At Home Mechanic

Why do Americans prefer to go around in circles, except when they are going in a straight line? Why is it that the rest of the world prefers to wander aimlessly? And what does horse racing have to do with car racing? All these questions relate to the way Americans enjoy motor sports and how we are different in this country from the rest of the world.

Honda has announced a new line of engines for the Civic for the upcoming model year. Based upon their successful K-series of engines, the new Civic engine will expand in displacement from 1.7 liters to 1.8 liters, gain an increase in horsepower and fuel efficiency, all while reducing engine parts by about 10%. Wow! What a break through in engine design. How did they do that? Maybe Honda did it by rediscovering an engine design from nearly 20 years ago.

Scientists who subscribe to the Big Bang Theory tell us that the Universe is about 14 billion years old and that Planet Earth is about 5 billion years old. Humans, as we know them, have walked upright on the Earth for about 100,000 years and the North American continent has been inhabited for about 15,000 years.

That means that the average life expectancy of about 77 years for Americans is just a blink of the eye when compared in the context of the great scope of all existence. We are only given a finite amount of time in the course of a lifetime; when our term is over we are gone for a very long time. The way we spend our time as conscious beings is very important; it seems a shame to waste even a single moment.

We all know that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Even small children know that the Moon orbits the Earth. And everyone knows that disk brakes are much better than drum brakes. Common Sense, Conventional Wisdom, Accepted Practice are all names for the type of knowledge that we all collectively know. But every so often we learn that what we have always thought to be absolutely true is in fact completely wrong. At one time we thought that the Earth is flat, that traveling faster than 20 miles per hour will cause suffocation and that tomatoes are poisonous. And there are a few select instances when drum brakes are a better choice that disk brakes.

When you begin to blog, you hope that someone will read your work and find it enjoyable. When I began this blog, I made a few modest postings on Web forums that I have regularly contributed to. In the first week the blog got some traffic and a few nice comments. Friends and family generally will give you some forms of support and claim to read your stuff everyday. But you always hope that new readers will find your stuff in the clutter that is the onslaught of information that streams like a fire hose to Internet. I am proud to say that at least one reader has found my blog in the mire of the Web and responds to what I write on a regular basis. Bless you Bryce.

Not that it physically hurts to pound out a story or two on the keyboard, but I am playing in pain for you today. Yesterday I was doing some research for this blog in the garage when I suffered an injury. In a sense, I "took one for the team." Normally the At Home Mechanic can expect to suffer a skinned knuckle or two in the course of a project. I like to think of the tiny scars on the back of my hands as battle decorations that demonstrate years of devotion to the cause. I will never get a job as a hand model, but that career path was never really an option for me. But yesterday was a new and troubling injury that may signal a change in the way I will work in the garage in the future.

You are going to start working on your hobby car, but before you start answer one question: What do your want your car to be? Is it going to be a Show Car, a Racecar or a Daily Driver? A car can be one of those three definitions very well; it can have the qualities of two of those things fairly well. But it is nearly impossible for a car to be all three things at the same time.

I am on the horns of a dilemma. Of all the car related decisions that anyone could have to make, I should be happy that my problem is relatively minor. But that does not make the solution to the problem any clearer. I have to make a decision about modifying my hobby car, I want to make the car as light as possible. It involves removing a fairly large part of the car. But I also want to the car to look aesthetically pleasing once the job is done.

Regular reader Buck asked for my opinion on the New Mustang . The word "Mustang" invokes so many thoughts and emotions that I am not sure I can be objective on the topic. After all, the original 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang ignited the fires of car devotion in me when I was eight years old. My family and I have owned five Mustangs (a '65 convertible, two '66's coupes, a '67 convertible and a '84 coupe) over the years and although I am a confirmed Honda fan today, I still have a soft spot in my heart (and probably my head) for all things Ford.

A guy invites his neighbor the surgeon over for Thanksgiving Dinner. He makes a big show of carving the turkey to impress the doctor with his knife skills. When he was done, he asked his guest, "Well Doc, how did I do?" The physician inspects the well-carved turkey and then says to his host, "Anyone can take them apart. Let's see you put it back together."

It is always something with an old car. You find and fix an engine oil leak and then your fuel injectors get clogged. You root out the problem with the fuel injectors and then a suspension bushing goes south. I swear; keeping an old car in running condition is like a full time job.

My name is Scott and I cannot stop spending money on my hobby car. I am weak and I have no control over my life. I am revealing myself to you in the hope that you can learn from my addiction and avoid my fate. If it is too late for you and you already have fallen under the spell of a hobby car I am here to offer support.

