Hello members! It’s time again for Wrenching Wednesday, the weekly just-for-members feature where you get to join The Autopian team and your fellow members to talk about your current ratchet-wrangling, screwdriver-spinning, PB-Blasting projects–and/or help others with theirs, and if you like, get downright philosophical about the taking-apart and putting-together that we all enjoy.
Of course, some projects are more fun than others.
But is enjoyment why you wrench? Hopefully that’s always part of the equation when you dig into your toolbox, but there’s also saving money. I called around to see how much my recent brake job saved me. The answer? An astounding three-hundred bucks! It only took me an hour! Knowing the job was done right is a factor, too. Shout-out to all the paid pro’s who take pride in their work, but there are plenty of people who command a fee to fix things but sometimes don’t. Even if you trust your local pro, you may not trust them (or the rest of the gang at the shop) not to let a broom tip over and ding your door, or lean into a fender and drag a belt-buckle across the paint. Less concerning for the family Camry, much more concerning for the vintage Corvette.
But hopefully, most of all you just plain like to spend a few hours listening to tunes and turning wrenches for the satisfaction of doing it. I’m confident you’ll agree, maintaining a good-running car to keep it running well is also maintenance for the well-being of the mechanic. And when things are broken, as they sometimes are, fixing broken things helps repair more than cars.
Since I was knee high to a duck I have always loved taking things apart. Still true today, but now I find it interesting to see the different approaches auto makes have used to engineer cars over time. I find both the simplicity of pulling an entire bug engine with 4 17mm bolts, the mind numbing complexity of a MB W124 suspension, and the agricultural design and simplicity of the Jeep XJ equally interesting. Seeing different approaches keeps me engaged no matter what I am wrenching on.
I have multiple reasons for doing my own work. #1 is that my track record with indy shops and dealers is that for every successful repair, two of them are botched. More often than not, it’s something you discover a year or two after the work was done.
Leaving an EGR cooler bracket that is a PITA to install off on a recall only to have the EGR crack two years later as a result (dealer). Repairing corroded wiring, but not chasing the corrosion back far enough resulting in repeat work (dealer x2). Repairing a corroded HP fuel line with a rubber hose and plastic fuel filter, only to have the fuel filter split open..they cannot handle 90 psig….dumping gas out at almost 1/2 gallon per minute (indy shop).
To be honest, given that my dealers are a minimum of 130 miles away (or 230 for some of my cars), it is typically cheaper and less of a hassle for me to buy parts and fix them myself than bring them in for warranty work, especially if that warranty work is a repeat.
Last reason for repairing myself is CarFax. I’ve seen lots of broken plastic clips on the few body shop repairs that I have sent in with repairs that range from adhesive to wood screws. Plus any time you have work performed, it goes on your CarFax and lowers the value of your car. Repair body work yourself (unless it is a frame pull), and your car will repaired correctly without the CarFax damage report.
Edd China gave the me the confidence that I could do it, and YouTube showed me how to do it. Without those two things, I don’t think I could have ever really gotten started on car work. It really started when I got quoted an absolutely absurd price for getting the brakes done on my wife’s car. $800 for front and rear brakes, because the brakes ‘have a sensor, and you have to have special tools’ I was told, and that just screamed of a rip off. This was maybe 10 years ago, and having watched enough Wheeler Dealers, I knew that brakes shouldn’t be that complicated, and my local parts store had the pads for about $25 a corner, so I watched a video and about $100 and an hour later, my wife’s car had brand new brakes. I’ve never looked back. I do the brakes, oil changes, pretty much everything that’s reasonable to do on the driveway.
Sure, there are things that are too complicated for me, but almost everything I’ve had to do to the cars since then, there’s been someone on YouTube with my car or one close enough to it that has had the exact same problem, and I’ve just watched the video and done the job. I can be frustrating sometimes, and yes maybe the whole timing belt and water pump replacement took me 2 days instead of 2 hours, but there is something amazingly rewarding about doing the job yourself.
And that’s not even counting the money savings. That timing belt job cost me about $350 in parts and a weekend, but the VW shop quoted me about $1,400 to do it. The thermostat was $90 for the part and coolant, but the shop wanted $1,200 to do it. I don’t know how I could have kept these cars going without doing it myself.
Right on! I’m a big fan of Edd China and have learned from him as well.
I started because it was the only way to afford owning a car.
I continue to do it because I can’t trust others to do it right and it just ends up wasting my time.
I have on occasion let the dealership do it.
But then I get a disconnected EGR valve after an oil change that results in a CEL that I can’t track down without a techII tool (because it’s buried under the engine cover and not easy to see.)
