Tranny Love

The post from yesterday about working on vee-hickles brought out a lot of comments from folks—MommaBear continues to allure with her self-described ability to lay mat, set points, and hand lap valves (Rrrrowlllllllll!), and Miss Janis thinks of Toploaders and Rock Crushers when she gets p0rn spam, and Vachon made note of her desire to learn more about cars.

A noble goal, indeed.

Everybody should know at least the basic stuff about the cars they drive, and rest assured, being ovary-gifted is not an impediment. Even if you have no desire to do your own clutch rebuild, it is beneficial to take the time to learn a little bit.

Cars have gone through a revolution in the past ten years, and have become increasingly reliable, making it less likely you would ever need to know how to unstick a carb float (my mother used the heel of her shoe on our ’58 Merc) or carry around a pint of brake fluid. Computers and fuel injection—from someone who’s had to pour gas down a carb—are a godsend. The downside with newer cars is that if something DOES go wrong, there is really no such thing as doing a roadside repair. (The other part of the revolution is easy access to a cell phone to call a tow truck.) Stuff’s more reliable, but not perfect, and when it does break, it is usually much more expensive to repair.

BUT, there are still things that require an owner’s attention, and again, this advice goes for both pointers and setters—

First, read your owner’s manual, cover to cover. Then, read through all the maintenance stuff again as you are standing there in front of your car. Find out how to check the fluids, figure out where the fuse box is, find and identify every piece you can, and most important, learn how to change a tire.

Find a nice flat spot in a parking lot or a driveway to practice in and follow the instructions in the manual and actually put on the spare. Don’t quibble with me! Even if it’s a spacesaver and you have to take it right back off, do it. You will never know how important this is until you need it, and it's better to have learnt it on a nice, dry day than to have to figure it out at midnight in the rain.

If you do decide to learn a bit more, the best thing to do before you start laying out lots of dough is read as much as you can. Go to the library and check out books made for beginners, or get on the Internet and go to places like Auto Education.Com or the auto repair part of About.com, both of which have a huge amount of general information about how cars work and how to work on them. Read, read, read.

At some point in there, you’ll decide you want to start taking things apart, and if you have the time and inclination, most local schools have a shop class or community education program and would be happy to have you. The benefits of these classes are that you get to be around people who are just as inept as you, so nobody can make fun of you, and there is an instructor standing by who can call an ambulance for you.

If you just want to dive in and learn-by-doing, the best advice I can give (aside from reading the shop manual first) is a) be sure and label EVERYTHING, b) put everything you remove in a plastic bag or a container, c) label the container or bag, d) make a list of the part labels and bag labels and make two copies, keeping one in your freezer and the other posted on the wall of the garage, e) occasionally read the lists and check them against your parts, f) know the name of the guy at your local parts dealer for when you lose the lists and/or the containers, and g) buy good tools. Don’t ever buy tools at the drug store, don’t ever buy tools that look “cute”, and under no circumstances let anyone borrow ANYTHING. Swapping partners may be your thing, but then the worst that can happen is you get some sort of nasty, fatal disease—but to let someone have their way with your tools?! That’s just sick.

Anyway, after many years and thousands of dollars later, you will proudly look back over your handy skills and your mechanical accomplishments and wonder why you have a box of labelled parts for a car you no longer own.
posted by Terry at 12:28:00 PM