Young guys, where did you learn mechanics

Im 14 learning mostly from the old man and Uncle Jim ! Sometimes I get to talk to my Great Uncle Bob about his car clubs back in the 60's ! He is in his 70's and still race last time I talked to him he ran a 10.78 .

 

My dad best fabricator best mechanic

 

I am 28, learned a lot from my dad. I realized at a really young age to shut up and listen. I learn everything I can from anyone I can. Listen to the guys who have done it for years. Read everything you can, it's not always right, but it is important to learn how not to do things also. I learned a lot from trial and error. I have to give a big thanks to all the guys that post here on the HAMB. I can always find an answer to my questions here.

 

Worked at garages since I was 16. Made friends with other car people. Believe it or not, internet forums are great for tech support as well. Thanks HAMB!

Honestly, it's so hard to find ones who want to learn - walk into a garage and ask for a job. There's a good chance they'll hire you just to do some grunt work.

 

I'm fortunate to have a Dad that does pretty much everything himself. he had me holding wrenches,polishing wheels, sanding fenders etc. since I was old enough to walk. I have 2 sons that I'll teach the same way.

 

Mainly hanging around and looking up to the old timers for advice and teaching. I got lucky and got into a bodyshop at age 14 washing cars. Worked with alot of old timers there, hot rodders, you know the type. Went from washing cars to building cars and never paid a cent to get trained, in fact they paid me. Thats my story.

 

If you're a farm kid, you will learn all sorts of ways to "improvise".

Some ways work...and others don't. Blood, sweat, and frustration will certainly build your "skill set" over time.

And you'll learn how to do alot with very little!

Just the other day, I had to fabricate a small device to fix my wife's VW, and the city folk were certainly amazed....(I was too cheap and bull-headed to just go buy the tool I needed).

 

Im 25 now, and began working on my lexus is300 at around 18 years old. Swapping in coilovers, changing headers and exhausts, brakes, clutch, water pump and timing belt. I mainly come from a self taught Japanese background, I have installed severak Honda motors into chassis it wasnt designed for.
Now I drive the IS300 on the track, and am building a 55 buick century. My dad is not too happy that I have taken so well to cars and mechanic type work, I guess he wants me to be a lawyer or a doctor. But my passion is in cars.

 

Grew up on a ranch in the middle of nowhere Colorado. If we needed it, we made it. Started with model cars, then bikes, then motorcycles, then when I turned 15 I bought a 60' Pontiac Catalina and a 58IH. The day I stop learning is the day I start dying. I hope that one day I can pass it on to my children.LB

 

I'm going to take the other side of the coin. I gained custody of my son when he turned 15. He didn't know a left handed screwdriver from a metric crescent wrench. I realized this was no way to raise a kid. Bought a '56 Chevy Coupe with a tired motor and lousy drum brakes. We (He did half the work) replaced the 265 with a mild 283, installed a TH350, tossed the manual drum brakes and installed power disc brakes, headers, etc. He's 30 yrs old now and has his own shop called Humboldt Customs in CA.

 

My dad. All through my childhood, he was always building some sort of muscle car or hot rod. To this day, if I get stumped on something I give him a call.

 

My dad. All through my childhood, he was always building some sort of muscle car or hot rod. To this day, if I get stumped on something I give him a call.

 

i droped out of high school after my junior year and went to the best school in the world North Dakota State School of Science and took auto mechanics and went to work as a line mechanic
was drafted 9 months later
after Nam I went back to the same school and took auto body and also upholstery which was a part of the same ciricullumn [spelling was not]

and i too was young in 1963 when i left the farm and went to the big city to school

 

Awesome

 

My dad. i never wanted to pay a mechanic to do my work when i knew it may be done half ass and i knew me and my dad had the ability to do it. the internet holds tons of info. magazines, manuals, talking to older guys. no auto shop, metal shop, wood shop or anything in my high school or any other high school near by. im 19 and starting to do more and more work by myself. all started with my pop tho

 

My father owns a shop so I picked up some things working there, although he is not the best teacher. Lots of trial and error, research, tinkering, old books and manuals but I admit I still have a lot to learn. I have my own little disconnected garage now so that will help with learning some more, except when it is 10 degrees out.

