Hello! Don’t know if this is the right community to post this question, but maybe you can help.
I want to learn about cars and engines. I’m a pretty mechanical person and I like to tinker. I can do basics, like changing my own oil etc.
I want to do some hands on learning, but I don’t have a ton of money to spend or space to work in. I was wondering if you had suggestions on something small and affordable I can get to learn about engines. I was thinking a lawn mower or a scooter but I don’t know how similar those would be to a car.
Do you have any advice?
My first engine was a lawnmower too! I was 6 and I didn’t think my parents thought I would get it working. I have a picture somewhere of me holding a piston like a prize fish. Worked up to a minibike later. Finished a complete rebuild of a V6 a couple years ago.
Books (remember those things?) are great. YouTube is ok if you actually find a good video. But the best is to make friends with someone who knows what they are doing.
I’ve found, almost too late sometimes, that you have to already know what to ask to learn about something. Buy new bearings for your specific engine? Great! Check clearances before you purchase in case something is out of spec? Oh, guess I’m doing that again. Oops. Haha!
My dad likes to tinker with stuff, and he’s a pretty mechanically inclined guy.
He pulled an old shitty lawnmower out of a scrap metal bin, and made a motorized bar stool. The bloody thing rips across his shop at like 20km/h!
I don’t know where I was going with that, but scrap metal bins are a gold mine for free shit to tinker with. Good luck brother
Small engines seem to be a good start. Mowers, generators and stuff. Helps you to better understand the basics and concepts without breaking the bank on something like a car. They’re also relatively simple, with no computer components to deal with.
There’s “car mechanic simulator” games that are pretty accurate.
Plenty of YouTube channels
Buy a motor from a junkyard and take it apart.
Buy a 60’s era truck. Pre-smog, but not too old that parts are hard to find.
A ford f100 or f250 for instance. The f100 with an inline 6 engine would be perfect. A 302 would be good too. I’d avoid the “fe” 352, 360, 390 only because they cost a bit to maintain.
Buy a car from the 00s with a blown engine, find the shop manual, buy the parts, and rebuild it. That’s how I learned
Mowers are an okay start, theyre usually 2 strokes so a bit different from a car but they still have many similar parts.
You might be able to ask around at junkyards/pick a part places if they have engines, especially broken or damaged ones. Even if you never put it together to get it working, you can still learn a lot from just disassembly/reassembly. You could ask local shops if they will let you be an apprentice, maybe make a little money while you learn.
Recommend watching YouTube videos, not necessarily “build videos” since I find those pretty stupid usually, but videos about disassembly and reassembly are important. Cleaning, machining, etc are usually good ones too. Curmudgeon Transmissions is one I like for transmission videos, for example. I like to find the old guys, because theyre the ones with all the years of experience and I find I learn way more from them than from younger guys.
For YouTube stuff, d3sshooter is pretty good. He’s an older bloke that really knows his stuff and does detailed videos about how to do specific jobs on his cars (e.g. I followed his video when putting together the hubs for my mini). This is also a more expensive way to do it, but restoring an old car isn’t a bad way to go. You’ll learn a hell of a lot from it and they’re a bit simpler and more approachable than a newer car
As an Old Car Haver myself, I would definitely not recommend someone learn on one unless finding parts is very easy. Maybe something like a Mustang or Camaro, but definitely not anything like a Studebaker or Oldsmobile. And unfortunately, the popular cars they still make parts for don’t come cheap.
Yeah, I’m learning on an old mini, which is a great car to learn on because they made basically the same car for 40 years and it’s one of the most heavily produced cars of all time. I can buy every part for it for a reasonable price from one of 15 online retailers, about 5 of which are in Australia. However, if that wasn’t the case it would be quite a bad thing to learn on because you’d just spend all your time chasing parts.
Something like that, an old Toyota or a bug would be a good car to learn on
I haven’t seen a 2-stroke mower in over 40 years.
Those are some great ideas about finding a non-running engine for free, tear it down and see how it works.
Seeing the crank rotate, the piston move, and the cam timing the valves opening - that was fun to do as a kid.
