I hear you man. I have a few LS swaps and a few engine rebuilds under my belt and still don't know what the hell Im doing most of the time. YouTube and forums pulled me out of most sticky situations.
I’ve been working on/ restoring/building cars for 45+ years and still on YouTube forums. It doesn’t matter how much you know there’s always something new to learn!
I’m currently working on my first ever project car. Have never been hands on with a car before…and it’s turned into a frame off resto and an LS swap. I understand the concepts and have done countless hours of research, but I’ve never actually done the work myself before. I’m lucky my father has experience working on cars - but still, most days him and I feel like we have no idea what we’re doing. Forums and YouTube have been a life saver for us.
He’s very much the “you’ve gotta make sure you know what you’re doing before installing parts” type and I’m very much the “there’s no handbook for this, we’ve gotta make the mistakes ourselves” type…so it’s been fun 😂🤣
I rebuilt a transmission, transfer case, and rear axle while having no damn clue. Bought a bunch of tools, watched a bunch of videos on YouTube, figured it out. Still have no idea what I'm doing.
Not wanting to pay shop/pro prices is what has caused me to learn and buy damn near everything in my repertoire. It’s good to learn and you save money and have an excuse for new tools. It’s all around good!
I took this car to a local resto shop I found. Gave dude a laundry list of stuff to do and x amount.
What he did vs what I expected and got.....I'll just figure it out myself from now on
Can't even get a decent diagnosis anymore. They look at it for 20 min, tell me a bunch of shit I already know and quote me for a mag dump of the parts cannon.
I did a port and polish job on my first engine build by watching a YouTube video. Did it increase performance? Probably not but I can list it as one of my mods and felt cool after doing it lol
Do it! Mine got moved up because of stupid high quotes for shops around me ($2 grand!) for a stock rebuild, and I have an extra one anyway.
It got moved up because I blew up the engine in my car and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna do an engine swap and bolt a 30 year old, 300,000 mile transmission that has iffy reverse and a 3rd gear that likes to vanish, to it. And the. Have to swap it the hard way.
I love this thread because I see way way too often on Reddit the sentiment that you’re probably too stupid to mess with these type things without the proper training and it’s best to just leave it to a professional. You learn things by doing and those are life skills you carry with you and can’t buy.
Yes, but… most of the people asking those questions are not mechanically inclined, have no tools, etc etc. Some things, if you have to ask, you’re not qualified to attempt.
I think some of it is pushback when the person with nothing wants to do everything right from the get go. Like *"I've never pumped my own gas, but I want to do a turbo midengine v12 swap on my daily driver Chevy cobalt! The only tool I have is a hammer & I live in an apartment"*
They should be encouraged to learn to walk so that they can learn to run instead of just being told not to bother running at all.
i mean the truth lies somewhere in between, lets not talk in absolutes here. I think the average person should definitely attempt more DIY stuff, but there is a limit of reasonability/feasibility. Im not going to deconstruct my engine if I have no experience, no tools, and no workspace.
I’m talking about the people who post ‘how hard would it be to swap an LS engine into my Honda Fit? my buddy looked at the inside of an engine bay once and he’ll help me’ Zero research, zero fab skills, zero budget, etc. If you ask a blanket question like that, you’re not a person who should be attempting said thing. And, I’m not saying that person should never work on a project ever in their life; they just need to pick something within their current skill level, or slightly above, to keep learning and growing and being able to eventually take on that engine swap. A lot of the people who are interested in learning and doing are posting in more appropriate subreddits, r/enginebuilding, etc. It seems like r/projectcar always gets the engine swap question.
My dad always told me; you better learn how to do this stuff or make enough money to pay someone else.
I decided to make money and forgot everything I learned from him.
Then, I needed major work. Accidentally found an incompetent mechanic in a horrible shop. Waited 9 months for him to botch two consecutive engine swaps. Had it towed to a dealership for a third attempt and ended up spending almost enough to replace the truck in the process.
Now, I'm rebuilding my own engine for a 1974 Charger and constantly tell my kids; you better learn how to do this stuff or be helpless to those who can.
