Learning about it all....
Discussion
I like big V8 engines, for some reason they just get me off. I've got a few ideas in my head of some potential projects that i'd like to carry out just as something to do on a sunday afternoon in my new double garage, problem is I don't know much about the getting my hands dirty stuff. I had a little search on the internet to see if there were any mechanics evening classes that i could do to learn about it all. The only stuff I could find were basically going back to school stuff, which i'm not interested in as I want to learn it as a hobby if you see what I mean...
Anyone got any ideas of how I can learn some mechnical car skills in my own time? The only thing that I can think off really is just getting a banger in, taking it to bits and seeing if I can put the whole car back together.... learning through trial and error so to say....
I know it's a tall order, but my m3 has given me the v8 bug big time, but it's too new for me to want to mod it really. So the idea that i have swirling around my head is to spend about 7k on an E39 M5 as my DIY project, getting it running in top form and then learn how to tune it up myself. I know I should just get a 1 litre 4 pot as learning how to do things on a bmw V8 will be complicated and require specialist tools, but as it's a project, i'm just going with my heart on this one. I want to get this out of my system while if I loose 5k chasing a stupid idea then it isn't going to matter too much. Once i've got kids and a moaning wife, it probably won't ever happen... I could just buy the m5, and send it off to get tuned up, pick it up, pay with my card and take it home, but I don't know, there's something a lot more appealing to me in learning how to do it myself and putting my own sweat into turning it into what I want it to be...
Ideas please
Anyone got any ideas of how I can learn some mechnical car skills in my own time? The only thing that I can think off really is just getting a banger in, taking it to bits and seeing if I can put the whole car back together.... learning through trial and error so to say....
I know it's a tall order, but my m3 has given me the v8 bug big time, but it's too new for me to want to mod it really. So the idea that i have swirling around my head is to spend about 7k on an E39 M5 as my DIY project, getting it running in top form and then learn how to tune it up myself. I know I should just get a 1 litre 4 pot as learning how to do things on a bmw V8 will be complicated and require specialist tools, but as it's a project, i'm just going with my heart on this one. I want to get this out of my system while if I loose 5k chasing a stupid idea then it isn't going to matter too much. Once i've got kids and a moaning wife, it probably won't ever happen... I could just buy the m5, and send it off to get tuned up, pick it up, pay with my card and take it home, but I don't know, there's something a lot more appealing to me in learning how to do it myself and putting my own sweat into turning it into what I want it to be...
Ideas please
ATX86 said:
I like big V8 engines, for some reason they just get me off.
Anyone got any ideas of how I can learn some mechnical car skills in my own time? The only thing that I can think off really is just getting a banger in, taking it to bits and seeing if I can put the whole car back together.... learning through trial and error so to say....
Surely a Mustang?Anyone got any ideas of how I can learn some mechnical car skills in my own time? The only thing that I can think off really is just getting a banger in, taking it to bits and seeing if I can put the whole car back together.... learning through trial and error so to say....
There's a guy on here called Lusifer who's supposed to know about such things.
I like the concept of muscle cars... big v8 etc, but the American styling is not my cup of tea really. This is why i'm thinking about the M5, a nice big v8, bmw quality and engineering and I could get one that was at least road worthy for 7k. I know people will say a 7k M5 will be a money pit, but as it's a project car for me to do myself, the fact it will need some work doing to it is what i'm after.
In my head I'm thinking to myself, do I go down the road of making it a savagely devastating slick street sleeper, or.... do I rip out all the weight, race suspension, install a roll rage, straight pipes and have a cheapish (compared to other v8's) track toy... sort of an m3 GTR, but an M5 V8 GTR. The e39 M5 will never be the best on the track in the twisty stuff, but i'll make sure it will outgun anything else there...
This m5 is going to be something that I'm going to keep for years. I love my m3, but in 12 months time when i've got more dough, i'll be part ex'ing it in and move up the car ladder. The m5 will be the car that i'll have sat in my garage still when i'm 45.
In my head I'm thinking to myself, do I go down the road of making it a savagely devastating slick street sleeper, or.... do I rip out all the weight, race suspension, install a roll rage, straight pipes and have a cheapish (compared to other v8's) track toy... sort of an m3 GTR, but an M5 V8 GTR
. The e39 M5 will never be the best on the track in the twisty stuff, but i'll make sure it will outgun anything else there...This m5 is going to be something that I'm going to keep for years. I love my m3, but in 12 months time when i've got more dough, i'll be part ex'ing it in and move up the car ladder. The m5 will be the car that i'll have sat in my garage still when i'm 45.
what you need is an m5 and a haynes manual.
start slowly. get it jacked up, wheels off and have a look around. familiarise your self with the dirty bits and refer to the manual.
do all the basic stuff to get used to working on it and get you confidence up about working on cars. oil change, plugs, bleed brakes etc. these are all easy things to do if you read the haynes manual.
once you have done basic service stuff you should know what direction you want to take with the car
start slowly. get it jacked up, wheels off and have a look around. familiarise your self with the dirty bits and refer to the manual.
do all the basic stuff to get used to working on it and get you confidence up about working on cars. oil change, plugs, bleed brakes etc. these are all easy things to do if you read the haynes manual.
once you have done basic service stuff you should know what direction you want to take with the car
ATX86 said:
E39 M5
...would be an absolutely terrible choice for learning DIY mechanics. Way too complicated and not going to be remotely easy to work on - I certainly wouldn't fancy the prospect and I'm reasonably proficient with spanners.Get something a bit more mechanical and less electronic so it doesn't need plugging in to a computer. Given that it doesn't sound that the likes of a Morris Minor or Land Rover would fill you with much enthusiasm, how about something along the lines of an MX5 or a Caterham/Westfield type thing? At least you would stand half a chance with something like that.
