Hey guys,

I've recently been thinking that I'd like to pursue one hobby I've kind of left on the back burner. Besides my 05 Mustang we have an old 1929 Model A Ford which will eventually be mine. However I don't have much experience with the mechanics of a car. I know I love them, but don't know how to maintain or repair them myself. Now I will probably take a mechanics course eventually to learn basic auto repair and maintainance, but was also thinking of getting a cheap car to maintain myself to kind of learn some of the ins and outs of working on a vehicle. That and also something to proficiently learn to drive stick. I have a few ideas such as an early 90s Camaro or Firebird all the way to maybe getting one of my favorite muscle cars, a 77 Trans Am Bandit, and fixing it up, but that would require a pro probably. Do you guys have any suggestions? I'm not in the market now, but i'm hoping to do this in the nearer future.

thanks,

Mike

 

Buy a set of tools along with a tq wrench and go for it. I always felt in most cases if someone else did it so can I with the right info. If you can take it apart most likely you can put it back together. Take before pics of what your working on so you will have a good reference and use a tq wrench to put them back together.

 

Get an old 64-69 mustang with the straight six engine. They don't get much easier than that to work on.

 

How much $ would a decent one run?

 

Yeah, actually any pre-1972 car with a small engine will do fine.
This can teach you all the basics without getting into the major electronic crap.
Take you pick of what body style you like and find a low rust example.
The Mustangs or Falcons with a 6 are very good because it is easy to reach all areas of the engine, they sit fairly low and the engine bay isn't too wide (like a Cadillac or something).

 

I am in the same boat and at some point I will get myself a tear down and rebuild car just to learn the in's and out's of a vehicle. You can point fingers if you want but I was talking to a buddy of mine last night about picking up a 240SX. It's a twin cam, fuel injected, IRS, manual transmission and has a lot of support from the OEM and aftermarket. Setting a budget of anywhere from $500-$1000 to purchase you can learn a lot. Some body work even. The reason I thought it would bee good to learn on the 240 was due to the fact that if I work on any modern cars, they will have FI. The 240 also utilizes a twin cam set up, cast iron block, piston cooling jets, coil packs were not used, learn the IRS system, fuel delivery and electronics all in the same boat. I guess since I am not afraid of electronics I might be a little different. I just wanted something to learn more modern techniques on, especially if you go resto-mod. If I want to learn carburetors, I will ask my dad or learn from these guys if it ever comes up.

But like it was mentioned above, grab a good set of wrenches and a torque wrench and go to town.

 

My reccomendation would be an 89-93 Fox car, super easy to work on and just about every facet of the car can be modified to suit your taste without breaking the bank.

3rd Gen F-cars, IMO are pain in the ****, especially when dealing with GM's flaky FI system. They started mass-air then switched back to speed density. The speed sensor for the compter is a black and white chopper wheel behind the speedometer as opposed to a speed sensor mounted on the transmission (like Mustang and Buick Grand National), You have the constrained exhaust system (really hard to run duals on them) and the list goes on.

The only thing I can reccomend over the Mustang is the suspension and brakes. the 3rd gen cars with thier torque arm rear suspension was superior to the Mustang's unequal 4-link and when the LT1 cars debuted, they got a hybrid SLA front that worked very well too.