Or I get a steering rack with two bolts that are barely hand tight after having the transmission overhauled for a broken wave plate.
Or I get asymmetric tires mounted backwards even though there is a clear paint dot that is supposed to be on the outside of the wheel.
Or I get an electrical issue fixed and get the car back with a radio that has half of it’s backlights burned out so I can’t see the buttons at night because they probably dropped it when removing it.
Or I get a service writer telling me the noise will be solved by new tires when it’s clearly a failing front wheel bearing.
You get the idea. So, If I want to save time I do it myself.
There’s a cool little book Roadster by Chris Goodrich, about a guy who goes from knowing nothing about cars to building himself a Caterham Seven from the kit.
He singles out his tipping point that leads him to becoming his own automaker – nearly getting into an accident when a shop forgot to tighten the lug nuts on one of his daily’s wheels.
His ah-ha moment was along the lines of “I realized I’d paid for this, and that I could F*** things up for free all by myself.”
I once forgot to tighten the lugs on my wife’s rear driver’s side wheel. I realized it the next day while she was driving to work in the AM. So I get it how things like that can happen. It’s a little easier to stomach knowing you didn’t pay someone to screw it up.
Also, at least I realized it the next day and told her to drive home carefully and if anything sounded amiss to pull over and I’d come take care of it. If the shoppe forgot I’d never realize it until something bad happened.
I have always wrenched to save money, brakes, oil changes etc. However, it eventually got to the point where there was nobody nearby who could work on my POS old vehicles. I have had vehicles sit at shops for multiple years and have nothing fixed. This forced me to do all of my own work, be it mechanical, electrical, rust repair, crappy paint jobs, etc. I was even forced to buy a set of alignment tools because nobody in 30 miles can align a pre 2000s car anymore (shims to adjust caster and camber are scary now)
Wrenching for me is:
1. Therapeutic: I forget about some of the figuratively heavy shit in my life while dealing with literally heavy shit (maneuvering a cast iron head back onto my 300 inline 6 for example)
2. Connection with my cars: I only feel like I truly know a car when I have had some quality time wrenching on it (and losing some knuckle skin). I also know exactly what has been done to it, and it’s various quirks.
3. The thrill and satisfaction of fixing something. The feeling you get when you turn the key and/or put it into gear for the first time after a major repair and it actually works(!) is amazing.
4. Justification for new tools: Money not spent paying someone else to do the job can be spent on new stuff for the garage. It’s not even an argument with my wife: “yeah, I spent $250 on tools, but saved $500, and can use them again.”
5. Educational: I learn something new darn-near every time I do a new job to a familiar car or even a familiar job on a new car. It is fascinating to see all the different designs people have come up with over the years to do the same things.
6. Connection with others: This is common to any project, really. Working with a friend to diagnose a problem and fix it builds a real bond; especially if it is a pain in the rear. The moment I knew my buddy Brian and I were really good friends was when he helped me pull the motor from my Saturn on the hottest day of the year one summer in college. I busted my finger really badly on the transmission housing breaking a bolt loose which required a trip to the ER, but we got that new clutch in and working the next day so I could avoid paying another $20 for a hoist rental!
If you read this far, thanks! It just kinda flowed.
Good list and yes to all of these for me, especially #1 and #4. I forget about all my other troubles when I’m invested in a project, and I love collecting tools.
I do need some wrenching and DIY friends. All my friends are not DIY people and have no interest in working on cars, or houses, or campers, or any of that stuff.
My additions to the list were listed by others too… saving money and very little trust that others are going to do things right or fix the right things. I have thrown parts at the problem before and I’m not always right, but by doing it myself I still come out cheaper than having someone else do it, and I usually get a tool or two in the process.
How else do you think I’ve been able to afford a parsh? A parsh race car, no less? And a VW with a parsh engine? I’m convinced that 99% of the so-called “Porsche Tax” is in labor. Parts actually aren’t that bad, and having a huge knowledge base and active community to support whatever you want to do with those cars makes them pretty forgiving to wrench on.
It’s also fascinating—and enlightening—to figure out how it all works, too. That makes it much easier to pinpoint “yes, this is why [insert failure here] happened” or “that noise is just [this impending doom]” when things on old, crusty race cars go wrong.
A lot of it’s been for professional development, too. (Never mind that my professional life’s in the toilet right now—and that toilet seems to have its lid glued shut.) Honestly, I think a lot of auto writers or even OEM comms folks would be so much more interesting to read/watch/interact with if they got some track time (makes for better driving impressions on high-performance stuff), tried out different kinds of driving (go do some more off-roading on your own somewhere, for example—especially given how popular trucks and SUVs are), and wrenched on stuff (which definitely inspires better technical articles and a more critical eye on how new cars are put together).