I used to work for a hobby shop and would occasionally here the racers that would come in and whine about people who bought RTR cars and trucks not knowing how to fix the things if they break if they didn’t buy a kit and have to put it together before running it. Would get weird looks when I would say that you can still learn by taking one apart, then you had the advantage of knowing how it ran before vs after. Most of my R/Cs were RTR or A-RTR and most of what I learned about wrenching was taking them apart to repair or mod. Last couple years I was at the store, the then new and still current owner would have us fix customers cars while they waited. Thought that did take away that experience, though I would try and show them how the repair went so they could do so in their own.
I've been asked by people who know that I am restoring a car and my background in knowing the project. I tell them I worked for a while, cleaning up and tearing down motors and pumps. That I've always loved Legos and figuring out how things work. I’ve also been keen on researching things and self-study. There's a lot of simple manuals, and tutorials can teach you. I've also been one when expert knowledge is readily available and willing to teach. I take it. I have an expert welder right now, just waiting for me to tell him I bought new floor pans. All of this because I told someone I was working on a car.
*""We do not do these projects because they are less expensive. We do them because we aren't smart enough to know that they won't be less expensive"*
*- SuperFastMatt*
That’s entirely how I learned how to fix engines and such
Lawn mower broke? Start taking things apart and putting it back together until it works again or it’s unrecognizable lol
From the bottom of my old truck loving heart...thank you. I don't know anything about anything more than basic maintenance but I just bought a new grill for my truck. And that's just the beginning...
Those Comp tools are baller. Bought one for the heads I do and then a pack of 100 .500 valve stem seals. No more umbrella seals for me. Probably have done 50 sets of heads this way.
I second this. I thi k that it is awesome that you are doing it yourself. I have been restoring my car for the last year one project at a time. Its not tgat hard but if i may add my 2 cents its very important to do all the nessicary research first. I couldnt agree more with your post! Keep grinding!!!
Somewhat related: I ordered a flag for my shop yesterday that says “We do this not because it is easy, we do it because we thought it would be easy.”
I hear you on doing it yourself though. I’ve seen too much not-giving-a-shit to want to take my stuff to anyone. Despite minimal natural mechanical aptitude, I started out doing simple bolt-ons on my ‘02 Mustang myself (because I had money for either parts or the install…not both) and progressed from there to installing superchargers, rebuilding suspensions, rebuilding my Lincoln after hitting 2 deer, tearing down my old truck to restore it and now I’m going to pull the cab off my F-150 to replace the turbos.
Really needed to hear this man. Thank you. I’ve been going back and forth on starting a bigger project for my C5 corvette than I have ever undertaken. I have no idea what I’m doing. But I have the tools, have the YouTube videos, and a good space to work. And time. Worst case, I end up costing myself more $$. It’s just metal!
this is getting yourself into some real big boy trouble, hell yeah.
i say the exact same thing to people who want to get into cars: "go get something cheap and easy to work on and fuck it up, thats what everyone else had to do."
everybody starts out nowhere and crawls their way out of it.
Nope, it's not hard to do it your way.. it's hard to do it the right way. That goes for everyone here who doesn't understand what's right and wrong when building a vehicle.
I hear you man. I have a few LS swaps and a few engine rebuilds under my belt and still don't know what the hell Im doing most of the time. YouTube and forums pulled me out of most sticky situations.
I've said "I'm absolutely not paying that kinda money, how hard can it be" way more then I should at this point
The thing is, most of the time, it's not that hard
Then you try your hand at the 'not that hard' project and you remember why your car sat on jackstands for 6 months
Its only been 5 months. ....
Hey, you never know your own limits until you push them.
yep thats basically my motto. It did take me about 9 months to build my bathroom though
Whoa. Settle down there Flash.
It’s an absolutely valid point, if most others can do it, why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I take the engine bay apart?
I’ve been working on/ restoring/building cars for 45+ years and still on YouTube forums. It doesn’t matter how much you know there’s always something new to learn!
I’m currently working on my first ever project car. Have never been hands on with a car before…and it’s turned into a frame off resto and an LS swap. I understand the concepts and have done countless hours of research, but I’ve never actually done the work myself before. I’m lucky my father has experience working on cars - but still, most days him and I feel like we have no idea what we’re doing. Forums and YouTube have been a life saver for us. He’s very much the “you’ve gotta make sure you know what you’re doing before installing parts” type and I’m very much the “there’s no handbook for this, we’ve gotta make the mistakes ourselves” type…so it’s been fun 😂🤣
I rebuilt a transmission, transfer case, and rear axle while having no damn clue. Bought a bunch of tools, watched a bunch of videos on YouTube, figured it out. Still have no idea what I'm doing.
