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Old 04-05-2013, 08:28 AM   #44
Norm Peterson
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Drives: 08 Mustang GT, 19 WRX
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Eastern Time Zone
Posts: 6,990
Been an engineer for most of the past 40-odd years, mostly structural and structural analysis stuff.

But I've been DIY'ing most of my cars' mechanical work for longer than that. There isn't much outside of A/C service, glass replacement, and painting with real spray equipment that I haven't tackled at least once.

Everybody starts out by doing things like oil and coolant changes, filters, wipers, maybe spark plugs, and so on. As your confidence builds, it's not as big of a step to move on to slightly more involved tasks. Water pumps, alternators, maybe some simple exhaust stuff. Successfully getting through those makes still more complex jobs less intimidating, and so it progresses.

Along the way, you'll pick up general concepts such as not tightening any of the bolts in a pattern down until you've got them all started.

For the more complicated things, do your reading first and UNDERSTAND what you're letting yourself in for BEFORE you get started with the wrenches.


Norm
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