Maintaining and servicing your own car can be seen as a most novel spectacle for the neighbours, says self-maintainer John Cradden
In a world where the idea of maintaining and servicing a modern car oneself is an anathema to most motorists, the regular sight of my feet sticking out from underneath my car must seem a novel spectacle to many of my neighbours.
I'm sure most of them understand when they clock the car for the first time - a 1975 BMW 2002: "He's obviously a classic car enthusiast working hard at making that stylish old car one of the best examples of its kind".
However, not having a garage in has meant that my efforts at maintaining the car have been on stark display for everyone to see during more Saturday afternoons and Sundays than I'd care to admit.
After spotting me peering into the engine for the upteenth time, the reaction is probably less flattering: "That old banger must be giving its sad git of an owner a lot of trouble".
The truth, however, is probably somewhere in between.
I love old cars, but wasn't in love with the prospect of constantly maintaining one. I bought my car 18 months ago from a chap who sold me the idea that paying a bit more for an original, unrestored, low mileage car would be the safest insurance against having to spend loads of time and wads of cash keeping it running well and looking shiny.
However, since October 2002, and despite paying for what should have been an absolute minter, this is what I've had to replace on it: all four shock absorbers, two front tyres, the radio, both front headlights, a heater fan motor, two steering arm rods and ball joints and both front brake discs, pipes and hoses. I've also rebuilt one of the front brake callipers, re-padded the front seats and replaced a window winder mechanism.
There's a bit more to come, including a new propshaft bearing to cure motorway vibration woes, and new gearbox seals to cure a gearlever that's a bit on the floppy side. The carburettor needs a good clean behind the ears, too. All things considered, it's not too bad. The car is fundamentally reliable and remains a lovely thing to drive. The bodywork is good but there's a few rust bubbles showing that will need to be touched up soon.
And while my glass is still half full, I can genuinely claim to have improved my mechanical skills to a degree unimaginable this time last year. I was never particularly good at fixing things and used to rely almost entirely on a local back-street mechanic.
But my friend Tomas, one of the members of our "informal" BMW old car club and one of its most mechanically fearless, gave me the confidence to tackle jobs myself, with the promise that if I was having trouble fixing something, a quick call and he would be round in a jiffy to lend a hand. I took him up on this more than once and sure enough, the problems were sorted with an efficiency so startling that, like Kerry McFadden in that celebrity Aussie jungle, it made me feel ashamed and determined not to be such a wimp next time.
The acquisition of all these skills has not been without some blood, sweat and well, maybe not tears, but lots of swearing. So much so that I took to looking around to make sure the neighbour's kids were out of earshot before launching into cursing sessions. One particularly bad session came during a three-hour struggle to remove a particularly recalcitrant part that should have taken five minutes. This is a scene familiar to many old car owners.
But there's definitely something character building about being able to fix an old car. My hands, once Fairy-soft, are stronger and harder to the touch and my digits are far less inclined to buckle under the pressure of bone-crushing handshakes. And if the problem is a particularly challenging or perplexing one, you're never alone when there are great chaps like Tomas and every other member of our informal old BMW car club to call on with their priceless knowledge, tips and sense of humour.
These days I positively look forward to doing all the basic servicing stuff that keeps the car running sweetly, such as changing the oil, plugs, filters, ignition timing, valve clearances, etc.
The money saved on payments to mechanics also adds to the feel-good factor. Once a keen devourer of magazines like Classic Cars and Classic & Sportscar with their fantasy articles about driving perfect old Porsche 911s, Ferrari GTOs and Jaguar E-Types, I'm more likely to be found studying Practical Classics magazine with its helpful step-by-step articles on how to fix seized brake disc callipers on a Morris Minor.
I'm so confident now that I'm even considering the possibility of converting my left-hand-drive car to right-hand-drive, if I can find a local scrap car to donate its steering gear and other ancillaries.
Tomas has owned two scrap 2002s, the source of many, many parts that he and others would otherwise have had to pay through the nose for.
This last job might seem a tad ambitious, but it turns out I have a family reputation to uphold. I rang my father once to moan about new problems that had to be put right, only for him to bluntly put my woes into perspective by reminiscing about an old early '70s Vauxhall Cresta he used to own that had a knackered automatic gearbox.
Ever the mechanically resourceful, he took out the auto box and replaced it with a manual gearbox, lever and clutch pedal donated from a scrap Cresta, all by himself.
Getting down to the nuts and bolts of it all . . .
To say that the market for Irish classic cars is somewhat imperfect would be putting it mildly. In Britain, where the market is huge and well developed, there are lots of information flows and well researched price guides.
In our informal BMW old car club (one 3.0CSi, a early 316 and four BMW 2002 saloons, three Tourings, two Tiis, and one Turbo), the blessings of swopping parts, lending tools and sharing priceless information and good laughs among ourselves have been tempered by close comparisons of each other's cars that always makes me feel like a mug for paying so much for my own. Tomas is the worst culprit here because of his recent discovery of a 1973 BMW 2002 Touring, which he persuaded the owner to part with for a piffling €300.
At the moment it doesn't look much, but it turns out to be bodily sound and mechanically perfect with a very clean interior. It had been sat outside the owner's house for years but just needed another few hundred euro worth of repairs to sort out seized front brake calipers, a clutch cylinder and blown headgasket.
All it needs now is a new front wing, a decent paint job and its metal trim and bumpers rechromed.
Mind you, another in our group spent many multiples of €300 on a time-warp early model BMW 2002 with less than 20,000 miles on the clock and completely perfect in every way. The moral of this story is that there is no absolute right or wrong here - the 20,000 minter is highly unlikely to give its owner any real trouble with regular servicing and attention. There's far more likely to go wrong with the €300 car, but even with that, it was a great 'barn find', as everyone agrees.
But I have seen cars advertised in Irish 'classic cars' classifieds and dealers for some cheeky prices, including a BMW 2002Tii with 15,000 miles for nearly €30k. How we laughed at that one.