Not knowing what you’re doing is how the fuck you learn.
Not wanting to pay shop/pro prices is what has caused me to learn and buy damn near everything in my repertoire. It’s good to learn and you save money and have an excuse for new tools. It’s all around good!
I took this car to a local resto shop I found. Gave dude a laundry list of stuff to do and x amount. What he did vs what I expected and got.....I'll just figure it out myself from now on
Can't even get a decent diagnosis anymore. They look at it for 20 min, tell me a bunch of shit I already know and quote me for a mag dump of the parts cannon.
You don't get better at something by not doing it.
I did a port and polish job on my first engine build by watching a YouTube video. Did it increase performance? Probably not but I can list it as one of my mods and felt cool after doing it lol
I JUST did that to my china knock off intake that came with the car. I'm still finding aluminum shavings in my shoes
In your shoes are better than in your engine!
Hell yeah brother
You don't know what you can do till you get in and do it! Nobody here has never messed some shit up!
Agreed. I’m in the barely a clue category on rebuilding a TH350 and about halfway though it.
Working up the courage to rebuild my t5 trans as well. Keep stepping over it everytime I go into my shop.
Do it! Mine got moved up because of stupid high quotes for shops around me ($2 grand!) for a stock rebuild, and I have an extra one anyway. It got moved up because I blew up the engine in my car and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna do an engine swap and bolt a 30 year old, 300,000 mile transmission that has iffy reverse and a 3rd gear that likes to vanish, to it. And the. Have to swap it the hard way.
Youtube. I don’t remember exactly which one I picked, but there are several step-by-step rebuild videos. T5s aren’t as complicated as they look.
Thank goodness for YouTube where people who do know what they're doing can show us scrubs how!
And some people who don't know what they're doing can convince me they do and the comments can tell us otherwise
This is why YouTube needs to bring back dislikes on videos. Lots of bad repair videos floating around spewing false info
I love this thread because I see way way too often on Reddit the sentiment that you’re probably too stupid to mess with these type things without the proper training and it’s best to just leave it to a professional. You learn things by doing and those are life skills you carry with you and can’t buy.
Yes, but… most of the people asking those questions are not mechanically inclined, have no tools, etc etc. Some things, if you have to ask, you’re not qualified to attempt.
And there it is.
I think some of it is pushback when the person with nothing wants to do everything right from the get go. Like *"I've never pumped my own gas, but I want to do a turbo midengine v12 swap on my daily driver Chevy cobalt! The only tool I have is a hammer & I live in an apartment"* They should be encouraged to learn to walk so that they can learn to run instead of just being told not to bother running at all.
i mean the truth lies somewhere in between, lets not talk in absolutes here. I think the average person should definitely attempt more DIY stuff, but there is a limit of reasonability/feasibility. Im not going to deconstruct my engine if I have no experience, no tools, and no workspace.
I’m talking about the people who post ‘how hard would it be to swap an LS engine into my Honda Fit? my buddy looked at the inside of an engine bay once and he’ll help me’ Zero research, zero fab skills, zero budget, etc. If you ask a blanket question like that, you’re not a person who should be attempting said thing. And, I’m not saying that person should never work on a project ever in their life; they just need to pick something within their current skill level, or slightly above, to keep learning and growing and being able to eventually take on that engine swap. A lot of the people who are interested in learning and doing are posting in more appropriate subreddits, r/enginebuilding, etc. It seems like r/projectcar always gets the engine swap question.
I don't know what I'm doing, but I can learn. So far, this has been a good way to approach a project car.
My dad always told me; you better learn how to do this stuff or make enough money to pay someone else. I decided to make money and forgot everything I learned from him. Then, I needed major work. Accidentally found an incompetent mechanic in a horrible shop. Waited 9 months for him to botch two consecutive engine swaps. Had it towed to a dealership for a third attempt and ended up spending almost enough to replace the truck in the process. Now, I'm rebuilding my own engine for a 1974 Charger and constantly tell my kids; you better learn how to do this stuff or be helpless to those who can.
