Art & Inspiration It is official I am no longer a "Backyard Mechanic"

oh you were a steel shoe'r one of the only motorcyle sports I watched as a kid , wanted to do it but my dad said I was too tall . ( he was too cheap and wanted to do it himself )

 

My 40th birthday came around, young wife (girlfriend then) invited all the fellow rod shop owners to MY shop for a 'surprise party'. (all I saw was a group coming in to 'party', and make me late for going out to dinner!)
Then..."Surprise!" Never saw it coming...
Loads of gag gifts, but the Cream was when Von Franco said "I didn't have enough for a card, so this is what you get..."
He und****d a 4ft. X 8 ft. 3/4" plywood sheet, (it had been on my rolling vertical frame of fluorescent tubes that I used for light when fabbing, as my left eye was temporarily 'off the air'; the sheet was 'disguised', as there was another one the lights were mounted on)
Franco had painted a pic of a black '32 Highboy, (half-size!) on an all white background, and my name above it... GREAT signage, I mounted it on a frame and hung it on my building.
3 nights later, I drive up to get something (around 1o AM) and some goat ropers are standing in the bed of a tall 4 wheeler getting ready to remove my new sign!
My .45 convinced them to leave...I resisted putting one thru the upper wall of the building, as the crazy old bodyman that lived in his shop next door might've come out and shot us all...

I took the sign down and mounted it inside the next day...
I have a polaroid pic of Franco standing next to it, AT&T is impossible to post with, I'll see if young wife will copy it on the printer and post it. It's one of those "Must Sees"...

 

Again ****** gets it right! VAN CAMPS Pork & Beans, which I always specified. Santa Clara Breakfast of Champions!
My unqualifying brother was gonna be the hero at one of my shop Barbeques, I cooked the steaks and he shows up with 1/2 case of Pork & Beans. (CAMPBELL'S!!!)
I asked him what was what. He said they were on sale...I screamed, "NOOOO!!!!!"
Always Van Camp's.
Shoot! Never saw the part where it said, "Super Tune"! Thanks, Sancho.

 

Not Campbell's unless it is all there is to eat and then it is questionable.

I hate to admit it but Van Camps has been the mainstay of my diet for a long time. But just to be perfectly clear, all I have ever really wanted out of life is a good cheese burger.

 

Damn,now I'm hungry.

 

Me too!

 

You had to say 'Cheeseburger'.
F100's warming up now, In-N-OUT is 6 miles away...I've got a 1/2 tank of gas, wearing sungl***es...can stop by Fastenall on the way back.
Thanks, ******, Bader & Capt Chap!!!
Take a ride with a 'Rake' ... Look it up.

 

Cool, I used a cut down plywood stopsign as a skim board when I lived in Puerto Rico. Worked really well!

 

I can still usually find an old wood road sign when I am near the water. I will probably always be partial to Yield signs, especially now that I know the other meaning of them. LOL

 

a couple more "shingles" to ponder:

 

Not sure how I got drug into this and the level of professionalism that you have achieved.
I am still shade tree that has been struck by lighting.
And I am lucky to find my way home at the end of the day.

 

Got this one about ten years ago when we were on vaction.we had nine boys in our family and everyone had a nickname so none of the names on the sign are our real names . Back in the day there were many motors pulled with a chainfall on a tree limb.

 

Super Tune ? Does that imply or make reference to special sounds (tunes) from a said type muffler due to said can of pork and beans ?

 

****** you will always be a "backyard mechanic" to me and that's the best thing I can say about you.

 

There was enough fun for the both of us here so I just thought I would share it with you. LOL

By the way we have both been struck if you have, although I have never taken a direct hit. All I can say is that it is a good thing I used to be a genius, now I am just normal.

Well I have actually been paid and paid well to work in somebodies shop as a mechanic and worked out of my own place more then once and I prefer my backyard status. I do appreciate the compliment.

I think that the "Backyard" thing was initially meant as an insult, although someone is going to have to try a lot harder than that if they are going to really insult me. LOL

I think that the conversation finally came around to the only thing that separated a backyard mechanic from a professional was the placard.

I got to say this, we all see some incredibly horrendous stuff posted on here that is done by "professional" builders and some of the most beautiful work in the world, think impeccable here when I say beautiful, done by this group of amateurs. If I were looking for someone to build me a rod or a custom I would look no further than this site and this group of backyard mechanics.

