Oppo, what was your first mod/repair?

"Takuro Spirit" (takurospirit)
10/17/2014 at 13:40 • Filed to: None

We all have cars. Have had cars. We all love them (most of us, anyways). But surely not everyone was handed a brand new car for their first ride, and surely most of us had to repair something on our cars, or change something to our liking, either visually or mechanically to improve performance/efficiency/reliability.

So what was your modification or repair, Oppo?

Mine? I had to replace a few items on my $1500 '77 Firebird Espirt when I got it. EGR valve, PCV valve and hose, valve cover gaskets... little things. Broke my first bolt ever doing the valve covers. Apparently the WD-40 we had for lubing door hinges around the house wasn't a good enough penetrant. A ton of silicone bought at Carquest remedied that.

Made me hate on working cars ever since, though. Every time I broke a bolt on any other car I cried, and thought of my 'Bird.

DISCUSSION (26)

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 13:44

I reconnected the hose for my windshield washer fluid. Which is about the same as plugging in a power chord to a socket.

Kinja'd!!!

CalzoneGolem > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 13:44

A bumpin' stereo for me tunes!

One of my coworkers needed cash bad and sold my his head unit, a pair of 6x9s, an amp and a 13" sub in a box for like $75. I blew a lot of fuses figuring out how to put that in my car.

DocWalt > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 13:46

I replaced rear shocks on my first car, a rusty POS Mk3 Supra. My father was highly against me doing it by myself because he was deathly afraid that I'd mess up using the spring compressors, but I did it myself. Now I've built/rebuilt a few engines (and they mostly worked right!) and replaced just about every single moving piece on my GTI.

Mercedes Streeter > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 13:46

First car: 2001 KIA Rio sedan.
First mod?

Kinja'd!!!

Last time I saw the car was a year ago, awaiting wholesale auction. Still has the sticker.

Mistake...never put stickers on your paint. I learned my lesson before I got my smart...

Kinja'd!!!

deekster_caddy > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 13:51

My first mod was to flip that air cleaner lid shown upside down creating the coolest sound...

OPPOsaurus WRX > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 13:52

I forget which was first, either a K&N 'cold air intake' or a Gibson exhaust on a 95 Explorer.

Takuro Spirit > deekster_caddy
10/17/2014 at 13:52

That was my SECOND mod. :D

Along with removing the aftermarket alarm that you see mounted to the driver's inner fender.

camaroboy68ss > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:01

Hmm, on my 99 silverado it was mainly just bulbs that needed replacing at first. Biggest pain was having the battery go at the high school after football practice.

Takuro Spirit > camaroboy68ss
10/17/2014 at 14:04

Heh, it took me a couple times of having a dead battery at school before I learned to ALWAYS check that my headlights were off, since the Firebird didn't have a warning chime for them.

I also started carrying jumper cables in case I forgot again.

Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:08

I swapped out the stereo on my Sentra SE-R Spec V for one with a usb input.

Cé hé sin > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:09

I fitted a manual choke to a Mk1 Escort for the princely sum of £10 (one carb, one choke cable with knob, both to be removed from the donor car because those were the days when scrappers allowed you rummage through the stock by yourself and perform your own extractions).

Brickman > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:12

I don't remember my 1st repair, but my biggest project so far is I need to replace the slave cylinder in my dads S10. Going to start working on it next week :)

Then take the dash out of my 96 caravan to replace the leaky evaporator core and stop polluting the lovely earth with R-134a :D

JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder! > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:14

First thing I did on the Volvo when I got it was headlights. It needed new bulbs very badly. I found a video on how to change them... Little did I know this was the complicated way. I took out the whole headlight to do one bulb! Dad then showed up and changed the other without even taking the light out. I felt dumb.

then it was fixing that damn ETM which thank god only needed a new hose clamp and to be re attatched. Im learning now that double check everything since it seems a lot easier than what I initially thought.

ly2v8-Brian > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:18

I can't rember if it was changing out the rear drums, diff fluid, or tranny filter that was first on my s10.

twochevrons > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:23

I started young. I don't know exactly when it was, but I can't have been very old at all when I first tried my hand at car repair. I liked to sit with my father while he worked on cars (that's me in the photo), especially when he was working on his lovingly-restored Jaguar XK150. Anyway, he was doing some work on the carburettor of our Ford Anglia, and I thought, in my little toddler brain, that while the air filter was out, I would help him out by giving it a wash, like I had seen him do on the Jag. Unfortunately for me, I did not know the difference between paper and foam air filters, and ended up turning a perfectly-good filter into a soggy mess. Twenty-something years later, and I still haven't lived that one down.

Kinja'd!!!

That experience didn't put me off, though, and I always remained interested in the automotive exploits of my father and his friends (including autocrossing the aforementioned Jaguar). In terms of actually-successful repairs, Dad's attitude was that if I was going to start driving cars, I was going to learn how to fix them, too. Not long after I started driving, I rebuilt the twin SU carburettors on our Triumph 2500, under his guidance, and gave the rest of the car a thorough tune-up with new plugs and points. I'll be quite happy if I never have to set a dwell angle ever again, but stripping those carburettors down gave me quite an appreciation for the brilliant engineering that went into them.

