A phone call from my nephew got me thinking....

[ProjectBazza]

I was out in the shed last night, cleaning the place up and putting things away for winter (the sheds not heated…yet), when my nephew called.

His first question: “Whatcha up to?”

Me: “I’m just hanging out in the shed…..”

Nephew: “Why? It’s friggin’ cold out there!”

And his question got me thinking; Why indeed?

And this got me curious about something else, but bear with me for a bit.

When my father built his garage, many years before I came along, he put-in a service pit in one of the stalls/bays. They’re illegal as hell now where they live, but as a kid I thought nothing of crawling down there to “help him” work on the car, truck, tractor…whatever. I can remember helping him bleed brakes when I was as young as 5 or so. (“Pump it up. Hold it! Let me know when it’s down.”)

When I was about 7 or 8 years old my dad had me tear apart an old Tecumseh lawnmower engine, just to see how it worked. Then he told me to put it back together again, and even though I didn’t have new gaskets, and he had to help me with tightening some things down, the damn thing ran! Sorta….

When I was about 12 or 13 I figured out how to swap the idler pulley in dad's riding lawnmower to make that sucker fly! (I could tell he wanted to be mad, but the smirk on his face gave lie to his anger.)

I bought my first car when I was 14 for $60 (a friend’s car died out in the pasture at our place), and using my own Craftsman tool set, I tore it down into a thousand pieces in the space next to the garage, just because.

One of my first “real” jobs was busting tires and doing oil changes and shocks at Target. After bouncing around at a few shops I eventually found myself working for NAPA, and while I managed two stores before I left, there’s damn little pay in the auto parts industry, so I went back to school to learn HVAC.

But here’s the kicker: Every time I go into a tire store, the back of an auto parts store, or a full service auto repair shop, I feel like I’m “home”. Much like Linus in the old Peanuts strip, it’s almost like a security blanket wraps around me when I go into these places. The smells (tires, oil, antifreeze), the sights (belts hanging on the wall, old parts bins and tools cabinets, the Snap-On calendars), the sounds (air compressors, overhead garage doors), just the overall atmosphere….It’s hard to describe to people who don’t “get it”, but I grew-up in those places, and I feel comfortable and at-ease in that type of environment.

I started to think this may be a “universal” thing amongst Car Guys, but when I talked to my wife about it, she reminded me of two of my friends who are (so called) “Car Guys” (note the quote marks). They’re “Car Guys” only to the extent that that they have nice rides (really nice rides, in fact!), but they don’t get their hands dirty or even change their own oil. (In fact, I doubt that they can.)

So I have a question for y’all: Are there any FABO members here who are “late bloomers” to this whole “car thing”, and if so, do you “get” what I was talking about above? I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops, but for the new guys: Does the garage feel comfortable to you, almost like an extension of home? (Please note I’m not taking about Man Caves, as those are a whole ‘nuther thing, in my opinion.) When you walk into a tire store do you take a deep breath-in just to get a whiff of the tires?

And if no one fesses-up to being a late bloomer, I guess I'm curious to know if my assumption holds ("...I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops").

Anywhoooo, next time my nephew asks me, “Why?”, I guess I’ll have an answer for him.

Thanks, everyone.

Jim

 

[TT5.9mag]

I feel the exact same in my home shop, and believe it or not at work as well. A better question though, is why are you trained in HVAC and your shop has no AC or heat?

 

[1WildRT]

LOL, Story I was told by my mom for years, Apparently I took the cylinder head off dads lawnmower when I was just three years old... Sorry, I have no memory of said event...

I do remember taking my bike apart & putting it back together when I was six, including the rear hub & crankset...

When I was twelve I got a complete Tecumseh three horse vertical shaft engine in pieces in a box... Crank & cam, valves & tappets... All loose in a box... It took me a few days but it ran... And then I scrounged up a Taco mini bike with a blown engine.. Wheels Baby!!
Unfortunately living on a military base in Turkey at the time I rode it maybe five times before base security confiscated it... Pricks... Funny, I have neighbors who get pissed off when kids ride their dirt bikes in the area... I flash back to being a kid & hope they enjoy themselves...