 

I just fixed a car yesterday that had been to the dealer that could not fix it.
Where is my placard?

 

I run my valves in the front driveway...

 

I am a commons mechanic as I live in a condo for the moment ... and all the property is called commons , but I do my work in the driveway .

 

The local Chevy Dealer has me on call for diagnostics. I get calls from time to time on old stuff that the "technicians" don't know how to diagnose or even how to repair it when it is diagnosed.

For that they cut me a helluva deal on oil changes for the wife's late model. I like the arrangement.

 

hey now since your wanna them perfesional fellers you can splurge on the food and get the high end stuff


and speaking of cheese burgers , growing up in North central Indiana , we used to put the baked beans on the burger , kind of like they put slaw on them down south . messy but good ...

 

Now you can charge $120 a hour for labor

 

I don't understand that because the old cars are way more basic than new cars are!

 

Because they can't plug a meter into a port and get a read-out that tells them what to do. And God forbid that they would have to stop and think about a diagnosis.

 

And I thought this tread way going to be about you moving to the front yard..............

 

LOL I actually bought a burger that way when I was up in your neck of the woods. I figured it would be like a chili burger, it was sort of.

@jcmarz the problem is that older cars had things like points and carburetors, way over the head of modern factory trained technicians. For us its nuthin' we either grew up with it or we play with it on a daily basis.

Most of the local garages have fazed out the older workers or they got old and wore out. The dealer in question had his last old timer retire about 4 years ago. I had worked there as a diagnostician in the '70s the owner knew it, he was a little kid back then and had the service manager contact me with the offer.

Actually did that about 3 or 4 years ago. The code Nazis said that my granddaughter and I could not ***emble the Willys in my driveway, so we hauled it out back and put it mostly together back there then moved it to the driveway so she could learn to do the brakes.

Once is was mostly ***embled we could hang a tag on it. LOL

 

they must have used the campbells or the beans from maine or Bushes , Grandma always served VC beans as they are from the INDY area and they ( grand parents ) were from SO Ind ( limestone country ) , and she always added a little brown sugar , some heavy mol***es , and a 1/2 s**** of yellow mustard to them , and then cooked the sauce down till it was thick like bar B q ( 1-2 hours ) then you could s**** it on a burger or dip your chicken in it like my cousin does .

as for the old guys at the garage , when they retired I started making money , as like you said these new guys do not know how to work on old Iron , hell I have one who asked me what the cart was for ( tach/dwell scope vacuum gauges ) and most do not know how to tune a carb or adjust a float .

 

""I think that the "Backyard" thing was initially meant as an insult, although someone is going to have to try a lot harder than that if they are going to really insult me. LOL""

Yo Momma......[little Enus, Smokey and the Bandit]

 

Guess, it's a sign of the times....I hadn't really thought about it much till now, but isn't it someplace like 1984-85 the last carbureted car came off the ***embly line???....that's approx. 30 years ago!!! Just about blew my mind (time ticks on!) because all my cars have carburetors still and I sorta take it for granted! Most personal friends I know these days, prefer the ''new'' cars because they think everything is ''modern'' and ''wonderful'' & will NEVER break down...but, not any commonly work on their own cars at home now within the 'new car' format either...unless ya' can plug em' in, and get a read-out of a malfunction, and pay-to-plug into a computer diagnosis....then gotta take out a loan $$$ to fix ANYTHING seems like! The old days of ''figuring it out'' at home, or in the driveway/backyard is rapidly becoming a lost art ! ---- I can understand why an auto shop would reach out to ****** for his expertise....those skills are not so common anymore All the mechanics I used to know, of the 'old school' way of things are not there any more...I know a few still who ''dabble'' in it a little, but it's so high-tech these days, they can't compete and survive all the changes. Thanks to the HAMB....a lot of us can still figure it all out, and share that knowledge!...a big thanks, indeed

 

actually this is going to make me sound like a pretty ugly guy but Yomama would not effect me as much as anyone talking about my big sister.

Ray
You said a mouthful there. I still find things out on the HAMB on a daily basis. I post a lot but nearly as much as I read, and some of the things I learn are from guys my kid's age.