TAN #29 The case of the disappearing TAN (Page 61)

You can only learn so much by reading a book.  And you can only fix so much on a $500 truck before you realize there was a good reason that it was a $500 truck.   

And those people weren't trying to figure out how to make race cars out of them by reading a repair manual.  No one else in my family had ever done more than an oil change, and I was a 16yr old with a ratchet set. 

Literally.  Among other things, I also didn't realize how often you had to check header bolts.  Got to school one morning when it was especially loud, opened the hood, realized both headers had fallen off. 

I always liked skid-loaders.  I know, not a huge piece of industrial equipment, but very useful for many jobs. 

OMG!  Check out chainlove....

I lof oakleys...

HA!  I used to work on cars.  Not anymore.  Anything made before 1985 I could practially take apart and rebuild, without much help.  On my old cars I replaced, starters, alternators, water pumps (that was a beyotch), brakes, shocks, struts, tires, carbs, and even helped a friend do his tranny.  Now, with all the wiring, etc, don't want to touch anything but the gas cap.

I didn't realize a few things:

1.) Motor mounts need to be replaced if they're old and brittle.  If you don't the engine shakes.

2.) If you cant get an engine in completely level, hammering the mount bolts through the mounts and figuring that that's taken care of isn't a good job.

3.) Loctite exists for a reason.

4.) Just because you don't have the tool to get to that tough to reach bolt doesn't mean that that tool doesn't exist.