I've always been more at home in a shop than just about anywhere else... Just how I'm built..

 

[68gtxman]

I was out in the shed last night, cleaning the place up and putting things away for winter (the sheds not heated…yet), when my nephew called.

His first question: “Whatcha up to?”

Me: “I’m just hanging out in the shed…..”

Nephew: “Why? It’s friggin’ cold out there!”

And his question got me thinking; Why indeed?

And this got me curious about something else, but bear with me for a bit.

When my father built his garage, many years before I came along, he put-in a service pit in one of the stalls/bays. They’re illegal as hell now where they live, but as a kid I thought nothing of crawling down there to “help him” work on the car, truck, tractor…whatever. I can remember helping him bleed brakes when I was as young as 5 or so. (“Pump it up. Hold it! Let me know when it’s down.”)

When I was about 7 or 8 years old my dad had me tear apart an old Tecumseh lawnmower engine, just to see how it worked. Then he told me to put it back together again, and even though I didn’t have new gaskets, and he had to help me with tightening some things down, the damn thing ran! Sorta….

When I was about 12 or 13 I figured out how to swap the idler pulley in dad's riding lawnmower to make that sucker fly! (I could tell he wanted to be mad, but the smirk on his face gave lie to his anger.)

I bought my first car when I was 14 for $60 (a friend’s car died out in the pasture at our place), and using my own Craftsman tool set, I tore it down into a thousand pieces in the space next to the garage, just because.

One of my first “real” jobs was busting tires and doing oil changes and shocks at Target. After bouncing around at a few shops I eventually found myself working for NAPA, and while I managed two stores before I left, there’s damn little pay in the auto parts industry, so I went back to school to learn HVAC.

But here’s the kicker: Every time I go into a tire store, the back of an auto parts store, or a full service auto repair shop, I feel like I’m “home”. Much like Linus in the old Peanuts strip, it’s almost like a security blanket wraps around me when I go into these places. The smells (tires, oil, antifreeze), the sights (belts hanging on the wall, old parts bins and tools cabinets, the Snap-On calendars), the sounds (air compressors, overhead garage doors), just the overall atmosphere….It’s hard to describe to people who don’t “get it”, but I grew-up in those places, and I feel comfortable and at-ease in that type of environment.

I started to think this may be a “universal” thing amongst Car Guys, but when I talked to my wife about it, she reminded me of two of my friends who are (so called) “Car Guys” (note the quote marks). They’re “Car Guys” only to the extent that that they have nice rides (really nice rides, in fact!), but they don’t get their hands dirty or even change their own oil. (In fact, I doubt that they can.)

So I have a question for y’all: Are there any FABO members here who are “late bloomers” to this whole “car thing”, and if so, do you “get” what I was talking about above? I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops, but for the new guys: Does the garage feel comfortable to you, almost like an extension of home? (Please note I’m not taking about Man Caves, as those are a whole ‘nuther thing, in my opinion.) When you walk into a tire store do you take a deep breath-in just to get a whiff of the tires?

And if no one fesses-up to being a late bloomer, I guess I'm curious to know if my assumption holds ("...I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops").

Anywhoooo, next time my nephew asks me, “Why?”, I guess I’ll have an answer for him.

Thanks, everyone.

Jim

Hi Jim, yes, I feel the same way! My third job in high school was working at an Exxon station. Bought my first car at 17 for $200 - it was a 1969 Belvedere taxi cab with a slant six. I couldn’t afford hiring a mechanic to fix it, so my co-workers told me to fix it myself. I learned to make repairs and as I got deeper into the whole thing, I started cursing the engineers who designed it. One of the mechanics said “if you can do a better job of designing cars, prove it.” Well, I became a mechanical engineer on that challenge, but I also wanted to be in the Air Force. So the car deSign thing was never going to happen.