No, most readers don’t do those things, which is always the pushback I get when I bring those suggestions up to other writers. You’re not doing those jobs as most readers, though—they’re looking to you as an expert. Go get expertise. Push yourself. Learn new things. Take stuff apart and see how it works. Break stuff, and figure out how easy or hard it is to fix it. That’s all been a huge help to me over the years.
Well put. Your insights remind me of Hemingway and writing what you know, rather than hoping your writing will connect you to your subject. B/c any connection of that sort will always be general and theoretical, less about knowledge and more about association.
I re-read A Movable Feast recently. The man went through some stuff and had some issues, but I like his writing style.
Yeah, Hemingway the man was sure a piece of work, but Hemingway the writer was fantastic – his ability to combine high art/literary pursuits with rough-hewn subject matter is something else.
I generally let the pros handle the wrenching duties on my daily and utility vehicles, as well as the greasy bits on my classic Jaguar. However, I have undertaken some fairly significant projects on the Jag that involve time consuming work on electricals and the interior. For instance, I repaired my compact fluorescent display on my instrument panel and right now I am in the process of replacing an aircon blower. These are jobs that would take a lot of labor hours at a mechanic and doing it myself saves a lot of money. For me, the wrenching I do is a hobby and a way to relax.
You choose the projects that entail working on British electronics? Masochist.
Conversely, there’s, “Hey, I do my own electrical work-on my Jag: you can’t scare me!”
Ideally when I wrench on one of my cars it’s on my time and terms, and ultimately is for fun. I’ll do basic maintenance on my wife’s and my daily drivers if it’s absolutely necessary and its not a time crunch, and I do as much as I can on my vintage cars. Due to a move, when I was assembling my Charger I was living 400 miles away from where it was located. I took several “vacations” over the next couple of years where I did some DT style marathon wrenching sessions (less rust though) with a few friends until I got the car able to move under its own power, after which I took the car with me and finished out the finer details and interior work, that was a good time! Working with friends is what got me into wrenching, and is still something I love to do when we can.
For me wrenching started out as a necessity rather than something I wanted to do.
I grew up poor, “if you want Lego and Hot Wheels you better get a paper route” poor.
My family worked very hard for what we had. If something broke, it was either fix it or go without until you can save up enough to buy another.
It took too long to save up.
So I started taking shit apart when it stopped working, to see if I could figure out the problem. Then suddenly, miraculously, I made something work again one day.
It’s a good feeling.
I don’t remember what all I fixed (or destroyed) as a kid, but I remember the first car I legally owned gave me that same feeling ten fold.
The owner of the print shop I was working at had his old 91’ Protege just sitting in the parking lot for months (he had bought a new Forester, and didn’t care about it anymore).
I asked him if I could buy it, make payments through work.
He said “it’s all yours if you can get it outa here”. That sentence was better than free tickets to ten super-bowl’s to car-less 18 year old me.
It took me two days of going at it after work (pre-internet and with no wrenching skills to speak of) then walking home at sunset before I finally drove it home, grinning like a post orgasm jack-o-lantern.
(I am pure shit at diagnostics.
But I thoroughly enjoy physical problem solving.)
Most of the wrenching I do now is still based in necessity.
I’m not building anything spectacular. Just keeping things going so I don’t need to buy new ones.
It’s how I was raised.
I’ve learned to enjoy it.
It is extremely satisfying to turn nothing into something with simple determination and hard won ability.
Props, ghostpedal: that was clear & well written. And many of us can relate.
This weekend I need to look into my sticking passenger side parking brake on my GTI. After a year of trying I hit on the right combo of chemicals and lubricants to get it working reliably, and that kept it going for two years or so, but it just started sticking again. I wish I could remember what I did last time. PBlaster and teflon I think?
Luckily I can reach through the wheel and release the brake all the way using my finger.
The first things that come to mind are lithium grease, powdered graphite lube, and molybdenum (moly) grease. Of the three, I think the moly may be the most sticky but some experimentation would be in order.
Sounds like you need more than greasy chemicals if this problem persists.
Perhaps something mechanical is misaligned or bent.
Look at it closely, compare it to the drivers side parking brake. See if you can find the difference between the working parts and the troublesome ones.
Could be as simple as a cracked rubber sleeve on the brake pins letting gunk in.
