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My dad, my brothers and I rebuilt cars since we were young as a hobby. My dad's garage was better equipped than any pro shops and had a decent machine shop. What we did not have machine shop wise we had access to at friends shops. There is really nothing I have not done with a car. I paid for college working summers as a mechanic (Back when you could do that ). I was racing and winning a lot on dirt bikes from when I was ten. I did most of the work since to be competitive you throw away half the bike and you need to machine and blueprint the engine. Just like most kid sports people get jealous when you win too much. Parent were sticking nails under my Dad's truck tires. After it happened three times in a month my Dad shut down the racing. I did dirt and street carts for a few years and then started working crew on some sprint cars. My girl friend at the time dad was a World of Outlaw champion. Turned out I was pretty good setting up suspensions, which was also an advantage I had on the dirt bikes. In my 30's I tried a bit of road motorcycle racing. By this time I had lost my lack of fear that you need to be have a reasonably high level of to push things to the maximum level. I did one of the October endurance motorcycle race at Daytona with a few friends from the local dealer (one was a former pro rider). We finished mid field at 18th, and I had one decent segment that I moved up two places from where I started. I've had nearly every brand of motorcycle there was in the 90's. I maintained all of those including the desmodromic valves on the Ducati. My fist cars (Olds 442 W30 convertible)was bought from the salvage yard with two cars stacked on top of it. I restored it to a 100 point show car at Hershey after two tries. Later I restored one of each Boss Mustangs (301, 429 and 351) to show car level. I also restored a V12 Jaguar XK that I originally bought for me, but when what I originally wanted to do was no longer viable I returned it back to original. I still regret doing that My 77 Celica in college had the Japanese twin cam engine in the early 80's. That came from painting six Lotus Super 7's copies that a Toyota dealer we knew was building in this cool old barn in MD. He was using all toyota drive lines and electronics. Strangest thing I ever worked on was a guy I met in a McDonalds parking lot started talking when I was in college. He was restoring a Pitts by-plane and I worked with him repairing the chrome moly frame, building up new wings (From plywood and silk) and rebuilding everything to new. I can talk for hours about cars I've done or worked on. Now most of my mechanic skills are used on my toys (JetSkis, boat, and UTV).Originally Posted by geoffbot
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