I started young in life too, taking things apart and getting into trouble for doing so. But, I almost always got the things back together and they worked. Bikes were all that I had access to, so that was my specialty until I got older. I still get grease under my finger nails, but I don’t like the aches and pains from leaning over front fenders for too long. I got into flying 30 years ago and I bought a gyrocopter in 2000. I still haven’t gotten around to making it flight worthy, but someday…

 

[ProjectBazza]

I feel the exact same in my home shop, and believe it or not at work as well. A better question though, is why are you trained in HVAC and your shop has no AC or heat?

The old place had heat in the garage, but we moved here about a year ago and I haven't been able to get around to it quite yet. Between moving-in, some light remodeling, paint, floors, plumbing, carpets, 6 new windows, not to mention the aforementioned nephew's POS 2015 Charger I spent two months working on...

(Word to the Wise: Never buy a high mileage AWD Charger!)

And then I volunteered to get Bazza's puzzle car running.....

But the shed is now good to go for the winter, and I'm back working on the house, currently replacing soffits, fascias, and (weather permitting) rain gutters.

"But just wait until next year!"

 

[ProjectBazza]

Funny, I have neighbors who get pissed off when kids ride their dirt bikes in the area... I flash back to being a kid & hope they enjoy themselves.

We're out a-ways, and our neighborhood encircles a swamp/pond, depending on how much rain we've gotten recently. Quite a few of the kids on the circle either have minibikes or 4-wheelers, and on some weekends I swear they're holding a race event out on the loop!

But we all know about it, and no one seems to mind, as they're good kids, and they're not hurting anyone or anything.

And, yeah. They remind me of when I was a kid, so there's that!

 

[ProjectBazza]

When I was twelve I got a complete Tecumseh three horse vertical shaft engine in pieces in a box... Crank & cam, valves & tappets... All loose in a box... It took me a few days but it ran...

I just read this again...

Impressed, I am! Seriously!

 

[67Dart273]

ANOTHER annoying story from the old days

I "became aware" at who knows, 3, 4? Anyhow, until I was 6, we lived in an old house in a small downtown. In fact this did not have an indoor toilet!!! The only running water was one sink in the kitchen!!! No bathroom!!! Gramps and Dad later remodeled the house when the city put in sewers, and so then there was a bathroom, toilet, and newly remodeled kitchen. and soon we moved out to what had been Gramp's house, which Dad had helped build before WWII, when I was 6 years old

So this is at the town house, I was maybe ? 4 or 5. We had a very small shed, woodshed, with a lean-too addition maybe ?? 6-8ft wide, with a workbench inside. Dad was in there working on something, and I guess I had been pestering him

He had taken a couple of old spark plugs which could be taken apart, and loosened the clamp nut, REMEMBER THOSE??? Of course you don't LOL

So I was putting them into the vise, taking a crescent wrench, and taking them apart and fiddling than back together.

At some point I yanked on the wrench, fell back when it came loose, and sort of fell sideways with my hands outstretched trying to catch myself on the ground. My hand just exactly slid right down the exposed sharp edge of a double bit axe propped up in the corner, cutting the webbing between my thumb and first finger. OFF WE WENT to meet the local doctor, who, me screeming, sewed it up with stitches.

 

[LocuMob]

I used to work in parts stores and gas stations after high school, and I can smell them all now just reminiscing. Didn't really get into cars or fixing things until my early twenties, but it's been therapeutic over the long run.

 

[ProjectBazza]

I used to work in parts stores and gas stations after high school, and I can smell them all now just reminiscing. Didn't really get into cars or fixing things until my early twenties, but it's been therapeutic over the long run.

Yup! You get it!

 

[LocuMob]

Yup! You get it!

I miss the parts store gig. I loved this one I worked at three separate times, even when I made just okay money. Like you said, there just isn't money in the parts store biz, and no one's hiring me as a manager. I'd love to run a store like it was the late 90's again.