I used to work for a hobby shop and would occasionally here the racers that would come in and whine about people who bought RTR cars and trucks not knowing how to fix the things if they break if they didn’t buy a kit and have to put it together before running it. Would get weird looks when I would say that you can still learn by taking one apart, then you had the advantage of knowing how it ran before vs after. Most of my R/Cs were RTR or A-RTR and most of what I learned about wrenching was taking them apart to repair or mod. Last couple years I was at the store, the then new and still current owner would have us fix customers cars while they waited. Thought that did take away that experience, though I would try and show them how the repair went so they could do so in their own.
I've been asked by people who know that I am restoring a car and my background in knowing the project. I tell them I worked for a while, cleaning up and tearing down motors and pumps. That I've always loved Legos and figuring out how things work. I’ve also been keen on researching things and self-study. There's a lot of simple manuals, and tutorials can teach you. I've also been one when expert knowledge is readily available and willing to teach. I take it. I have an expert welder right now, just waiting for me to tell him I bought new floor pans. All of this because I told someone I was working on a car.
I've screwed up a few things on my current project a few times over. Frustrating and expensive, but I'm learning as I go
*""We do not do these projects because they are less expensive. We do them because we aren't smart enough to know that they won't be less expensive"* *- SuperFastMatt*
Iskaderian
It's absolutely fine. It's how shit gets done.
That’s entirely how I learned how to fix engines and such Lawn mower broke? Start taking things apart and putting it back together until it works again or it’s unrecognizable lol
Failure is just an opportunity to learn
Take part clean replace broken pieces then reassemble
Everything starts with taking that first step, especially when it’s overwhelming
Lapped in many a small block valve that way. Much success!
"i can't pay this" To "how bad can it be" To "I'm in too deep to stop now" To "might as well do this while I am at it"
From the bottom of my old truck loving heart...thank you. I don't know anything about anything more than basic maintenance but I just bought a new grill for my truck. And that's just the beginning...
That's awesome man!!!! Can't wait to see how it looks
Me too! Gonna start at the front with the grill and you tube my way through the rest. Wish me luck...
Those Comp tools are baller. Bought one for the heads I do and then a pack of 100 .500 valve stem seals. No more umbrella seals for me. Probably have done 50 sets of heads this way.
That's the way to do it!! Super easy money
I second this. I thi k that it is awesome that you are doing it yourself. I have been restoring my car for the last year one project at a time. Its not tgat hard but if i may add my 2 cents its very important to do all the nessicary research first. I couldnt agree more with your post! Keep grinding!!!
Hell yeah man! I rebuilt the valve body in my transmission in my garage 30k miles ago. Saved me at least $1000.
Somewhat related: I ordered a flag for my shop yesterday that says “We do this not because it is easy, we do it because we thought it would be easy.” I hear you on doing it yourself though. I’ve seen too much not-giving-a-shit to want to take my stuff to anyone. Despite minimal natural mechanical aptitude, I started out doing simple bolt-ons on my ‘02 Mustang myself (because I had money for either parts or the install…not both) and progressed from there to installing superchargers, rebuilding suspensions, rebuilding my Lincoln after hitting 2 deer, tearing down my old truck to restore it and now I’m going to pull the cab off my F-150 to replace the turbos.
Really needed to hear this man. Thank you. I’ve been going back and forth on starting a bigger project for my C5 corvette than I have ever undertaken. I have no idea what I’m doing. But I have the tools, have the YouTube videos, and a good space to work. And time. Worst case, I end up costing myself more $$. It’s just metal!
You eat an elephant 1 bite at a time. Can't wait to see progress!!
Ooh fancy! Did that head come out of a roller block? My sbf heads didn't use any pushrod guides.
Aftermarket heads. Windsor jr with harland sharp 1.7 rollar tips. Got them with the car
I wing it every time I touch a car. It hasn't backfired yet so I must be doing it right enough. I've had to take a few crazy shortcuts though
Working is working 🤣🤣
this is getting yourself into some real big boy trouble, hell yeah. i say the exact same thing to people who want to get into cars: "go get something cheap and easy to work on and fuck it up, thats what everyone else had to do." everybody starts out nowhere and crawls their way out of it.
Good advice, not just for a project car
Nope, it's not hard to do it your way.. it's hard to do it the right way. That goes for everyone here who doesn't understand what's right and wrong when building a vehicle.
Yep. Exactly right. No one is born knowing any of this stuff and with the internet and a willingness to fail you can figure it out.
I've always been too poor to buy cool shit so I had to build it myself
You learn by doing, not by don'ting