In order for anything I say to have any value, you probably need to understand a little of my background
I spent most of my life growing up in a smaller town called Advance, just outside of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. So, yes, I grew up in NASCAR country.
Without a doubt, some of my passion for cars and racing originated from the area and culture I was raised in. My parents watched NASCAR. My older brother used to idolize Richard Petty. It was just a normal thing to come home from church on Sunday and watch the NASCAR race as you piddled around your day.
Another contributing factor to my passion for cars is directly related to my dad. I understand that there are plenty of sons that do not feel particularly close to their father and that they don’t have a lot in common with their patriarch. However, that is not the case with me and my dad. He loved Peyton Manning, so I loved Peyton Manning. He loved baseball, so I loved baseball. And my dad loves cars. So it’s probably no surprise to you that my love of cars and racing began at a young age.
Dad definitely lent me some foundations that have allowed me to attempt some of the larger mechanical jobs I’ve endeavored as I’ve gotten older
I believe he first taught me how to change the oil when I was 13 or 14 years old. It wasn’t probably a year or two later that I learned how to change brake pads. I’d say it didn’t really get past that point as far as difficulty goes for quite a while.
I don’t think it was until college that I started to feed the desire for more modifications and more power. My junior year of college is when I got my first dream car. Ever since the concepts showed up in 2006-2007, the late model Challengers were a car worth dreaming over. “E” Body Challengers and Cudas were my favorite old muscle cars when I was growing up. I drooled over the curvy rear quarter panels and the beefy rear tires. I thought the hammerhead shaped hoods and the side exit exhausts of the T/A and AAR Challengers and Cudas were to die for. If there’s something that Chrysler could get right in the late 60’s early 70’s, it was color. The bright oranges and purples and greens – no one else could pull it off like Dodge. Anyways, long story short, I was so very lucky enough to receive on Christmas Day 2011, a Header Orange Challenger R/T Classic. I couldn’t believe it. I cried. I remembered all those conversations between dad and I while he was deployed in the middle east about what kind of muscle car I liked the most. He didn’t have to do that. I didn’t earn near as much of a college scholarship as my brother did (that was the original deal was if I got a scholarship, dad would buy me a car). But he delivered anyway. Soap box over, as I started working in college, I started to have a little bit of money burning a hole in my pocket. That’s when the thirst for car mods crept up on me
I began shopping for and buying, intakes, a new hood, exhaust, cosmetics… I wanted everything. Or at least what I thought was everything. I had no idea the monster I was creating
Dad helped me install it all. We started with the intake and exhaust and found ourselves on the frustrating end of lying on our backs trying to figure out how could these aftermarket parts NOT designed by Dodge NOT fit on my car??? It was just the start of many frustrating moments to come where a part didn’t immediately fit after the first mockup…
It wasn’t until I moved to Florida though that I began to really embrace the constant modification of my cars mentality.
Once I moved to Florida, I didn’t have my dad here to help me figure out all my problems whenever I started a project that I couldn’t immediately finish. I had no one. I didn’t have any friends that were serious about working on cars. I was definitely alone in that regard (I had plenty of friends – don’t feel bad for me – just none that were interested in cars).
Just because I was alone, though, didn’t mean that I was going to stop. After all, I couldn’t. I didn’t have it in me. There was too much satisfaction from assembling something with your hands and using your brain to figure out how to make something work that didn’t immediately fit flawlessly.
Given that I didn’t have anyone to help me, I decided to do the only thing I knew how to do. Read and study. So I began to read car forums every night after work and I’d read any REMOTELY relevant topics on my forums of choice. I would do this every day for any job I’d undertake on my cars. I’d read, search and repeat non-stop until I found myself confident enough to undertake the task. I tried to watch youtube videos as often as I could because there is some GREAT material out there… however, the car I worked on mostly was semi-rare and the amount of relevant videos for it on youtube at the time was pretty dismal. I highly recommend watching DIY videos on youtube though. It’s pretty much the closest thing to actually doing it, if you can find a related relevant video to the job you’re trying to complete.
This is how I started down my path of becoming comfortable with working on cars. I’m by no means an expert, but I would say that I have become confident enough to try most tasks that are on the horizon for any of my vehicles… as long as time allows it
Glad you could make it through my thesis of an introduction, but I feel like it might help you understand that I wasn’t always handy with a wrench. And you can count on me posting all of my struggles and issues with the jobs I’ve undertaken on my cars… Those posts will be soon to follow
Thanks – Stephen