 

[1WildRT]

A few weeks back I was at a buddies place, he & his brother are always playing with cars/car parts/farm equipment... Something interesting... As soon as I stepped through the door a smell from the past hit me... Something I hadn't smelled in years but it immediately took me wayyyy back... He had gotten his hands on a still sealed can of 1970's vintage carb cleaner.... This is California, they outlawed that stuff in the early-mid eighties.... It was awesome to smell it again.... Not quite an acid flashback... But close...

 

[66fs]

I was out in the shed last night, cleaning the place up and putting things away for winter (the sheds not heated…yet), when my nephew called.

His first question: “Whatcha up to?”

Me: “I’m just hanging out in the shed…..”

Nephew: “Why? It’s friggin’ cold out there!”

And his question got me thinking; Why indeed?

And this got me curious about something else, but bear with me for a bit.

When my father built his garage, many years before I came along, he put-in a service pit in one of the stalls/bays. They’re illegal as hell now where they live, but as a kid I thought nothing of crawling down there to “help him” work on the car, truck, tractor…whatever. I can remember helping him bleed brakes when I was as young as 5 or so. (“Pump it up. Hold it! Let me know when it’s down.”)

When I was about 7 or 8 years old my dad had me tear apart an old Tecumseh lawnmower engine, just to see how it worked. Then he told me to put it back together again, and even though I didn’t have new gaskets, and he had to help me with tightening some things down, the damn thing ran! Sorta….

When I was about 12 or 13 I figured out how to swap the idler pulley in dad's riding lawnmower to make that sucker fly! (I could tell he wanted to be mad, but the smirk on his face gave lie to his anger.)

I bought my first car when I was 14 for $60 (a friend’s car died out in the pasture at our place), and using my own Craftsman tool set, I tore it down into a thousand pieces in the space next to the garage, just because.

One of my first “real” jobs was busting tires and doing oil changes and shocks at Target. After bouncing around at a few shops I eventually found myself working for NAPA, and while I managed two stores before I left, there’s damn little pay in the auto parts industry, so I went back to school to learn HVAC.

But here’s the kicker: Every time I go into a tire store, the back of an auto parts store, or a full service auto repair shop, I feel like I’m “home”. Much like Linus in the old Peanuts strip, it’s almost like a security blanket wraps around me when I go into these places. The smells (tires, oil, antifreeze), the sights (belts hanging on the wall, old parts bins and tools cabinets, the Snap-On calendars), the sounds (air compressors, overhead garage doors), just the overall atmosphere….It’s hard to describe to people who don’t “get it”, but I grew-up in those places, and I feel comfortable and at-ease in that type of environment.

I started to think this may be a “universal” thing amongst Car Guys, but when I talked to my wife about it, she reminded me of two of my friends who are (so called) “Car Guys” (note the quote marks). They’re “Car Guys” only to the extent that that they have nice rides (really nice rides, in fact!), but they don’t get their hands dirty or even change their own oil. (In fact, I doubt that they can.)

So I have a question for y’all: Are there any FABO members here who are “late bloomers” to this whole “car thing”, and if so, do you “get” what I was talking about above? I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops, but for the new guys: Does the garage feel comfortable to you, almost like an extension of home? (Please note I’m not taking about Man Caves, as those are a whole ‘nuther thing, in my opinion.) When you walk into a tire store do you take a deep breath-in just to get a whiff of the tires?

And if no one fesses-up to being a late bloomer, I guess I'm curious to know if my assumption holds ("...I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops").

Anywhoooo, next time my nephew asks me, “Why?”, I guess I’ll have an answer for him.

Thanks, everyone.

Jim

My basement is my garage. The side of the basement opens up via 2 garage doors. Home to 3 Barracudas, about a dozen engines, about the same number of transmissions, and all the best stuff made for A-Bodies by Mother Mopar. I remember all of what you said and more. I used to work all day, have dinner, get a frozen Milky Way bar and a Dr Pepper, and work in my cousins garage for another 4 or 5 hours. Started pumping gas, changing tires, rebuilt my first HiPo 273 at 19 for a 64 Barracuda 4 speed. After working on cars for years, went back to school for Engineering. The garage is where I go when I have free time. If you do what we do, you are a natural born Engineer. Enjoy the video below of the "Knack".

