WELL, THINK OUT WHATCHA GOTTA DO
By noderel:
A recent letter to a magazine editor complained that a how-to article did not contain enough specific information, yada yada yada. Trough the years I’ve edited so many of the same kinds of letter I could gag. Essentially, there is a certain number of so-called car enthusiasts who will not/cannot use their thinking gourd. The cannots I understand, the will nots are irksome. At best. I suggest they should do jigsaw puzzles. On second thought, that might require too much grey matter as well.
A typical complaint would be “Great article, but you did not tell where a frame hole should be for a motor mount. And, how about explaining more on moving the seat back. Also, you didn’t show how to use the feeler gauge thoroughly enough for setting the valves. Too, you mention moving the radiator lower hose outlet. Where can I get a kit for this?...............The letter writing pen pals (now internet dorks) end up turning into unwanted and unneeded pests. Invariably, they end up wanting your phone number so they can call (usually at night, sometimes collect) and visit. Then they can tell their friends how you are such a close friend, going way back to last week! In the end, they end up asking if maybe you can come over and show them how to do the job, even better, do it for them. Although you live on the left coast and they are just out of Baltimore!
Thankfully, on the web, they discover a multitude of like non-minded. It usually turns out that these vacuum heads are really working on an old Plymouth six that aunt Matilda left them, their tools are limited to a screwdriver and Crescent wrench (hammer is optional), and they intend to set a land speed record with their result. Next week, of course.
It’s not that these thimbleheads aren’t enthusiastic, it is only that they have no clue whatever in what is involved in building a hot rod (or custom). Almost universally, they have no experience in mechanics, at any level. They usually have few or no friends with any mechanical qualifications, and they come from the wrong side of the automotive tracks to take on such projects. In reality, they would be better suited to becoming fledgling sports car fanatics.
Because these guys don’t know where to go, they have no clue on how to get there. Which is all OK, but what they gotta do is put in some homework along the way. No instant gratification, unless of course they got a hefty bank account and the smarts to have someone else do the grunt work.
Back a hunnert or so years, I did a ton of engine swap stories in the likes of Hot Rod and Rod & Custom magazines. During the Fifties and Sixties engine swaps were the diamond lane tickets. They really weren’t too difficult to do, even for the most intellectually challenged, but they did require some planning and a lot of measuring stick thinking. It was absurd the number of letters I would get about specific swaps. Almost universal was the complaint from the cerebral disadvantaged, “Great article on putting a Whizmobile V20 into a Gogomobile. But you didn’t give a pattern for engine mounts. And what do I do about the steering?” I’m positive these scribes went on to be CEO’s of major investment houses, or political party leaders.
In an effort to remedy these obvious vacancies in the hot rod enthusiast frontal lobes, the magazines would run annual articles on How To Read, and Guide To Mental Exercises. Most of those great guidelines went unheeded.
Today, the interest has shifted from engine swaps to chassis changes, brake upgrades, painting tips, and too often, how to buy a manufactured product for instant gratification and peer adulation. Reading, and applying, the product installation directions does not seem to be part of the National Understanding. On the other hand, too many of those product instructions are written by those aforementioned CEO’s.