How long have you worked on cars? Not loved then, not driven them, but really worked on them? How has your approach to the hobby\/obsession\/all-consuming passion changed in that time?<\/p>\n
I’ve been into vehicles and specifically cars for as long as I can remember (well before my age acquired a second digit, even), so in a sense I had always been accumulating knowledge about them before I really started getting grease under my fingernails. I didn’t really work on them, and even shied away from that pursuit to a degree until I bought two first-gen RX-7s (on a whim–is there any other way to buy a car?) as project cars about five years ago. After that, my experience and knowledge of cars ramped up exponentially as I’ve averaged about one engine swap a year since then, with varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n
When I first started wrenching under the hood I didn’t have the touch with tools that I do now. A fastener that took me ten minutes to loosen then would take me a matter of seconds now, and on the other end I can sense when a bolt or screw is really tight enough. I don’t have to consciously think about which way to turn a nut to loosen it when reaching around the back side of a component to get to the fastener–my fingers just know which way to turn it. And I can visualize the engine and drivetrain as a system and in terms of their specific subsystems in a heartbeat after I pop the hood, or even just driving down the road thinking about the internal combustion that’s taking place on the other side of the firewall.<\/p>\n
In spite of all this, I think my appetite for digging around under the hood has mellowed somewhat. Within the first couple of years I would work on the car at all hours of the night for hours at a time with no food, tools in disarray, multiple bandaids on each hand. More of my evenings and weekends were spent fixing this or tweaking that. Now, though… I think about my approach to working on my Audi, and it’s almost like I need to organize my garage, block off a whole Saturday, get the boombox, shop towels, etc, just to begin to undertake a repair or upgrade.<\/p>\n
Maybe I’m just more realistic about the time it actually takes me to do what I used to think I could get done much more quickly. I certainly don’t leave as many “projects” half done and come back to them the next day or the next week. I’ll usually only start on something if I have all the necessary tools and parts–before it was almost like I needed to compulsively disassemble something otherwise I’d go nuts.<\/p>\n
Maybe I’m just less enthusiastic about cars in general. I’ve certanly been more frugal in my spending lately, and for the first time in a while I don’t have a project car, at least not one in progress (the 240Z resto is still waiting for takeoff, as it were). Having a project tends to spur my interest and involvement in the hobby, I think.<\/p>\n
I dunno. I could conjecture further about reasons why I feel like I’ve mellowed out but the attitude remains. And I think it’s a good thing. There’s more balance–I’m not as voracious about turning wrenches and it’s given place to other pursuits in my life. So in the end it’s not a negative thing, or really overwhelmingly positive, but more of an observation than anything else.<\/p>\n
How has your own interest waxed and waned over the years? Where does it stand now?<\/p>\n