job working in a shop...cleaning the place and had no idea how to drive stick. One of the mechanics was working on a car and asked me to jump in and try firing it up for him, I didn't check to see if it was in neutral and almost ran over the poor guy. Ever since then I always check to see if a car is in gear first....every single time and I've never owned an automatic. I bet you'll check everytime from here on out, and you'll always remember that moment before starting up a manual car for the rest of your life.
We're all hacks. In everyones case "What we don't know could fill a book"... The joy is in the process.
We've all been there...most of us several times. I turn wrenches everyday and I still feel like a "hack" pretty often. No one can be an expert on everything. These are the kind of things that keep us humble. Jay
We all learn from mistakes, both our own and the mistakes of others. Hearing about other's mistakes and their solutions make forums like this so great, especially the war stories like this post. Everyone here has screwed something up during their learning process. I have some friends that are amazed that I am not "afraid" to take things apart (like they are). I just say "what's the worst that can happen?" I spent my childhood destructing my toys and only sometimes reconstructing them, but that's ok because I learned. If it's stuck, force it. If it breaks it needed replacing anyway.
Knowing when & where to throw a lifeline is an extremely valuable skill that some never learn, don't cut yourself short. We can't be masters of it all, and congrats on the conquer.
Great story. We all do the same stuff, although I will say at my first real job it was drilled into me to "Never park a car in gear" apairently the boss had driven a car off a two story parking garage when he was young by reaching through the window to start it, That was way before neutral safety switches. To this day I get anoid when I get into one of our cars and see that my wife has left it in gear. She is learning though.
Dont be so hard on yourself man, we have all done hacky stuff, the difference is you are brave enough to tell the world about it! congrats on getting you car dialed in. now go for a ride you deserve it.
I rebuilt a Honda CVCC carb 7 times. It didn't help that the gas station was near the beach, it was my first job turning wrenches and the owner was about my age and wore skimpy bikinis each time. For those not familiar with a CVCC, the procedure is to adjust the float level a sixteenth of a turn and wait 2 minutes. I was hair high in the water and distracted... I was a hack.
>>. I didn’t want to screw up a perfectly running car and endure the ensuing frustration that would follow.<< Ha! Put your balls back on! If it was running perfect, you wouldn't have been worried about gas leaking all over your engine, and your car going up in flames. Next time you have to fix something, pretend you're back in college and it's the only car you've got. If you don't get it running in 7 hours, you're going to miss work. Then you'll get fired, you won't be able to pay your rent or tuition, and you'll be out on your ass. Oh, and that girl sitting on the porch next door likes to drink her tea and listen to you cuss at your car because she thinks it's funny (but she still flips you off when you ask if she wants to go for a test ride). Nothing like adding pressure to clear the mind and concentrate on the task at hand.
Sounds like your boss was a goofball! If I don't leave mine in gear, it rolls down the hill unless I remember the tire brick.
Heck Ryan, If that's all you got, you're a Hack of a Hack! My lessons have been much more expensive and I still won't talk about them!
I had alot bigger balls when I was young, I would tear into anything with no thought to the outcome. Walked to school more than once after a late night "hey let's try this". Now I have great tools a decent garage, and spend more time living through the HAMB Legends than in the garage, because I start thinking what will happen if I do something one way instead of another. Screw it, Ryan's a hack and i'm going to the garage.
I can relate completely, the 4 strombergs on my new motor beat me until I went back to the original setup. Clint was right......." A good man knows his limitations"
Ryan , that was a great story and I can relate to screw ups just like everyone else here . That's life and you live it how you want to . There isn't one of us that hasn't done something like that before and I have done many in all the years I turned a wrench . That's how we all learn ! No body is perfect and the one that tells you they never did something stupid or screwed up something is either a liar or doesn't do anything . That's the fun with this hobby , you get to do it yourself if you have the balls to try it ! Anything we screw up can always be fixed no matter how bad we all 'HACK" up something ! That's how we learn and pass it on to someone else ! RetroJim
after 22 years of working on all my own junk, and gettin' paid to work on other peoples' stuff, my favorite quote is "I have learned just enough to know, that I don't know SHIT!"
Hahahahah!!! The ending of that entry is damn funny Ryan. Funny because I believe I am a hack and that type of shit would happen to me also. I am pretty confident to say that I do not have any business around these old cars.....but I am getting better. A couple months ago my wife and I went to a friends for dinner in my 26 and everything seemed great until we were coming home and I went over a railroad track. I normally scrape the trans crossmember on things but that's normal. Well this time I hit the oil pan and did not know until my wife was like "what's that ticking?". I looked down and seen 0 oil pressure. I shut down and had a friend tow the car back home. So the nect day I see a rip in the oil pan about the size of a quarter. A bunch of my friends we like bring it by the shop and we'll weld it up for you. Now on a normal day I would say ok but that day I felt a bit harry. I had a pretty nice welder and I know the basics, why can't I weld my own oil pan up? I got the tools out and cleaned the pan and got to work. After all was said and done that fucker still holds oil without a drop leaking. I brought that oil pan to shop night the next day and paraded it around like I had just hunted the deadliest game. Nobody was all that impressed but a couple nods made it worth the time down. Sometimes you just need to push yourself and do it. I am trying to keep that attitude with my '35. I can do this shit. It may take me a bit longer and I might screw up a couple times but I can do it. I am just glad I have a place like this I can ask questions before I fuck up something too bad.
The Jalopy Journal
