Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

clan chieftain · Joined: 05 Apr 2008 Posts: 2041 Location: Motherwell

This will get you thinking...I am not 100% sure but I think my first job as an apprentice was taking off the front wheels of a Morris Ztype van.Almost positive it was. Memory jerker this one Laughing

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The Clan Chieftain

Phil - Nottingham · Joined: 01 Jan 2008 Posts: 1252 Location: Nottingham

My Dad's 1964 DKW F12 - ABW 623B - in 1967
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Rover P2
Rover P4
Rover P5 & P5B
Land Rover S2 & S3
Morris Mini Traveller Mk2

47Jag · Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:59 am Post subject:

I started as an apprentice auto-electrician in a place tha rebuilt army trucks (25 trucks per week). My job was to remove all the instruments & wiring from Bedford OL cabs.

The 1st car was a 'homer' on an Austin 16 carburettor.

Art

47p2 · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 2009 Location: Glasgow

Hillman Super Minx I bought when I was 16. Paid a fiver for it as it had no engine. I bought an engine from a scrappy at a tenner and fitted that. Sadly the 'new' engine burned more oil than petrol so I stripped it and fitted a set of cord rings and big end shells, MOT'd it and sold it for a tidy £120
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ROVER
One of Britain's Fine Cars

Salopian · Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 354 Location: Newport Shropshire

Austin 10 1936 - a birthday present when I was 11 from my father. Cost him a fiver and I spent the next few years chopping the body off driving it round the fields (we were small farmers) and making a pickup from it.
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Jonathan Butler
Alvis SD 12/50 1928 MG TD 1950

Keith D · Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:16 am Post subject:

Pottered with my father's 1936 Austin Ruby sedan in about 1956. Got my first H.T. electric shock from that car! I still remember jumping about swearing at it!

Worked on my first car at 15 years of age in 1959 in south east Essex. A 1938 Morris 18hp that cost me 5 quid. I was vertically challenged in those days and I needed a couple of large cushions under my bum to see out of the windscreen. Being still at school, money was very short, so my mates used to come down and supply a gallon of petrol (5 shillings - and it would last an hour!) and we would thrash around one of Dad's paddocks. I seem to remember running it on a shandy of 50% petrol and 50% TVO (Tractor vaporising oil, which I think was kerosine) This could only be introduced when the motor was hot!

Unlike Salopian, my car only lasted a few months when we broke a rear spring. I couldn't get another one, so I sold the car back to the wrecker I bought it from for two pounds ten!

Keith

Scotty · Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 883

As a wee boy in mid-1960's Glasgow all the dad's in our street with a car would be out on Sunday mornings working away on them, either washing them or jobs like plugs & points, etc.

My dad would hire(!) me out to other dads to do jobs they didn't to do, which usually was to wash their car, however one older gent, Bob Freidlander had an "ancient" 1955 Morris Oxford and he introduced me to the world of gaps, adjustments and grease nipples - I was in my element!

Still have warm memories of those Sunday mornings - I can almost hear that old bugger still nagging me that I hadn't put enough grease in the joint! Laughing

P3steve · Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:44 am Post subject:

My first job as an apprentice was a water pump on a minx, took me all morning to do it too I was fifteen at the time but can still remember the car well. Later on the garage boss took me to a big pile of engines and other assorted scrap and after sorting about pulled out a V4 and we draged it back into the workshop on the back of a trolly jack and up onto a bench. He told me over the next few days inbetween other jobs to take it apart down to the last nut and bolt and clean every thing and lay it out on the bench. A few days later he came round and questioned me on every part, what it did and what it was called then he told me to put it all back together reusing old gaskets or making new out of brown paper if needed. OK it was knacked and would never run again and went back out on the scrap heap after but I sure learnt all about engines. ps I seem to recall it came out of a Saab

Minxy · Joined: 22 Sep 2010 Posts: 273 Location: West Northants

It would have been helping my dad with one of his cars seem to recall it was a Zephyr MklV.
The first car I worked on at the garage where I did my apprenticeship was a Cortina 1600E – I took the engine out

peter scott · Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 7219 Location: Edinburgh

The first car I worked on was my big sister's 1936 Morris 8. It was a nice old car but had no brakes. I spent ages bleeding them with my sister and taking it around the block only to discover that they'd gone again. It didn't occur to us that the seals needed to be replaced. I was 15 or 16 at the time.
Photo July 1965.

Peter

http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/morris-8.htm

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1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

BigJohn · Joined: 01 Jan 2011 Posts: 954 Location: Wem, Shropshire

1966 Ford Anglia 1200 Super, bought for £75 with a recon engine and the old one in the boot in 1972. I was 16 and it was bought for me by Dad to sort out for my 17th. The recon engine was knackered so the one in the boot was rebuilt with my old man showing me what to do. (He had served his time pre war on Rolls Royce, Daimler and Minerva). The front had that much filler in it, if I had hit a pedestrian they were more liable to die of asbestosis than injuries incurred!

Ray the rocker · Joined: 01 Aug 2008 Posts: 187 Location: south wales

i can go back 50 years and remember it as last week! firstly, my dad used to buy "car mechanics" books and this got me into reading them from cover to cover.we introduced ourselves to diy by replacing the head gasket and a burnt exhaust valve on a 1958 velox.everthing went well until we came to remove the head---tugging,pulling ,trying to split the damn head! did`nt realize the one bolt we missed on the side plate was the culprit...all ended well when reassembled--first time start but i remember it took me about two hours scrubbing my fingernails clean!
that aroma of "swarfega" stayed with me for 40 years!

cheers---ray the rocker...

MVPeters · Joined: 28 Aug 2008 Posts: 822 Location: Northern MA, USA

1936 Austin 10 - a Sherbourne, I think (I must find a photograph).

It cost Dad a fiver, but I had to tax & insure it. Grandad replaced the floor-boards - yes, real boards - & rebuilt the sun roof with ex-WWII Army tent canvas - a colourful touch.
It kept blowing head gaskets at 4/3d each (centre bolt wouldn't hold) but I could change it in about 20 minutes.
I remember going down a steep hill into Conway, 4-up & with tents etc strapped to the boot-lid. Handbrake worked best on the left side, foot-brake worked best on the right side - we stopped, just.

Swarfega - mmmm
Plus-Gas - aaaaah
Castrol 'R' - yippee!
& what was the red gasket goo? - Hermetite?
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Mike - MVPeters at comcast.net
2002 MINI Cooper 'S'

Fluffle-Valve · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 1:51 am Post subject:

First car I worked on was my own car.
A 1965 Volvo 122s...
My dad taught me to weld on it and I wielded my first spanners at it.
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Series 3 1972 LWB Truck Cab Pick Up. My daily drive.

roverdriver · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:17 am Post subject:

Bought a 1918 Ford TT one ton truck in 1959. Disassembled most parts and learned a lot, then family decided to move, so I reassembled it to towing condition and stored it at a friends farm. A couple of years later I returned to Australia, friend had died and his son had sold my TT on.
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Dane- roverdriver but not a Viking.