 

[408 swinger]

Grew up in my grandpa's shop. He was a trucker for many, many years. All of the dirt and grease worked into the old concrete floor, it just has that smell when you walk in the door. From the solvent tank, to the 80w90, good old carb cleaner, to where all the tires were stored. Sure brings back memories. I've been in business myself for almost ten years doing general automotive, specializing in these old Mopars. My shop has a smell, but, not THE smell, lol. Like many learned mechanical skills by tearing stuff apart and putting it back together to see if it would work. Three horse Briggs at 6 to all my bikes. Learned how to operate the welder at ten. Not going to say "learned to weld", lol. I eventually learned to weld. First carb was around the same time, an Autolite four barrel. It was a scrapper carb, but, the old man stuffed it on a Mustang to see if it would even fire. It did! Started helping in the service of the tractors and trailers at 13. Greasing u-joints, changing oil and filters, changing tires. Yep, very good times. They are missed......

 

[Mtrhead]

The smell of the basement of Western Auto and all those Road hugger tires and the smell of rubber and oil

 

[ProjectBazza]

All of the dirt and grease worked into the old concrete floor, it just has that smell when you walk in the door.

I know that smell!

When we moved into our current home we found that the floor in the garage connected to the house was slippery when a little rain or snow got on it. Like "ball bearings on glare ice" slippery, so we had it coated.

The shed also has a concrete floor, and when my wife asked if I thought we should have that coated as well, I told her, "Hell, no! All of those stains and smells tell the history of this place!"

And I'm doing my best to add some "history" of my own to that floor.

 

[ProjectBazza]

The smell of the basement of Western Auto and all those Road hugger tires and the smell of rubber and oil

Nailed it!

Thanks!

 

[ProjectBazza]

Enjoy the video below of the "Knack".

(LOL!) Never seen that one, thanks!

Have to admit the line, "...and other social ineptitude....." made me literally "LOL!"

Me, I never made it past Calculus. Tried twice, but it was like a brick wall for me, so I never achieved an Engineering Degree.

 

[ProjectBazza]

Hi Jim, yes, I feel the same way! My third job in high school was working at an Exxon station. Bought my first car at 17 for $200 - it was a 1969 Belvedere taxi cab with a slant six. I couldn’t afford hiring a mechanic to fix it, so my co-workers told me to fix it myself. I learned to make repairs and as I got deeper into the whole thing, I started cursing the engineers who designed it. One of the mechanics said “if you can do a better job of designing cars, prove it.” Well, I became a mechanical engineer on that challenge, but I also wanted to be in the Air Force. So the car deSign thing was never going to happen.

I started young in life too, taking things apart and getting into trouble for doing so. But, I almost always got the things back together and they worked. Bikes were all that I had access to, so that was my specialty until I got older. I still get grease under my finger nails, but I don’t like the aches and pains from leaning over front fenders for too long. I got into flying 30 years ago and I bought a gyrocopter in 2000. I still haven’t gotten around to making it flight worthy, but someday…

Great story, and sounds like we hung-out with the same type of people when we were young: The ones who were supportive and challenging.

Some of my mentors have passed, but there are times when I still say to myself, "What would Dave tell me to do here?"

As for the aches and pains, I chew Bayer Back & Body like candy sometimes. Upsets my stomach a bit if I take too many, but it helps me "power through", as the saying goes.

 

[66fs]

(LOL!) Never seen that one, thanks!

Have to admit the line, "...and other social ineptitude....." made me literally "LOL!"

Me, I never made it past Calculus. Tried twice, but it was like a brick wall for me, so I never achieved the Engineering Degree.

Sadly, it is utter social ineptitude. To true in my case. Funny, you know you are different, but when I started working with Engineers, it made sense. We were so similar. Calculus is pretty far, most can't get that far. Fully half the class failed Algebra and Trig. Then another 1/2 failed Calculus 1. A lot here are natural Engineers, if not on paper.

