All of you guys..been in my position:

Forums are your #1 source of information followed by the factory service manual for your car.

I'm a year older than you and started when I was 16 as well. My grandpa helped me work on the car but he was always a Chevy guy and he's older so he wasn't able to do many of the things he used to. When he was unsure of something I'd get on the forum here or over at slantsix.org and ask away. The advice I got over there when I was just beginning got my slant six Duster going from 10mpg up to 22mpg.

The two most important things you need to know are to not be afraid to ask stupid questions and to not be afraid to just dig in and try something for the first time.

Perfect example is the thread I have going in the Body/Trim forum about welding. I bought an entire MIG setup a while ago because I knew I'd get to the point where I'd have to weld some sheet metal. I've never done it with any success so I made a thread showing my welding failure and asked what I could do to improve on it. Within a couple days I had over 20 replies from the folks here giving me excellent advice that I'll put forth this weekend when I tackle it again. Even though it's the internet, sometimes it's tough to come on a forum and ask a bunch of experts how to do something they can do with their eyes closed but if you've never done it you have to start somewhere. Everyone in real life has told me to just take the car into a body shop and have it done since I don't know how to weld and I've never done a patch panel before. I told them that if I never tried anything for the first time, I wouldn't know how to do anything. If I try the patch panel and it fails, then I'll take it into a body shop and have it done. The only money lost will be the price of the patch panel but at least I tried it on my own.

You've just got to have the confidence that you can start a project and finish it and the only way to do that is to dig in and try it out. If you get stuck, take pictures and ask questions. These guys can walk you through anything.