Overhaulin'

How do people learn enough about the mechanicals of cars to do at home restorations of classic cars?

i want to get into classic car restoration from the 60's but how do people learn how to preform all the mechanical stuff during the restoration

Public Comments

1. I enrolled in a vocational school near my house and later in a community college. You can't learn hands on experience from a book.
2. Practice, mistakes, books, and friends.
3. school or just by reading books and doing it really so many differrent parts to re doing a car have to know something about everything most of it you can learn by a book and doing it or scools that teach it auto body auto shop auto paint learn most of it by watching others do it and then doing it just like they did
4. I can only speak for myself of course but not all persons learn from any school. I personally have been restoring classic muscle and antique auto's for many years now and not a bit of the knowledge has come from a school. Being interested in this area since high school, I started by doing all of my own repairs. Doing most all repairs yourself brings most knowledge by making mistakes. HOT ROD magazine provided a lot of knowledge for me and then of course there are your friends that will be glad to help out. Cars from the 60's (and before) are very simple creatures not having all of today's pipes, wires, belts and additional parts that get into the way. Granted, that other shops are responsible for the rebuilding of my transmissions and engines, but my shop is responsible for literally every other aspect of the restoration. My very first complete auto restoration took me very long as every nut and bolt that came from the car was tagged as to what location it came from. Enough of this and a person can restore in his sleep. The one thing that I would caution you about is to NOT to try restoring the complete auto in one location, ie: engine rebuild/body restorations. This has created bad results for me in the past. Having greasy motor parts in the same location as body work is a bad idea as it only creates more work for the builder. Trial and error may be unprofessional and time consumming in the beggining, also unpreferred by most. But as far as I am concerned, is the best way to learn by yourself. Hope that this helps you. Good luck.