 

[ProjectBazza]

He had taken a couple of old spark plugs which could be taken apart, and loosened the clamp nut, REMEMBER THOSE??? Of course you don't LOL

Oh, but I do!

Thanks!

 

[Righty Tighty]

I was out in the shed last night, cleaning the place up and putting things away for winter (the sheds not heated…yet), when my nephew called.

His first question: “Whatcha up to?”

Me: “I’m just hanging out in the shed…..”

Nephew: “Why? It’s friggin’ cold out there!”

And his question got me thinking; Why indeed?

And this got me curious about something else, but bear with me for a bit.

When my father built his garage, many years before I came along, he put-in a service pit in one of the stalls/bays. They’re illegal as hell now where they live, but as a kid I thought nothing of crawling down there to “help him” work on the car, truck, tractor…whatever. I can remember helping him bleed brakes when I was as young as 5 or so. (“Pump it up. Hold it! Let me know when it’s down.”)

When I was about 7 or 8 years old my dad had me tear apart an old Tecumseh lawnmower engine, just to see how it worked. Then he told me to put it back together again, and even though I didn’t have new gaskets, and he had to help me with tightening some things down, the damn thing ran! Sorta….

When I was about 12 or 13 I figured out how to swap the idler pulley in dad's riding lawnmower to make that sucker fly! (I could tell he wanted to be mad, but the smirk on his face gave lie to his anger.)

I bought my first car when I was 14 for $60 (a friend’s car died out in the pasture at our place), and using my own Craftsman tool set, I tore it down into a thousand pieces in the space next to the garage, just because.

One of my first “real” jobs was busting tires and doing oil changes and shocks at Target. After bouncing around at a few shops I eventually found myself working for NAPA, and while I managed two stores before I left, there’s damn little pay in the auto parts industry, so I went back to school to learn HVAC.

But here’s the kicker: Every time I go into a tire store, the back of an auto parts store, or a full service auto repair shop, I feel like I’m “home”. Much like Linus in the old Peanuts strip, it’s almost like a security blanket wraps around me when I go into these places. The smells (tires, oil, antifreeze), the sights (belts hanging on the wall, old parts bins and tools cabinets, the Snap-On calendars), the sounds (air compressors, overhead garage doors), just the overall atmosphere….It’s hard to describe to people who don’t “get it”, but I grew-up in those places, and I feel comfortable and at-ease in that type of environment.

I started to think this may be a “universal” thing amongst Car Guys, but when I talked to my wife about it, she reminded me of two of my friends who are (so called) “Car Guys” (note the quote marks). They’re “Car Guys” only to the extent that that they have nice rides (really nice rides, in fact!), but they don’t get their hands dirty or even change their own oil. (In fact, I doubt that they can.)

So I have a question for y’all: Are there any FABO members here who are “late bloomers” to this whole “car thing”, and if so, do you “get” what I was talking about above? I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops, but for the new guys: Does the garage feel comfortable to you, almost like an extension of home? (Please note I’m not taking about Man Caves, as those are a whole ‘nuther thing, in my opinion.) When you walk into a tire store do you take a deep breath-in just to get a whiff of the tires?

And if no one fesses-up to being a late bloomer, I guess I'm curious to know if my assumption holds ("...I’m going to assume the guys who grew-up like me feel the same as I in their respective shops").

Anywhoooo, next time my nephew asks me, “Why?”, I guess I’ll have an answer for him.

Thanks, everyone.

Jim

Late bloomer here!

So, when I was a kid, my best friend's dad owned an auto shop. When school was out for the summer, he'd allow my friend and me to "work" at his shop a couple days a week. We were about 8 or 9 years old, so the term "work" really only meant he wanted us at the shop to keep us out of trouble. We would do simple things like removing driveshafts, popping off wheels for brake jobs, and most of all, organizing.

