Looking for a few beyond-basic car repairs

They could always rebuild the carburetor, a favorite pasttime of mechnics.

These are the car repair posts from the blog of a friend who does his own work. You might get some ideas for dialogue as well as repairs from it: http://pareidolia-global.blogspot.com/search/label/Car+Guys

I agree, rebuilding carburetors is a good one.

Older cars were easier. I used to set the timing, change the points and plugs along with changing filters and fluids. I've even changed a belt or two. Cars today though, you don't need to do half that stuff.

It depends how far you want to go. I've helped my dad rebuild my engine. I've watched changing out a clutch plate. Certainly replacing brakes is a common mechanic job. Fuel pumps are another easy do-it-yourself job. Starter motor, solenoids, the thermostat in your radiator are simple mechanical jobs.

Or there is replacing the hand brake cable in a volvo 740 estate. The handbrake operated on all four wheels, unlike many cars. So great for operation - but when the cable snaps you have to take out the whole inside of the car - seats and carpets - to get at the cable runs. We had to pay for one of those once and it was an awful lot of labour hours compared to parts.

Further to previous - he could have a pet project on the go off to one side. My small town mechanic is slowly rebuilding a mini any time he has a slow day (which isn't often, given how in demand he is). He has two pits plus a hoist, and the mini is over one of the pits and gradually changes - bits off, bits back on.... Its been there for a year or more.

He also does lawn mowers and quad bikes, this being a small town with a lot of countryside around it.

Setting in a new alternator, replacing the v belts or serpentine belts (depending on the car), dropping the oil pan or transmission pan to replace the gasket and fix a leak, rebuilding a gear box on a car that has 4 wheel, rear wheel, or all wheel drive. Rebuilding an engine is another very good "lay out the parts" sort of thing, but it takes a while to do it.

He/She wouldn't be working on a carburetor unless the vehicle is pre-1990. Except for a very few models, all were fuel injected.

He didn't work at a racetrack, but worked in the pits for someone. Level of racing tells us a lot about his ability.

Specific repairs are not that impressive unless you're finding car geeks. It's the projects that a guy gets into that tells us who he is. For a guy who was into racing (probably got out of because of how that interferes with family life) and has a teenage son, I'd be looking at the project of getting his son into a car, on the cheap.

Not a lot of people are aware of what some mechanics call a "one-for-two special." Basically you find a car that is totalled in the front end and another car that is totalled in the back end. Presto chango, you rebuild this into one car.

So dad starts a project car with junior so that junior will have a car when he gets his license. It could be something like the Mini described above, to a Goat or a Mustang from the 1960s, to a high end sports car like a Ferrari, to a military Humvee, to a simple four-door sedan, to an off-road monster truck. All of this tells us a lot about who your character is, as well as an impressive skill that even people who know nothing about cars will understand. Taking two wrecks and combining them makes sense to people who have no idea what a Johnson rod is. (The Johnson rod is like the radiator on the old VW bugs -- it doesn't exist.)

Jim Clark-Dawe

jclarkdawe said:

Not a lot of people are aware of what some mechanics call a "one-for-two special."

Jim Clark-Dawe

Click to expand...

Hi
In the UK that is known as Cut and Shut . It is illegal , but there are a unknown number of moving deathtraps on the roads , sold by criminal car dealers . A work shop manual was indispensable book for the home mechanic. You can buy them on Amazon and would be a good source of technical information you might be able to use . There was always two types , one for a professional mechanic, and probably too detailed for you and the other amied towards the home handy man.

There is also the legal in the UK version of doing up an older car where say the engine of one blew up, so you take the intact body of the one with the blown up engine, and replace it with a refurb engine from one with a damaged body. I used to work with someone who did that as a hobby. As I recall it, the Triumph TR7 sports car was the one in which the engine tended to blow up (but could have that wrong) and the TR8 didn't. What he was doing was putting a TR8 engine into a TR7 body - but also did a strip down and re-build of the intact body to make sure it was all good.

Legalities gets complicated in this area. Basically any car that is "totalled" has to show that in its title. Depending upon how much you do depends upon where you go with the title from there. The most extreme is titling the vehicle as a "kit car." It can require a very thorough inspection to determine whether the frame/unibody is structurally sound. Done right, you can get a car for a substantial discount that is as good or better than new. Done wrong, as StephenF suggests, it's a death trap.

But in this case, the mechanic worked on race cars. Race cars are frequently built from the ground up and require extensive knowledge of safety rules. Even on the lower end of racing, the skills are impressive compared to the average mechanic at your local dealer. This guy knows how to make a car go 150 miles per hour and be safe. He'll know how to make a vehicle that complies with the legalities.

Jim Clark-Dawe

There have been excellent suggestions. One of my brothers is that sort of mechanic, except that he doesn't have his own lift, and he does anything that he is moved to do, or has to do. The complicated work is engine rebuilding (with a machine shop doing the reboring) or replacement; anything else can be done by a casual mechanic like me just working on the ground.

Quickbread said:

ETA: This novel is set in the late 1980s-early 1990s, so I think a carburetor and other dated things could work nicely.

Click to expand...

Then rebuilding/restoring a 1960s to 1970s muscle car is right in line with a project for a mechanic and his son. Forget the carburetor, do a full engine tear down and rebuild, transmission upgrade, drivetrain, suspension, interior, body work, etc. Or build up a Jeep or pickup truck, lift kit, winch, bumpers, roll cage, swap differentials, axle conversions, etc.

Jeff