I am about to buy my first car soon and I am wanting to learn how to work with a car. I know that the best way to learn for me is hands on, but I don't really have an opportunity to do that. Does anyone here know of a good youtube series on how to learn the basic workings of an engine?
what kind of car? i suggest buying the bentley repair guide for your car. it's an indepth manual that mechanics use. pretty helpful.
It really is a matter of just do it. When something breaks, hesitate from taking it to someone else. Look up how to fix the problem. Someone on some forum probably had the same problem, made a post, and had people respond on how to fix it. Best thing do is to get involved in a forum that a lot of other people with that car are on. I own a jeep, so I use to be very active on jeepforum. There are a ton different forums for certain car makes in general and depending on how popular the vehicle is, it might have it's own forum with a large community. Read up the problems that other people have with their car or what they want to do to it and see how they managed to fix the problem. I learned a ton about jeeps, even about ones that were not even the model I own, just from browsing through the forum.
I would suggest Mighty Car Mods on Youtube. But if you have no experience at all, it does not matter where you start, but I would not recommend messing with brakes, steering and generally the safety stuff. Best way is to register on forums for your car and seeing other peoples projects. You will see what they did and how they did it. Also search for DIY stuff. There is a lot of to learn and your abbility to fix something on your car depends on what car you buy. Modern cars are so filled with electronics, that its pretty imposible to fix something on your own expept for changing oil, filters or spark plugs. Also be prepared to invest in tools. I am a car guy myself, so you can send me a PM if you need something specific. Good luck :)
Bentley's are great to have, though not all models are covered or covered as in depth as others. The Bentley guide for w124 Mercedes' is kind of odd; some things are detailed step-by-step, others are just barely covered in an intro paragraph.
Are you completely new to the internal combustion engine? If so, look on craigslist for a lawn mower or some other small, single cylinder lawn tool. Service and check clearances (you should be able to find manuals pretty easily, especially if it's a Briggs & Straton engine) and just use that to tinker with so you can understand how an engine works.
As above - Mighty Car Mods have some great tutorials on how to do basic DIY, and they have fantastic humour at the same time (Aussie blokes FTW!)
Utilising manuals (eg. Haynes or Gregory's) is a great start too - though I am still trying to locate one for my Subaru (have not yet bothered to get one online - I prefer the actual manual, not downloaded pages)
If you buy a generic car (Mazda, Subaru, Ford, Holden, Hyundai etc) then most YT Vids based on those particular models will be practically all you need. :-) Let us know what you get!
the narration reminds me of topgear.
Eric the car guy is awesome. Very easy to digest and goes in to some fairly in depth information. I've been working on all kinds of cars for 10ish years now. everything from a modern Mercury suv to 50's Porsche and MGs. Feel free to ask me for any help too, I'd be happy to I've any advice I have
Holy shit with the necro
This probably should have been in Cars, and I don't really see a huge problem with necro (starting a new linked topic is almost always better though) for Food and Auto, except that this is topic was a question, so there was no real reason to revive it.
supahflyblt, there should be a reply as linked Topic to the right of the date next to a post. I would click that and start a new topic about this subject next time. Also make sure to put it the new topic under the Vehicle: Cars section. Thanks.
It does tell you when the topic is ancient...