anybody here a mechanic?

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Not necessarily a professional one, but who here likes to work on cars?

I find that it is something that seems to fit my talents very well. I'm not a professional mechanic, but several times have fallen back on it to make money in between official jobs, or as a complement to...

Anybody else?

I am. I love working on cars. They talk to me.

Mmm cars... *drools* I'm afraid I'm one of those people who squeals when the sparks come off the jumper plugs! All the same, I have enough brains to know that the guy in the panel van at McDonalds was probably not the brightest bulb when he decided to pour cold water under the bonnet when it was smoking... Can you say cracked head gasket?

I used to be. 3 years of tech school, then I worked for a chrylser dealer. It was only fun for a little bit (couple of years?) before I had sufficient knowledge of the domain that I became very, very bored with it.

I love mechanical things.
Loved taking things apart when I was a kid.
If I had the free time today I'd be doing it alot more.

But my mechanical aptitude was actually discouraged by my father....and he worked as mechanic to put himself through college...

I do all the basic maintenance on the car and bikes (oil changes, rotate tires etc, etc)
Should I win the lottery, I'd have a multiple bay garage stocked with every tool imaginable & upstaris living quarters.

While taking things apart and back together, I have it built up in my mind how things are *supposed* to work and come together.... Whats real and in my head are rarely the same and I get easily frusterated with this when things don't work my way.

Anyone else like that?

I studied Auto Mechanics a bit in high school.

Also, there's a lot you can do with a Hanes manual and a ratchet set. If I decide a repair to be done is within my scope, I'll do it myself and save the expense of hiring a mechanic.

I like to get my hands dirty with my car, but I'm not all that good at it.

I tend to get half way through a job before realising I forget something and have to go back and do it all again.

Also, I can never work out where the point of putting too much pressure on something comes, so I either struggle to dismantle things because I'm not being brutal enough, or I break things because they're too flimsy.

Still good fun though, when I'm not cursing the car/my incompetence/sketchy haynes manual!

I'm not officially a "mechanic", but I've worked as a CNC machinist for several top Drag Racing teams. In addition I was a prototype machinist at Tilton engineering. I helped develop the bellhousing ad cluch assembly for the Toyota Tundra NASCAR Craftsman truck. Now, I whittle out 8000 horse top fuel motors from scratch.

No, but I can say cracked head. A sudden temp change can crack the metal head, but not the gasket.

However, you can blow a head gasket that way as the head can deform enough to allow the gasket to blow out- but the gasket isn't directly destroyed by cold vs hot.

It has also been my experience that the catastrophic effects of putting cold water in an overheating engine is largely bunk, as you fill engine coolant either through the overflow or the radiator fill- not the engine itself. The radiator is built to handle huge temp differentials, and should not have an issue with hot vs cold- that's its job.

The few minutes that elapses between filling the radiator and closing everything up, packing up the water container, and restarting the vehicle should be more than enough to largely equalize temps beyond what could cause damage.

The only way I can really see an issue here is if a person filled ice cold water into an overheated engine that was bone dry- and if they had overheated an engine until it was dry, it is very likely the damage is actually from that, not the water put in as a too little, too late gesture.

Mine does too.