 

The hard way. By breaking shit....lesson learned.

 

Learned it from hanging out and building cars with Vets as a teenager

 

I'm 52, not so young and never had an auto shop class.. Started by taking apart every toy I ever got, and putting most of them back together. Mom said I took apart my playpen to escape as a toddler..

Then there were scrapyard home built bicycles..

Then I got a used Honda 350 twin as a boy, boy did I take that apart and rebuilt it a few times.

Dad gave me an old truck when I was old enough for a license, I promptly broke it, he said if I want to drive it I better fix it. That first break was a sheared trans output shaft up inside the trans.

I can't remember someone's name 10 minutes after I meet em, Can't hardly remember my own phone number, but I can see that output shaft in my head to this day.

Then in about '77 I got a job at a shop working for an old guy that used to be a Packard mechanic, and things went from there. Worked on everything from small engines, to industrial stuff, cars/trucks, big rigs, even some helicopters.

Right now I have 2 trucks, 3 motorcycles and a 1948 Farmall Tractor to fiddle with and I work on computers and software for a living.

My brain was just built for mechanics, it's what I'm best at.. Never met a machine I didn't want to know how it works, or one I couldn't figure out if I take it apart.

 

I don't know if I'm one of the young guys anymore (35) but I did have Auto Shop in school when I went, however I did not learn much of what I know from there.

I started buying cars when I was 15 and have bought about 50 or so since, I try not to buy the same make so I can gain knowledge about all sorts of different ways things were done. I have learned by doing, sometimes messing up big but learning how to fix those problems has taught me more than anything else could.

 

Lucky for me, my Dad loved cars and me. He was my best friend.
Miss ya Dad.

 

I got my start from my brothers and my father. I remember watching my oldest brother and my father putting a motor into my brothers '72 impala, and then my other brothers '91 mustang..which I was able to learn a ton of hands on work when we built the motor. That is actually where i learned to drive a stick also, on a 600 horse small block.
I think i was the second to the last year that had auto tech in high school, it was circling the drain when i was in it. they didn't want to replace any of the big items like the lift.
After highschool I got a job in a machine shop, and I took a few ase classes. Now its all teaching myself..
I am saddened that schools don't teach auto anymore, Without it being taught by fathers and brothers and technical schools, it could be lost and create a generation of people who can't check their own oil....

 

Dad!

 

I had auto in school I had three hours a day my whole senior year, we did auto competitions, we had a great shop class and an amazing teacher, I took two years of auto in college before changing to architecture. I learned from my father and brothers. Still talk to my brother a couple of times a week asking questions. my son changed the oil on his moms car for the first time last weekend all by him self (I had to break loose the drain plug and the oil filter and tighten them but he did the rest) he is 6. he was so excited I think it is starting already.

 

Dad who's mechanical knowledge goes back to his stories of racing his '57 Chevy and Studebaker Lark Daytona up and down Hwy 99 in the early '60s always had a gaggle of old cars to work on while I was growing up.

...then he got me a summer job at a shop when I was 15 and the next year when I was 16.

...then I joined the Army and started wrenching on Helicopters.

 

Dad has raced cars longer than i have been alive and consistantly had other projects around the place (he still races now at 65).

I started off "helping" Dad when i was pretty young, when i was about 14 i started doing unpaid work at a workshop one of Dads mates, Carl owned.

Carl also gave me a couple of the wrecks he had out the back of the shop to learn on when i wasn't with him.

If it wasn't for my Dad and Carl i wouldn't have been able to afford to keep a car on the road over the years, when they break i fix em.

 

THE OLD MAN. Also joining the military at 18 and learning how to be a diesel fitter

 

there was an auto shop in my high school i graduated in 2006... and i grew up with 1 uncle a mechanic, 1 uncle a chassis builder(raced bb super modifieds) and my father(raced an alcohal dragster) a machinist/fabricator/welder... i gues i was spoiled now since i look at it. hahaha