100% for fun and the love of machines and their workings. I like it so much, I recently started a car club in the Denver area that’s all about just getting together and wrenching on each other’s hoopties, hanging out, and grilling up some good food! So far, we’ve swapped engines in a squarebody, regeared a Jeep, we’re about to do a Subaru swap in an old Beetle, and next is a transmission swap in an El Camino. It’s been a ton of fun!
What’s the name of the club and please tell me I can access via something other than Facebook?
I usually do my own work since other stuff usually comes up while I’m in there.
Not only do I love the satisfaction, but the real reason is that I’m just plain too cheap to pay anyone to do what I can do myself.
Note that this sort of thinking has led to much folly and regret, but no real wisdom.
Engineer’s disease. Same here.
You have my sympathies my friend. Between that disease and project creep I’ve got projects for the next decade. May you do better than I.
I felt that.
I’m temporarily doing two jobs at work, and the amount of time I spend in meetings or sending email from person to person leaves me no time to actually accomplish anything. And there’s no tangible result. So after work I have dinner with the family, change into beater clothes and go work on my project truck until it gets so dark I can’t see anything. One hour a day of turning wrenches and learning how to do new things (this week: flaring and installing new brake lines) has been the most therapeutic thing I’ve done in years.
Your tangible point is such a good one. There’s something about holding parts in your hand, then installing them in your car, then finally driving that car…you get an improved, very specific vision in your mind of what’s going on (relating to what you) did b/c you were there and you made it happen (or stop happening as the case may be). The agency is intoxicating.
Yes!
The agency granted me when my first fuel-injected car (bought super-cheap as much of the motor was in pieces in the trunk) finally fired up some four months after I brought it home has allowed me to do things I never thought possible
I learned to wrench as a kid, mostly from my dad and the rest from trial and (a lot of) error. For example, through experience I learned not to ground the wrench to the frame when loosening the positive terminal. Exciting!
I like it because when I’m done, the wrenchee is probably going to be better than it was. Or it will be much, much worse – at least in the short term – but after that it will be better. And “better” here can mean “more aligned with my vision”; it’s possible that the vision itself is crap and/or ridiculous but it’s mine.
My career is technology-focused and it’s nice to have an analog hobby.
Also it gives me something to talk about with all of you goobers. 🙂
For me, it’s a way to experience a deeper connection with a meaningful-to-me object.
Like I suspect most people here, I’ve always loved cars and what they represent…freedom, agency, and a chance to pursue human excellence.
To work on them is to get to know them in a way that enhances and develops that love. And just like how we relate to other things that we love, engaging with them in a such a way creates greater meaning that perhaps outlasts the particulars – it is possible to locally reverse the entropy in the universe, or at least in our own lives.
My mechanic is more fastidious and careful with my car than I am. He lets me get right up in there and watch while explains to me what and like i actually know what he is talking about. Nothing like bringing a pizza and a pack of his smokes when he is fitting me in. Or a tip when he works far past quitting time to get me my vehicle asap.
Why I wrench?
If you want a job done right do it yourself. I rarely like things the way they are stock and what better way to know how to work on a vehicle than to be the one who built said vehicle?
For example: I like mechanical brakes. Hydraulic fluid is horrible toxic crap and for all the wheeled vehicles I’m interested in they’re all so lightweight they don’t need hydraulic brakes for great braking distances. However nowadays hydraulic brakes are the default.
I also don’t like power assisted controls, I like the feedback, simplicity, durability, and reliability of mechanical controls.
I don’t like liquid cooling.
I hate batteries, if I have to have one in a vehicle I want a mechanical backup starting system like a kick starter, mags and giving the prop a turn, bump starting, etc.
Sadly many of these traits that I want in vehicles of mine are only available partially (like the Ford popular 103E which has cable brakes but a liquid cooled engine) and or they’re rare and sold for a massive premium (like the old cable brake having air cooled VWs or a Polikarpov Po-2 for over $100K).
So really the only semi practical way to have the traits I want for the vehicles I want is to custom modify them to a degree and do most of the grunt work myself to save on expenses.
Sounds like you want an old motorcycle.
Yes but not exclusively. I already have a 78 Husqvarna CR125 and that thing has a pushrod activated drum rear brake and a cable drum front brake and that thing is a blast. 6 speeds and a factory ported 2 stroke means that it’ll go faster off road than you will probably be able to manage. For example by the time I’m midway though the rev range in 5th gear I’m already getting airborne from little bumps. Even at those speeds the brakes work perfectly.
Also some new motorcycles like the Honda Navi have cable drums front and rear as well.
Many planes fall under my requirements as well as lots of bicycles and several cars.
I do it for the enjoyment of it, which is why I try to wrench on my daily drivers as little as possible. Thankfully, the past few dailies for my wife and I have been pretty reliable and brakes were the most intensive thing I had to do.
