no wonder the kids today are not into cars

[grumpyvette]

I was over at one of my neighbors garages yesterday evening , I stopped by to lend a hand for an hour or so during a cam swap or up grade, he called and asked me to stop by because he knows I,m into Pontiac's and have helped him in the past, on one of his sons cars.
its a 1969 lemans with a 400 Pontiac engine, the only aftermarket performance part he had up till now was an edelbrock intake, he found cheap at a local swap meet.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/edl-2956
hes rebuilding the car slowly, as his finances allow.
he has done some mods by swapping a few parts from a salvaged wrecked car, a 12 bolt chevy differential with, what he says are, 3.45:1 ratio rear gears, and a muncie 4 speed trans, both of which he got out of a wrecked 1970 chevelle, he bought as a wreck locally for $500, his dad found a flywheel, bell housing and starter , and clutch on craigs list for under $120.
when I was younger it was not hard to find older guys who were into working on cars, now it seems to be a far less common hobby with fewer guys teaching the younger guys and parts and labor prices have sky-rocketed.
now he got the cam and lifters someplace local on a close out deal,new in the box, for less than $250 , but he went to several speed shops to price the instal cost and was quoted $1200 at one place and $1500 at another place. ......now I know from experience it takes less than 4-5 hours to do the job in a home garage , so thats over $200 an hour for labor cost which in my opinion makes the cost absurd!
my neighbor is hardly experienced and has minimal tools and ask me to actually install the cam once he had the engine mostly apart, we had the car back together and running in less than 3 hours and we were mostly drinking coffee and B.S.ing about the older cars, hardly in a hurry.
I forced him to buy a new timing chain, as the original had to much slack. but even with the gaskets and timing chain set, cam, lifters he had about $400 in parts and if he had been forced to pay $1200 more to have it installed I can see why it would be very cost prohibitive
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CRN-283801/
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/rhl-9518/overview/
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/cca-2112

HERES TWO PICTURES OF THE SAME YEAR CAR I FOUND POSTED ELSE WARE, LOOK AT ALL THE ROOM TO WORK! DAMN I MISS THE OLDER MUSCLE CARS

this car looks similar but his paints not as nice and his is dark green,m I wish my corvette was that easy to work on, the kids got a great project car anyone should be proud to own

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[chromebumpers]

I think on simpler terms. I just don't see kids having the ambitions we had when we were of this age. When I was 15,16 and 17 I was working for home improvement contractors during the summers. Work was hard but the pay was great. I truly believe life was a lot simpler for us then the teens of today, I know I wouldn't want to be growing up today, too much competition for everything and very complicated. We didn't deal with the constant barrage of bad news around the world everyday coming from every direction. No cell phone, no computers, no email, texting and no social media. Did we have such a hard time finding a job? Compete against grandpa for bagging at the local supermarkets? 35% of your pay going for taxes and fees? I know there wasn't the competition there is today to get into college. The debt you have after you finish school (if you finish school). No longer are the steel mill, phone co., working for a big manufacture without a college degree and expect to stay there for life working your way up the ladder and getting a nice guaranteed retirement.
The cars that are affordable today are complicated compared to the cars that were cheap in our day, I'm sure that has a negative effect on car interest today among teens.

 

[87vette81big]

Its like Rich states. Kids have too many distractions today.
They have to grow up around cars & hotrodders to be into them.
A Mentor.
I worked for Contractors too Rich. From 17-22 in the summer time on school break.
Hard work yes. Used the money earned to purchase The Pontiac V8 engine & body parts I wanted.
Boys are good here Rich.
Parenting a challange .

Brian