I don't know of any evening classes but i've been in your situation and looked for them. Best bet is like you say, buy a cheap car that doesn't matter if you mess it up.
I'd suggest getting a cheap track car- a 205, mx5 or e30- basically something that you can do a bit of work on then take to a track and thrash the nuts off it until something else needs fixing. That way you will get some reward from your tinkering, rather than just pulling a car apart and being left with a pile of bits that you then have to clear up and take to a scrapyard.
Try to find a local independent mechanic who doesn't mind giving you advice and talking you through things. I have a brilliant mechanic just up the road who is always snowed under with work. He would much rather talk someone through doing a job themselves than add them onto his long list that keeps him in the workshop till 10 each night. He seen it all before and knows far more than I ever will!
Don't go mad and spend £15k fitting your garage out with fancy tools, lifts and hoists you'll probably never use. Start off with a trolley jack, axle stands, decent socket set and tool kit and buy other things as you need them.
Lots of jobs on cars are pretty idiot proof. As long as you think about what each thing does before you remove it, you'll know how it all goes back together again. Saying that, I learn almost exclusively from my mistakes. I've made all manner of cock ups over the years, but once you've done it wrong once you'll never get it wrong again!
I'd suggest getting a cheap track car- a 205, mx5 or e30- basically something that you can do a bit of work on then take to a track and thrash the nuts off it until something else needs fixing. That way you will get some reward from your tinkering, rather than just pulling a car apart and being left with a pile of bits that you then have to clear up and take to a scrapyard.
Try to find a local independent mechanic who doesn't mind giving you advice and talking you through things. I have a brilliant mechanic just up the road who is always snowed under with work. He would much rather talk someone through doing a job themselves than add them onto his long list that keeps him in the workshop till 10 each night. He seen it all before and knows far more than I ever will!
Don't go mad and spend £15k fitting your garage out with fancy tools, lifts and hoists you'll probably never use. Start off with a trolley jack, axle stands, decent socket set and tool kit and buy other things as you need them.
Lots of jobs on cars are pretty idiot proof. As long as you think about what each thing does before you remove it, you'll know how it all goes back together again. Saying that, I learn almost exclusively from my mistakes. I've made all manner of cock ups over the years, but once you've done it wrong once you'll never get it wrong again!
Edited by busta on Wednesday 27th October 21:05
Eggman said:
ATX86 said:
E39 M5
...would be an absolutely terrible choice for learning DIY mechanics. Way too complicated and not going to be remotely easy to work on - I certainly wouldn't fancy the prospect and I'm reasonably proficient with spanners.Get something a bit more mechanical and less electronic so it doesn't need plugging in to a computer. Given that it doesn't sound that the likes of a Morris Minor or Land Rover would fill you with much enthusiasm, how about something along the lines of an MX5 or a Caterham/Westfield type thing? At least you would stand half a chance with something like that.
just wait until something electrical goes wrong, then you have the 'M tax' where everything costs about 3x as much as it should
i would definatley try to get something a bit less electrical orientated
how about an E30 325?
ATX86 said:
Anyone got any ideas of how I can learn some mechnical car skills in my own time? The only thing that I can think off really is just getting a banger in, taking it to bits and seeing if I can put the whole car back together.... learning through trial and error so to say....
This sounds like a good plan to me, and something I'd like to do eventually.As everyone else has said though, something expensive and complex like an M5 seems a bad place to start. I imagine something with a Rover V8 would be a lot simpler and should still offer plenty of fun (in a lightweight shell, anyway), then you can move on to bigger, faster and louder things when you've got your head around the oily bits a bit more.
Trouble with Rover V8s is that unless you get a real old one it'll likely be EFI and electronic ignition - which is all very well and good, but not really ideal if the aim is to understand how the thing works.
Something with points and carbs would provide more learning opportunities simply because you can mess around with stuff like timing, dwell and mixture and see what happens. Once you've understood that you'll be in a better position to work out what's going on with more modern engines when their sensors go dud.
Another thing with RV8s is they tend to fill their engine bays quite well - I remember access around the one in my Range Rover being pretty tight in places which occasionally complicated things somewhat. (Having said that, it's nothing compared to the way BMW can pack an engine bay full of straight 6 - I find mine extremely awkward to work on because the access to everything is terrible).
Something with points and carbs would provide more learning opportunities simply because you can mess around with stuff like timing, dwell and mixture and see what happens. Once you've understood that you'll be in a better position to work out what's going on with more modern engines when their sensors go dud.
Another thing with RV8s is they tend to fill their engine bays quite well - I remember access around the one in my Range Rover being pretty tight in places which occasionally complicated things somewhat. (Having said that, it's nothing compared to the way BMW can pack an engine bay full of straight 6 - I find mine extremely awkward to work on because the access to everything is terrible).
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