Wrenching on a project car though? Absolutely fun. I enjoy taking something and making it better, whether that is objectively better or just my opinion of it.
Of course I would be remiss if I did not share this Instagram reel I saw recently.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoZkYs-OhGc/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Honeslty, I think you hit it on the head. When I had to work on my DD without a backup, it was a bit more stressful. I would go to the autoparts store that was the closest because I’d be on my bike, this wasn’t exactly my favorite store. I just wanted to pedal less.
Project cars are suuuper fun until they aren’t. Usually it is something you’ve been staring at for days and it isn’t working out. Crazy how having a buddy to talk to helps.
The DD has to be an “enabler car”. A car that enables you to have a project car, wrench when you want to, and still get to work on time. Mine is a Civic, but there are many viable enabler cars out there. But I do not like or want to work on the enabler car. Newer cars are no fun to wrench on.
Having a buddy to help makes a world of difference. I installed a new wiring harness on a TR6 in a storage unit with no electricity in the middle of the night in the winter. And it was a blast because my best friend was there with me, upside down under the dash with a flashlight in his teeth, just like me. We laughed like fools the whole time.
It’s a little bit of all of the above for me. I’m too cheap and distrustful to have someone else do it, and I don’t mind working on cars. The actual process is not the part that really satisfies me; it’s the having done it. It’s the satisfaction of firing up my MG, hearing the various noises it makes, and knowing that I’ve touched every one of the parts that make those noises.
And I admit there’s a little smugness to it too; nearly everyone else around me in traffic has no idea what size wrench their oil drain plug takes, or how their air filter comes out of its housing, and I can’t help feeling that I’ve “earned” my car somehow more than they have, because I know its inner workings.
Oh, and you’ll appreciate my new “little” wrenching project: I’m building a couple of Associated RC10s from spare parts. Total mishmash, some parts dyed crazy colors, one chassis tub drilled full of holes… beaters in 1/10 scale.
I wrench because it’s more expensive for a shop to replace the front suspension on my old Jag than it is for me to replace it plus the ABS wiring harnesses I broke while removing the shocks.
also I am a glutton for punishment.
In some ways I enjoy fixing cars as much or more than driving them.
Having the skill and knowledge to rebuild the suspension and brakes in a car takes it a long way from death trap to useable again, and saving old cars from the crusher where I can is a great feeling.
Along those well-put lines, I enjoy the objectivity of working on cars. As in, when you’re done, it either works or it doesn’t, and it’s there for all to see. How people feel about it is irrelevant.
It’s a nice refuge from the very emotional era in which we seem to live these days.
What am I working on?
I replaced the heater core in my 81 Jeep CJ-5 for an aluminum that really puts out the heat! Now it rattles, TERRIBLY.
I’m going to tear the thing apart to secure it in its heater core cubby with foam from an air conditioning install kit. Hopefully, it has rattled its last rattle. I think I should get it done in about two hours provided I don’t cut myself on the metal dash, which isn’t likely :/
This is about a 2/10 on the fun scale.
Although, like DT’s Jeeps. Its a Holy Grail! (I kid, although by 81 the CJ-5 was declared dead by the AMC overlords) 😉
I used to really enjoy working on friends vehicles more than my own because for some reason I’m able to be way more positive and level-headed on someone else’s car. Working on my own car is anxiety inducing because if I don’t get it right I’m SOL, seeing that I need my truck for work. Granted I have a mini Cooper for a “fun car,” but I can’t load it with all of the tools I need at work, lest I trash the interior and pick up 5-6 nails on the job site. However, I’m usually pretty broke so it’s not a choice when I strap in and scare the shit out of myself for however long it takes for PB blaster to do its thing.
I do to! It is fun to suggest how to fix a problem and pass tools.
The owner always gets the the final say and gets to call that shots, even if they have the least experience with wrenching. Wrenching organizes itself naturally so leadership isn’t questioned.
I realized last night that car culture is a way for people to be artistic, even when their societal groups shun art… That is very, very cool because it breaks down barriers to creativity.
These are both great takes! I agree, being a friend can be the voice of reason. You aren’t so committed, and can make less emotional decisions. PLUS, it just makes a job so much faster if you don’t need to get up every few minutes for whatever reason. …like being a doctor in surgery.
Oh, oil change. Caddy told me to on the ride home, already got the oil and filter this past weekend. I live and die by that % sign now. I haven’t kept track of “miles” between my changes in years. Now that the world has more or less relaxed and said “anywhere between 3000 and 10000 miles is just fiiiiiine”.