I guess I just grew up in a different generation. About 3/4 of the boys in my class grew up out in the country and they had to help their father's overhaul their old John Deeres, Farmalls and pickups as well. The rich kids who lived in town weren't allowed to get greasy. And then there were the hoodlums who weren't in ag, band or sports, who walked around with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth and a pack of Camels in their T-shirt sleeve. We all wanted to have the fastest car in town. I had a 50 GMC pickup that would blow the doors off of a 235 and would stay up with the Fords. When I got out of high school, I bought a Y-Block Ford and I seldom saw tail lights.
Then came the muscle cars. Rich kids who could talk their father's to buy them a muscle car could blow my doors off. And most of them didn't even know how to change their own oil. Even though I got a degree in accounting and pre-law, I never lost my passion for things mechanical. It will be 50 years ago next month that I bought my first semi. It was a GMC with an Olds block V8. I bought it in the town I went to college in and it took about a gallon of oil to drive it home 90 miles. I had two cylinders that were too bad to go 60 over, so I pulled the motor and had two salvage liners put in. For 5 years I had to pull the heads, hone the cylinders and re-ring it about every 100k miles. I then went to Cummins Diesels. Before the electronic engines came out about 25 years ago, mechanical engines had to have cylinder kits about every 100k miles and I did a lot of the work myself, but I had helpers who I had to show what to do. And I still spend a lot of time in the shop. I run all 2003 models because that is the last year of pre EGR. And they are all pretty rough when I buy them.
I don't trust machine shops to do valves on my old jalopies. Too many of the guys these days don't realize the clearance that valve stems need clearance to keep from seizing. In fact, I think every head for my old jalopies that I sent outin the last 30 years, I would up reaming the guides to suit me. I want them to use a quart of oil every thousand.
I have books for reference. But everything I learned was from having the luxury of watching old timers do it over 50 years ago, or from doing it wrong and figuring out what went wrong.
