Welcome to Havener Garage

Let me start out by saying this: A real man should be able to work on his own car.  Of course there will always be some things that are out of reach due to skill level or available tools.  Not everyone will be able to rebuild an engine or adjust valves.  But at the bare minimum, we should be able to do an oil change, replace an air filter, check all the fluid levels, replace spark plugs, etc.

Personally, I feel pretty emasculated if I have to take my car someone to let some other guy work on it.  Especially oil changes - I may as well wear a dress to Jiffy Lube.  The fact is though that some jobs are still out of reach, but I'm finding that as long as you have good instructions, good tools, some patience, and ideally someone else to work with, it can be done.

My pride and joy as a youngster.  I crawled under there
plenty of times to get to the very hard to reach oil
filter.  I should have just bought some jack stands
or ramps instead of eating gravel every time.

Now of course we all have to start somewhere.  For me, it was changing the oil on one of my first cars.  And not torquing the drain plug tight enough so I thought my engine had an oil leak when I saw oil dripping out the bottom a couple days later.  I took the car to an auto shop fearing some major issue with the engine and they told me the last idiot who changed my oil didn't tighten the drain correctly.  And who did I use anyway, they asked?  I couldn't remember, some no-name shop out of town I'm sure nobody has ever heard of anyway, but thanks for tightening the drain plug guys, oh look at the time gotta go!

My brother had some similar experiences, such as neglecting the oil filter gasket and spewing oil all over the driveway after an oil change.  But these are things you learn from.  You get familiar with your car by working on it, and it takes you to the next level.  Before long you're pulling off the alternator by yourself to get it rebuilt, changing struts, brake rotors and pads, and eventually the jobs you're afraid to tackle get less and less.

Working with our dad to restore a 1971 Suburban many
moons ago. I have no memory of that angle grinder in my hand,
but I do remember scrubbing off gunk with a wire brush.

I will admit I had gotten lazy over the years.  Disposing of used oil wasn't as easy as pouring it all on "the stump" back on our five acres in Montana.  I had to drive down to the only auto parts store I knew of that would take old oil.  I was able to afford nicer cars, and I was more reluctant to dive into the engine bay.  Busting your knuckles on a little four cylinder engine in a Geo Storm is one thing, but a BMW or Acura is another.  Especially with all the naysayers crowing that "Ya can't work on cars these days, it's all computers and unserviceable parts under the hood! Ya can't fix anything any more!"


Now that my Acura is 12 years old with over 175,000 miles and I'm not really afraid of breaking it I started turning some wrenches again and I've found out that overall, it's still just parts under the hood.  There might be more of them, but most maintenance tasks are still doable, especially if you buy the right tools.  Once you actually do things like rebuild your brake calipers, the fear of "messing something up" when you touch the brakes for any reason goes away.  You see how it all goes together and things start getting demystified.

I'm lucky that my brother also has similar interests, and is a blast to work with, and has garage space to use while I clean mine out.  This blog will follow our various projects maintaining, modifying, and just tinkering with cars and stuff, along with all the mistakes made along the way.

Now, get out there and turn some wrenches!