Why I Finally Wrote It Down
I grew up sweeping the floor of my father's two-bay shop in a Michigan town where half the county worked in the automobile business. The old-timers who passed through fixed things with what was on the kitchen shelf, because the new part was three days away and the money was counted twice. Baking soda for the battery. Vinegar for the glass. Two buckets for the wash. I watched, and I remembered.
I spent 45 years with a wrench in my hand, the last thirty in my own two-bay shop on the main street. I hung it up when the cars started needing a laptop more than a wrench. But here's what kept nagging at me in the garage at home: those old tricks were never in any manual. They lived in the heads of men who are mostly gone now. When they go, the tricks go with them.
My wife Carol said the same thing she always says: stop grumbling about it and do something about it. So I did. Fifty-two tricks - one for every week of the year - written plain, in print big enough to read across a workbench, each one checked against how cars are actually built today. The old '63 gets its notes, and so does whatever is sitting in your driveway tonight.
One thing this book will never do is pretend you don't need a mechanic. A good mechanic isn't the guy who does everything himself - he's the guy who knows exactly where his job ends. Brakes, steering, airbags, suspension, fuel: that's mechanic work, and every chapter says so right at the top. Everything else? That's yours now. C'mon in.
Two-dollar fix. They'll charge you two hundred.