At the risk of exercising poor taste let me ask a rhetorical question: Why are the hybrid cars from Toyota and Honda like the atomic bomb attack on Japan? Because the fuel sipping gasoline/electric hybrid cars and the massive destruction upon the civilian population of two cities serve as convenient excuses to ignore the accepted practice of the old wasteful ways and to accept radically different, yet intrinsically more sensible methodology. I know it is huge stretch of the imagination to see how some cars sold in America can be compared to the surrender of Japan, but I ask for your indulgence as I make my case.

Call them Classic, call them Golden Oldies, or call them Old School we all get a warm and fuzzy feeling from cars that recall our youth. For the teenaged stunna crowd of today this may mean getting a chubby from a Subaru WRX STi. But for the rest of us it means the cars of our distant impressionable youth in the 50's, 60's or 70's.

Regular reader Buck asked for my opinion on the new Mustang. I gave him my well reasoned argument that the new Mustang is all substance over style and that I could not endorse buying one. I feel that for the job of commuting or for racing, the new Mustang certainly looks good but fails to deliver either the performance or the connivance for either job.

I had the most disturbing dream last night. I am not one to put much credence in to dreams and I really do not pout any effort into trying to interpret them. But this dream was about my car, my tools and a garage. The dream was set at the garage of my boyhood home in suburban northern California of the 1960's. This garage was were my dad would work on his hobby cars. In those days I was his junior assistant, fetching tools and learning the basics of automotive engineering theory. I built my model kits there and I repaired and modified my bicycle in that old garage. For me, my Wonder Years were spent in that garage.

General Chuck Yeager was once asked for his opinion of the best airplane of all time. The plainspoken aviation hero was clearly uncomfortable with the question because his loyalties were spread across a wide range of aircraft. Finally he told the interviewer, "Well I suppose it depends on whether you want to haul ass or haul manure." That is my feeling when asked about what I consider to be the "best car," it all depends upon what you need your car to do for you. There are cars I would own for personal transportation, and very different cars that I would own for fun. Business uses and terrain traveled are other considerations when shaping the opinion of what is the "best" car. But if you ask me what my Dream Car is, there is only one choice.

In Greek mythology there is the legend of Sisyphus. As I recall, he made some sort of Olympian boo-boo and was sentenced by the chief god Zeus to an eternal punishment. I maybe be wrong about the “why’s� of the story but I am certain about the punishment.

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy gave up his career as a computer system analyst for IBM’s Atlanta office to make a new career out of observing the foibles of rural Americans. His comedy act largely revolves around examining the behavior patterns of “just plain folks� that indicate that, “You may be a Redneck.� In that vein I say that if you behave in certain, predictable manner, “You may be a Car Person.�

You have to give General Motors credit for trying. Losing market share faster than I am losing hair on my head, America’s largest automobile manufacturer is throwing out all the stops to win back the hearts and minds of the car buying public. Over the course of the last couple of years GM has introduced a variety of new models across the automobile spectrum to lure buyers back into the fold. In order to bind a buyer to a corporate identity for a lifetime of patronage, it is important to win the hearts of minds of the young, first time car buyer. Vital to this effort for GM is the Chevrolet Cobalt, an entry-level sedan that must compete and win against the Nissan Altima, the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic.

There comes a time when a bad relationship must be broken off. A romance gone badly, a destructive co-dependency, or an evil influence are all reasons to cut your losses short. While this is painful in the short run, it is generally beneficial in the longer view of things to just Move On. It is not always easy to admit that you made a mistake getting into the relationship in the first place. The fear of admitting your errors keeps some people in those bad relationships for far too long. Hopefully a “way out� can be found in time to stop the emotional (or even worse physical) bleeding. Our relationship with a hobby car can turn ugly and it is important to recognize the danger signals before it is too late.

America has a weight problem. Not only are our waists getting super-sized but our cars are getting bigger and heavier. Regular reader Bryce writes, “Does it seem weird to anybody else that compact "economy" cars now weigh one and a half tons? As an auto enthusiast who loves cars built by the credo of 'add lightness' I think high gas prices will be a good thing for reducing automobile weight in the next few years.� Bryce has a good point, the weight of a car has a negative impact on fuel economy. Now that gasoline prices in the United States are approaching the cost for fuel in Europe and Japan there is good chance that Americans will soon have the opportunity to buy the kind of smaller and lighter cars that are favored overseas.