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Rick Site Admin

Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22784 Location: UK
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 8:50 pm Post subject: Did your dad tinker with cars too? |
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Evening all,
When growing up, did your dad, uncle or whoever nearby fiddle with cars? I remember dad working on the family cars, they weren't particularly old at the time but he tended to do his own servicing, and also a bit on neighbours' cars. He still does work on his own moderns in fact.
This exposure to oily nails and the odd dismembered vehicle probably influenced my formative years quite significantly. The family's had a good number of DIY tinkerers in it over the years, both cars and motorcycles.
RJ _________________ Rick - Admin
Home:https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk
Videos:https://www.youtube.com/user/oldclassiccarRJ/videos
OCC & classic car merchandise (Austin, Ford ++):
https://www.redbubble.com/people/OldClassicCar/shop |
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Bitumen Boy
Joined: 26 Jan 2012 Posts: 1763 Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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Oh yes. Not only did Dad work on cars at home, but when we lived in Notts he would often take me along to Cyril Becket's scrapyard a few miles up the road, proper old fashioned place. Later on he showed me the rudiments with my first Mini, probably wished he hadn't as a few years later I was roping him in to assist with pulling the engine out of the Herald... |
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Churchill Johnson
Joined: 11 Jan 2011 Posts: 359 Location: Rayleigh Essex
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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If it had'nt been for my dear old dad i would not know what i know now he learnt in the army during ww2, then worked for the war ag after he came out until they ceased in about 1948, so he put me onto the right road to repairing nearly everything with an engine. |
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websnail

Joined: 26 Oct 2010 Posts: 78 Location: West Sussex
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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Yes he did. Got me into mechanical things.
I remember when everyone worked on their cars (all British back then) on Saturday afternoons (had to work Sat mornings as a 45 hour working week) and then washed them on Sundays.
My son is a fully qualified car mechanic and MOT man now. Something must have been passed on. |
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Penman
Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 4857 Location: Swindon, Wilts.
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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Hi
We learnt about cars together really, my Dad didn't drive until I was about 15 or 16 and he didn't get a car then.
We got a non runner Austin Ten Four from the bloke next door when I was just turned 17 and we got it running together using the Pitmans Book of the Austin Ten.
Dad was a machine tool engineer so working with him I learnt what he was doing and he was using his prior experience of engineering principles etc. _________________ Bristols should always come in pairs.
Any 2 from:-
Straight 6
V8 V10 |
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peter scott

Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 7214 Location: Edinburgh
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:57 am Post subject: |
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I was never aware of my father working on cars. He was more of a woodworker although he did build a boat trailer out of a central scaffolding pole, an inverted U girder with trailing arm rubber cone suspension units. This T shaped trailer was completed with two chrome bus entry hand rails forming an isoceles triangle with apex to the front.
I gained my initial experience from a boyfriend of my big sister and a very generous ex racing motorcyiclist who gave me my first motor bike. The boyfriend had a Vincent Black Shaddow and the racing motorcyclist (who was in his late 60s at the time) had an XK120.
Peter _________________ https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon |
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goneps
Joined: 18 Jun 2013 Posts: 601 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:03 am Post subject: |
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Not at all. Neither of my parents could drive, and we got our first car a couple of days before my 17th birthday. A few months earlier I'd bought my first motorcycle and taught myself to ride it from one of the standard books of the time, and what little I knew of motor vehicles had been gleaned from monthly perusal of Motorcycle Mechanics. Entirely self-taught, therefore.
My father was really only interested in the house and garden, so left the mechanical maintenance to me. He never mastered driving, and to her dying day my mother swore that the strain of trying to learn at the age of 63 caused the series of heart attacks that eventually killed him. He'd bought the car with the intention of using it for his work.
Thus for a few years I was in the fortunate position, as a teenage apprentice, of having both a 'bike and car at my disposal.
Richard |
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Da Tow'd

Joined: 16 Jun 2010 Posts: 349 Location: Bella Coma British Columbia Canada
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:05 am Post subject: |
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Yes my dad was a big influence on me when it comes to pulling wrenches.
When I was 16 he told me of his first car when he was 16 back in the 1940s. He had a Ford Model A sedan that had rods that rattled so bad that he and his brothers dropped the pan and saved the oil and inserted leather from a old leather belt on the bearings.
They would drain the cooling water every night in winter. He said they would build a fire under the oil pan to warm it up. hand crank fun
sounded pretty dangerous
RIP pop
Hank |
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roverdriver