Takuro Spirit > twochevrons
10/17/2014 at 14:29

Very nice story! I remember "helping" out under the hood of my dad's Celica ST (with the flip forward hood!) and catching the bug early on. I was in small engines class in high school when I got the Firebird, before that I never really worked on the family's cars, other than helping get wrenches during oil changes, and washing them down on weekends.

camaroboy68ss > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:30

mine was dead dead. Turns out it was the original battery from 99, so it did live for 10 years before going

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 14:31

Adjusting the carb on my old Brat so it would stay running.

Stapleface-Now Hyphenated! > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 15:03

Not counting routine maintenance and a new set of speakers, the first legitimate repair I did was the brake light switch on a 83 Olds Cutlass

MonkeePuzzle > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 15:31

engine swap on 88 subaru after it had frequent overheating issues

Denver Is Stuck In The 90s > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 15:49

Not my car, but I helped SpecialBuick62 replace the Distributor Cap & Rotor as well as the spark plug wires in His 62 buick special. AKA, He invited me over and I did it for him because he was feeling lazy. It was fun though, Ive been in that car many times, and I didnt realize how bad it was running until I heard it turn over after that repair. It runs so much better now. I had a lot of fun with that, Its invigorating to fix a car

uofime > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 15:52

new head unit and speakers all around within a months of getting the car. Come to think of it I did the same thing on my second car as well. Why are OEM speakers such crap?

Ralstig > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 16:13

Water pump on a POS 94 Dodge shadow. Car blew a headgasket with 75K on it. Can't complain too much, the car was free. :)

BoulderZ > Takuro Spirit
10/17/2014 at 16:17

Earliest repairs I can remember were oil changes in our early family cars, though I don't remember what order they were in. There was a green 70s window van (Dodge, probably), and an AMC Hornet (my Dad's commuter, a total rusty basket-case he nicknamed FRAG). I was 2 or 3 at the time; I'm sure I was a *big* help. I try to remember that and be patient with my son who loves to help now. We also used to re-pack the boat trailer bearings every spring, too. I always liked that (fun for a little kid to get greasy/dirty with parent-approval). I did all my own on my first car, too, the truck that I still have. I think I was a freshman in college and it needed front brakes. I couldn't afford to pay someone, but I could afford parts, knew the basics, and I owned tools and had nothing to lose. New pads, turned rotors, and back to school. The rest is history. Interested to see if my son will want to work on cars, or do a project car working up to turning 16.

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Takuro Spirit
10/18/2014 at 00:01

My first repair was on my parents' minivan. I was ten or eleven at the time. The Pontiac Trans Sport, and likely it's other GM badge-cousins in '97 had storage compartments over the rear wheel wells. GM in its infinite wisdom, used a flexible piece of plastic as the hinge. Plastic will only flex for so long at the mercy of children, and the plastic tore, leaving the lid unattached. I pulled out an old small tool set I'd inherited from my grandfather, and without permission from my parents, I set about disassembling the lid, and some of the interior of the minivan. Once I'd got the broken plastic strip out, I very carefully ran a strip of duct tape down each side, punched out the screw holes, and then reassembled with the plastic strip back together. Because of the way everything was sandwiched together, you could barely tell the duct tape was there. The two-layered duct tape hinge held for the next year or so of our ownership, until the transmission started having issues at around the 200,000 mile mark and my parents traded it in. The dealer presumably fixed and resold it as I saw it around town a few times afterwards. It had a fairly distinctive crack in the rear bumper from my mother backing it into the lawnmower that is still stored in the stupidest place in my parents garage, so was easy to recognize. I always wondered if anyone had ever noticed my duct tape fix. My parents weren't thrilled that I pulled their van apart, but were happy I got it back together and that the lid worked with only about 20¢ of duct tape invested.

The first repair I did on a vehicle I own, I actually had to pull out receipts to figure this one out as I did a whole bunch of rather mundane tasks right after buying, was to replace the block heater cord. Not just put a new 99¢ hardware store plug on it, replace the whole thing with a $35 cord from the dealer because a 99¢ hardware store plug wasn't good enough for MY 22 year old, 285,000 mile Jeep. I honestly forgot that I'd done that... I was expecting it to be changing fluids or something like that. Keeping records is a useful practice to which everyone should aspire!

My first actual mod? I wouldn't really consider it a proper mod because I just took off some ugly as sin round orange lights that a previous owner had installed and put on some cheapy parts-store ones. What I would consider my first real modification was swapping out the original '91 distributor out of the Jeep with one from a '95 model when the cam position sensor died. The later version had a cam position sensor (sync generator, stator, whatever you want to call it) that was accessible after only taking off the rotor, as opposed to the earlier style where you needed to completely tear down the dizzy to get at it.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Takuro Spirit
10/18/2014 at 02:47

First thing I ever did was change the ARBs on my Alfa 156 from standard to GTA Sportwagon ones (1mm thicker up front, 3mm thicker at the rear) plus polybushes. Just google what you need to do for the front bar. I didn't start easy :S