It was a lot of fun and I maintained an interest, but I never really got bitten by the car bug until my late thirties. Now, it's safe to say I spend more time in the shop than anywhere else. I don't call myself a car guy because I don't know very much, but it's definitely a top interest.

...and don't me started on man caves!!

 

[missing linc]

I started at an early age, not sure exactly how old I was, but my dad frequently bought and sold vehicles when I was a kid, and I was always interested in "helping" in the garage. I also had two older brothers who were very interested in cars and I would hang out with them every chance I had.
At some point I got a Honda Z50 mini bike, I was probably around 9 or 10 years old and I rode that thing constantly during the warmer months of the year. It would go seemingly forever on 25 cents worth of gas, and I learned to do smoky burnouts by planting my feet in front of the footpegs and opening the throttle up. Eventually all of the abuse took it's toll on the engine and transmission and it no longer ran.
I decided that I would have to take it apart and figure out what was wrong since no one else was going to do it for me. I don't remember how long it took me to get it apart, but once I did, dad was willing to help with getting the necessary parts to fix it. The only thing that I can remember now is that one of the shift forks was broken, and the rings were finished.
I eventually got it back together with some help from my brother and it ran pretty good. Soon after it was sold and I got a 2 stroke dirt bike that was much faster and more suited to my growing size.
Fast forward a few years, bought my first car, a 67 Charger at 15, did some work on it in auto shop class, then sold it a few weeks before I turned 16, and bought a 68 Ford Fairlane 500 2 door with a 289 and C4 automatic transmission. I worked in a gas station after school, like many others here did, and learned how to do tires, oil changes, etc. Took auto shop for 3 years in high school and have always done most of my own repairs and service to my own vehicles.
Now some 45 years and 130+ cars trucks and motorcycles later, I still enjoy spending time in my garage, even if it's just to hang out.

 

[B-i-n-g-o]

My older brother was into cool cars, so I got the bug from him. Early 70s...Duster, Demon, 67-69 Firebirds, 50s Chevy trucks. I got bitten by a bigger bug in 76...computers! I work in IT, but I do just about all my own home and car projects. Got out of even changing my oils for a few years, but would still do major work needed, and got back into my own home where I can do my stuff (long story...). Now, do IT to pay the bills and for supplies and building materials!
Definitely know the grease smell. Paints and thinners, Aerokroil When you know it's a good tool by feel...

 

[ProjectBazza]

The smell of the basement of Western Auto and all those Road hugger tires and the smell oil

Your response popped into my head as I was working in the yard yesterday, and it reminded me....

I worked for Riteway Motor Parts on Glenwood Ave in Mpls "Back In The Day". The basement was dark and dingy, and had shelves and shelves of bare blocks, cranks, and heads. This was also where I dumped brake shoe cores into burlap sacks for the EIS Brakes truck, and although there wasn't supposed to be any asbestos in brake shoes (and pads) by that time, I still had my doubts.

Main floor: Parts counter in the front, machine shop in the back. Want a Model A block repaired, or a D6 crank turned? We could do it.

2nd floor: Offices in front, and the babbit shop behind. If I close my eyes I can still smell whatever the heck smell it was that came off the melted babbit. Maybe it was the burner/heater, I honestly don't know.

Unhealthy as all get-out, but still...good memories!

Edit: I just remembered one of the parts delivery drivers, Charlie. He had retired from the City of Mpls Street Maintenance Dept in his mid-fifties, but came to work for Riteway to keep himself "in the game", as he put it. He always carried Twinkies, HoHo's (sp?), doughnuts, and all sort of treats in his van, and while everyone else would have to get out and walk into Goodyear, Firestone (etc) to deliver a part, Charlie would just honk his horn and drive right in, as all the mechanics got free Twinkes from him! Anyway, Charlie also ran the football parlay cards all across Mpls, and everyone knew about it. Even the police, from what I heard, and I assume this is what he meant when he told me he was working to stay "in the game".

I just realized I hadn't thought of this (Charlie and the parlay cards) for 20+ years.