Joined: 18 Oct 2008 Posts: 1210 Location: 100 miles from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 8:08 am Post subject: |
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My father had no mechanical inclinations at all. I had an interest in things mechanical from an early age. When 6 years old built a wooden wheelbarrow, when 8 build a 'billy cart'. I loved to pull mechanical devices apart to see how they worked. Bought my first vehicle- 1918 Ford TT truck when 15 or 16. I learned a lot from that, and continue to learn to this day. _________________ Dane- roverdriver but not a Viking. |
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ka

Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 600 Location: Orkney.
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 8:13 am Post subject: |
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My dad was a tank mechanic in the 17/21st Lancers, so yes, there may be an influence here!!!! _________________ KA
Better three than four. |
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peppiB
Joined: 30 Jun 2008 Posts: 686 Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:09 am Post subject: |
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Yes. He had worked on motorcycles and cars in his youth and the first car in my lifetime was a 1939 Austin 10 Cambridge which he always had in bits. Tools amounted to open ended spanners and a (just 1) screwdriver, together with 3 sizes of box spanner. All Whitworth. When a Moggy replaced the Austin, many difficulties were encountered until he went into Halfords and bought a set of AF ring spanners.
Car always had to be running for a Sunday as he was a perapatetic local preacher! |
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Dipster
Joined: 06 Jan 2015 Posts: 408 Location: UK, France and Portugal - unless I am travelling....
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:41 am Post subject: |
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Certainly.
My dad was always interested in anything mechanical. Back in the 1920s he (and one of his brothers) got involved in relatively new fangled motors and ended up both as a mechanic and driver in the early days of road transport. My brother and I cherish period photos of them with the solid tyred, Scammell tankers of the day. Dad also shared many of his motoring tales and tips from those days too.
This knowledge and experience meant he ended up in the RAF in the war as a rather elderly (comparatively) flight engineer. He met the girl who would become my mother there. She was an ignition systems technician. Like minded, eh?
So when we, his offspring, came along we were surrounded by vehicles in various states of disrepair that were put back on the road. And we were expected to learn what he was doing to achieve this. Happily he was a hard worker who believed that if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well. So we were disciplined in our efforts in this vein.
Dad repaired things. He always spoke disparagingly of "bl^^dy fitters" (particularly after the war when lots of demobbed man came on the labour market) who simply replaced faulty components lacking the real skills he felt were needed.
I still have, and use, many of his tools today. Consequently he is often in my mind despite having died in 1977. |
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mikeC

Joined: 31 Jul 2009 Posts: 1809 Location: Market Warsop, Nottinghamshire
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:15 am Post subject: |
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Oh yes!
My father ran a Lagonda Rapier as daily transport throughout the 1950s, doing something like 20,000 miles a year, so there was always running maintenance going on! We had a lathe and a milling machine in the living room, and a complete rolling chassis in the back garden!
And when the Lagonda was running well, there was always the motorcycles to keep him occupied: ABC, Sunbeam and Brough Superior were all tucked away at the back of the garage needing fettling... |
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Ray White

Joined: 02 Dec 2014 Posts: 7106 Location: Derby
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:47 am Post subject: |
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My Dad ran a Garage business and tended to take a dim view of amateur mechanics. He would sometimes curse what he called "bloody tinkerers". There was no joy in garage work. It was long hours, hard, dirty, smelly work and when he died I cleared out his equipment and was struck by how filthy and smelly everything was and just how knackered his tools were. All very sad.
I tended to rely on Dad's ability as an engineer to make or repair virtually anything and as a result my own abilities are sometimes found wanting but as Dad had no interest in cars that he described as "obsolete" I doubt I would have appreciated his help very much. |
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Rootes75
Joined: 30 Apr 2013 Posts: 4173 Location: The Somerset Levels
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:59 am Post subject: |
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My father did all repair work on our cars and when he drove his own lorries he did all their repairs too. His week used to be long, he would drive for 5-6 days a week then spend half of each Sunday servicing and repairing. _________________ Various Rootes Vehicles. |
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