Money, logic and Mrs. Blueberry

["John Harvey" <50scars@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I guess it is true that the car hobby can run into money, if you allow it
to.  However, if you think about what you are doing, you can arrange it so
that at least you get most if not all of your money back.  Set priorities.
Catalog what absolutely must be done.  Then what would be nice to do.  With
old cars, in most cases, 2/3 of the price is labor--much of that is labor
that can be done by people who have little or no skill.   Not to sound
insulting, but that means just about every owner.
     With older cars, a person who can read and follow the instructions can
do a fantastic amount of work just by following the tech manual, shop
manual, etc.  There is a place on line that has Chrysler Corp shop manuals
on CD rom.  If you have access to a computer, you can print out the pages
from the CD rom, and have pages you can take to the shop, get dirty, and not
worry about ruining an expensive book.  While there are a few "tricks of the
trade" that make the job go easier and faster, which are not in the manual,
but by following what the manual says, you can generally get the job done
yourself.
     I am continually amazed at the number of parts I can get by getting the
counter man at my local full service auto parts store like NAPA, Carquest,
etc, (not the discounters), to just look in the books.  It works even better
if I take the part in with me.  With American cars prior to about 1980,
there are a whole lot of mechanical parts that fit a whole lot of cars.  A
sharp counter man who will chase out the casting number can usually find a
part that will fit and work correctly, where he could never find it by
looking under 56 Imperial.
     You can buy enough tools to do most of the work for under $200 total.
Try places like harborfreight.com.  No these will not last for ever if you
use them everyday as a professional mechanic.  Yes, if you really abuse
them, you can bend and break them.   But they work just fine for the
hobbyest who is not the Jolly Green Giant, and does not use 3 foot pieces of
pipe to get more leverage.
    If you do not have a place to work, it does create a problem, but that
can be overcome, too.  I have done valve jobs with the car on the street.
My brother has changed VW engines in apartment parking lots.  If you pull
somethng like that, it helps if you know exactly what you are doing, have
the parts ready to go, and a pal or two who are also savvy.  The key is to
get it pretty well done before anyone finds management, and they get a
chance to respond.