How the machine diesease started.......

I often get asked, "how did you get into cars?"

There is no short answer to this, it would be alot easier to answer, "how did I get into machines?" I usually have to think about it and get into a long winded explanation that after its over, I think "I should have said this or that as well," or I forget the order of events and add things.  I am going to use this as an opportunity to document and organise the life events that helped to cultivate what I call a disease. Its not really a disease, its not really an obsession (which it is) and its a good portion art form and science to me, this business of machines.

I grew up on a farm in small town Alberta. We weren't poor, but we weren't rich either. I am fortunate to have a resourceful and intelligent family that would rather figure things out for themselves and fix or build something than pay someone to do it for them. This thought process is a learned behaviour which led to me analysing machines constantly, everyday and every machine I see. When I was little, 5 or so, I would take things apart to see how they worked, I would never be able to put them back together at this age, but I certainly learnt alot. When my dad or my grandpa would do mechanical work on machinery or the vehicles I would get frustrated because all I could do was watch. I wanted to work like a man and fix things.

After years of observing and hold this while I tighten it, or get me a 3/8 ratchet with a half inch deep socket for me I finally had a chance to work on something. At the age of twelve I got ahold of a 1960s mini bike with a 5 HP Tecumseh engine on it that belonged to my mom and uncles when they were kids. My grandpas brother, who lived in the US brought it up for them as a present.

The picture above is similar to the mini bike I Had as a kid. My grandpa and mom helped me pull the engine out of it. I joined 4H Small engines. Every Wednesday my mom would bring me down to the fire hall in our little town and a mechanic who volunteered would supervise us with our rebuilds. I learnt to tear the motor down, assess the damage and document it in an "as found" condition spreadsheet. At the same time I got a "job" at the local mechanics shop where I would sweep the floors and clean tools and parts in exchange for parts and knowledge. My grandpa helped me sand down the frame and we shot it with a coat of fire engine red, that I called "candy apple red". I polished the chrome forks and handle bars with an SOS pad and removed the fenders to make it a "chopper". While all of this was going on, at my weekly 4H night I was learning how to hone cylinders, do a valve job, measure bearing clearance, I loved it. I couldn't get enough, the more I learned, the more I wanted to do it. I know at this early age that I wanted to be a machinist/mechanic. My grandpa and mom helped me reassemble the bike in its freshly overhauled form. My mom spent lots of time with me finding pats and tires and stayed with me at the 4H meetings dedicating time effort and money towards the project. When it came time to demonstrate our newly learned skills at the year end wrap up for 4H, I didn't know we were getting judged and I won first place overall, even beating the "big kids" who had done it for a few years already. I loved that bike, I could do a catwalk with it when you are 12 that seemed like forever. I crashed it so many times! even dislocating my thumb once, but it kept on going and I never damaged it.

When I was 13 our school had a magazine subscription fundraiser. My parents allowed me to pick one magazine to subscribe to. I picked Hot Rod magazine and would obsess over the contents within. What really made me nuts was high quality craftsmanship. I wanted to learn how to do it all for myself and build the most bad ass machines for myself. At this time I was talking to my parents about getting a car to rebuild so I could drive when I was 16. On my 13th birthday I was presented with a 1978 Chevrolet Malibu. It was big, it was ugly, it was rusty, must and decrepit and I was in love!!!!!

This is very similar to the Malibu I had as a kid

My first order of business was to strip all of the front sheet metal off and store it in a shed on the farm. I scoured the classifieds for 350/350 engine and transmission combo to dump into it. The car came with a 200 CID v6 and to me it wasn't satisfactory. I bought all new front end parts, I scraped all the grease and crusties off the frame and went to work. painting each piece with tremclad as they came off the car and reassembling it. I lucked out and found a rebuilt 350 for $500. When my grandpa and I came to pick it up, the guy selling the engine told us that he built a big block for his project car and didn't need it. He told us it had a mild performance can, it had a low rise intake on it and an HEI ignition. When he found out it was me wanting it, he threw in a TH350 tranney and a bunch of other parts, seriously lucked out. This engine was fairly hot and I drove the car for 5 years with the engine in it. We installed the engine and rented a sandblaster and nailed all the panels. We cut out all the rust and my grandpa and uncle helped me do all the bodywork. Sanding and applying my first bunch of filler. Once it was satisfactory we primed it with red oxide primer. I used to frequently visit the junk yard finding mint dashes and seats, I even found some old Cragar SS that we sandblasted the peeling centres and painted black.

The first day I drove it to school I felt like a rock star!!!!! Now, I don't condone street racing, but this is about the time the first of the Camaro SS with the LS engines came out and everyone had a fox body mustang. I lined up against many of both. I beat all of them by over 4 car lengths. I even raced a mustang  with nitrous and beat him as well. In my mind I was king of the streets. I was constantly working on my car. Every weekend I would go to my spots and buy better parts and install them, some of them were major fails, but I was always experimenting in those days. I would drive an hour into the city to a 50s diner and show it off as often as I could. I was always proud of the work that I did.

In grade 12, even though I had good marks, I wanted to go with a career path that would eventually lead to being a trades person. I went to college for Industrial Maintenance Technology where I learnt basic machining, welding and metal trades. I went on from this and apprenticed as a millwright receiving my journeyman with a red seal at 21. I worked in lots of camps in the oilfield and was responsible as a young man. I have a vibrant mind and wanted to know if there was something else out there. I applied for a job at Egberts Street Rods in Edmonton where I learnt to TIG aluminum and eventually became the supervisor in the machine shop before the age of 25. I was asked if I wanted to apprentice as a body man and work on the floor when the machine shop was slow. I couldn't pull a pen out fast enough to sign the apprenticeship papers!!!!! I became a journeyman prepper/painter. I build many high end cars while I worked here, but unfortunately lost the passion from working on them everyday. While I worked here I also crewed for a blown alcohol funny car. I moved on from both and worked in a chemical factory as a maintenance mechanic/machinist.

As a hobby I started restoring cars and I learn more and more. I love it. especially making my own stuff. I plan to quite my job and work on cool stuff everyday and make money doing what I love, but for now, I like the stability of my day job and the leisure time of working on my stuff.