three years ago i owned a toyota camry, and had never even once popped the hood. i couldn't tell left from right when it came to cars.

fast foward to today.

just took the 240sx for its first 100 mile round trip last night. start it up today and drove about 3 miles. smelled gas. immediately i thought... leaky injectors! sure enough, i pulled over and one of the injectors was leaking onto the intake manifold. i immediately went home and got to work.

pulled out my bag of spare injectors. i thought, "wtf... who the hell has a bag of spare injectors? whatever." went downstairs, pulled the bad injector. the seals were crushed on both sides. i pulled it and put in a new one. didn't have motor oil so i used redline to lube the old seals on the used injector. cranked. click. engine doesn't turn. two options go off in my head. cyl#3 is flooded and locked, or the starter is seized. i tried a two more times and got the same results. fine.

went back upstairs and thought about how lucky you guys who have garages are. got a few more tools. went downstairs. pulled #3 sparkie and flashed a light inside. yep, flooded. pulled the relevant fuses and put a rag over cyl#3. cranked. no turn over! OMG. put the battery box on the battery and cranked. yay it turns. probably drained the battery a bit from trying to crank a locked engine.

crank it a few times to shoot the excess fuel onto the rag. checked it again, nice and dry. put the sparkie back in and it started up after a few cranks. yay. drove it around the block. checked for leaks. did that maybe ten more times. no leak. whew.

at this point a few of my japanese neighbors who had walked by congratulated me and told me they were really impressed. at which point, i was like wtf... went back upstairs to put my tools away. looked around my room. i see an old engine, 2 old calipers, starter, water pump, exhaust and intake manifolds, throttle body, tools, jacks, jackstands, a transmission, etc...

and so i realized i am now one of those fucking car idiots... so when did you realize you were one?

When I was seven, and could draw cars in three dimensions.

When I looked at my bank account, and realized it was all in the 7 :( / :)

When I drove a beat up 1984 Frod Bronco II for 15 miles with a non-functioning alternator from the illegal street races at 4am. No Juice going into the battery, zero lights and almost dying on me every time I hit the gas.

Made it home and went to AutoZone later in the morning knowing exactly what was wrong with my vehicle.

I've never once changed my own oil.

Los que no cambian su propio aceite son punales.

9thg grade going home from work and saw a 3rd gen/ 69 z28 street race.

when i was a kid. helped my dad work on his rx 2 rally car.

i;ve been hooked ever since

On my first Prelude when I was 16, the heater core started to leak and everyone quoted me 500+ to fix it. . .

I've been working on all my cars ever since :)

When I started to carry around enough tools to rebuild my engine during all car trips.

I took a shop class in high school cause I figured it'd be nice to be able to change my own oil, back then I couldn't tell an alternater from a distributor cap (funny story). Two years later I was spending all my time in the shop. A year later my friends gf's didn't like hanging around us cause "All you guys ever talk about is cars!". 6 months ago me and a friend turned an old shed on my property into a work shop, complete with engine stand, jacks, stands, parts washer etc. 2-3 months after that I passed 2 ASE tests without ever having taken a motor apart myself. A month later I started college for auto tech and realized the only person in there that knew more then me was the teacher. Take your pick :)

Can't think of a time that I wasn't a car or motorcycle or snowmobile person.

I have pictures from waaaaaaay back when of my room in the parents house with snowmobile parts and jeep parts all over the desk, and it just seems that its stayed that way.

when i was 8, i could name every car that passed by (im in nyc btw), change the oil, and draw cars in 3 dimensions like $100T2 but only a times better. woot.

oh yeah and i knew more about our MPV more than my parents did.i was the commander of the wipers, radio, and ac/heater

The first time I changed King's oil..............

I realized it when I was two years old and I went through an entire parking lot of cars and named every single one (Escort, Mazda, Ford, etc.). The only one that had me stumped ws a 1964 Chrysler. :(

I realized it when I was two years old and I went through an entire parking lot of cars and named every single one (Escort, Mazda, Ford, etc.). The only one that had me stumped ws a 1964 Chrysler. :(
yah okayyy smartass. :bssmile:

Ever since i started saying "Zooooooooooooommmmmmmm PPSShh!" without knowing it. I swear to God It's in my subconscious.

tricycle... power wheels... bicycle... gokarts... atv... cars.

Changeing your own oil is for poor people, make the mexicans do it.

I kinda became a bit of a "car person" when i got one. Before that, not really.

But looking around my place, there's a saddle next to my fireplace, halter/leadrope hanging on the closet door, Wyoming Cowboys banner on my entertainment center, a set of spark plugs on top of my TV, a 16-bit ISA CompuGen 1100 and a CompuScope board in those gray anti-static bags on my dining room table, an old computer monitor laying face-down on the chair by said table.

In my closet lives a porn server, some bullriding gear, an old analog oscilloscope, a Powerbook 140 (16mHz '030, 80MB HD, 640x400 black-white display), and a metric shit-ton of power, serial, phone, ethernet, and various other cables.

sorry for the rant... i don't even remember what thread i'm in right now... mmm, sugar cookies....

Did my first standalone at 16.

After my dad bought the FC in '95 I fell in love with that car and wanted to help him work on it. I remember being about 13 or 14 and my Dad raced some douche in an Integra. My Dad beat him up to about 15 over the speed limit, hit the brakes and said, "Time to slow back down. The Integra isn't worth the speeding ticket."

wow...

seems like alot of you guys started early. i guess i'm a late bloomer.

the only thing i got from my dad was a stubborn refusal to drive auto.

I knew how to change oil and simple tune ups, but I never did anything more than that until I was 16-17. We always had a stick car in the family and I always watched how driving one worked. I have always had a fascination with driving.