Thread: Schools for Building Hotrods???

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Hey Vegas, send him up. I'm not sure what the "tuition" will be that I charge him, but my old antique semi-crippled bod could sure use a break on the tedious stuff !!!!!

Severson Automotive Tech

Hey, that does have a ring to it. Please send cash or bearer bonds for the tuition !!!!!

why does wyotech suck?

Ya Dave most the time he is a big help, If I could just get him to put things back. If I sent him he would never what to come back home. He loves working on any thing to do with cars. He'll read some real technical stuff in a car book some where, then come to me asking what I think about it. I just look at him and go HUH!
Then I tell him you better go ask some one else about that one.
He's ready to absorb all kinds of auto info, that I just don't know about. And he likes to work with his hands and can draw just about any thing I ask him to. But he did get that from me. He does want to go to a trade school after high school,Just not sure which one yet. I told him that I will pay for it as long as he finishes high school. Like to see him go in to auto body and some welding . That way I know I'll allways have a good looking car.HE! HE! HE!



~ Vegas ~

Sounds like he keeps you on your toes, Vegas. Must be fun having him around to help out. My Dad was my "crew cheif" and number 1 adviser from the time we started racing carts (I was 8) til he died. I could always count on him for sound, practical ideas, and catching heck if the shop wasn't cleaned up and tools put away!!!!!

Originally posted by MGMan75
why does wyotech suck?

I had some experience before I went there working in a body shop and some for kennyd. They make it out to be a advanced technical training center! It is very basic very basic like this is sandpaper, this is filler, this is what you do with it it just really dissapointed me! I though I was going to go there and learn some cool stuff turns out I got dumber while I was there i think! the best way to learn is to do or work for someone who does it! I have learned mor from kennyd than I could have ever learned in any school! This is just my .02cents I went to school with people who did like it! But I don't reccomend it to anyone!

I think some folks are hungrier than others. Whats that they say about genius being 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration?

Good point, Travis. Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to end up with a teacher like Kenny D!!!!! How much you paying him to be allowed to hang out there???? Just kidding, of course. I am quite sure you earn your keep around there. You are right about a lot of the school stuff. The son of a friend of mine went there and said pretty much the same. He had grown up the son of a hotrodder and hung around with his dad and a bunch of us geezer gear heads all his life.

I dont care what it is, If You want to Build Hot Rods ---Learn body and paintwork ---build engines--- Build and or drive stock cars---build and or drive drag cars. The best way is to work with someone else thats very good at what they do first.

For an example---- If you think you want to start racing Stock cars
but you dont know squat, about chassis or chassis setup, if you dont have a clue what wedge or bumpsteer is. If you cant weld a lick, You can jumb in there cold turkey and make a million costly mistakes and get very discouraged along the way, Most likely this way will not have successful results. Thats not really the way to go. The best thing to do is help someone else that is very good at what they do,first. The Knowledge You learn from being around people that are good at whatever ,will certainly help you when you are ready to undertake your project or endevor.
This is not something you pick up in a week. It takes time to learn how to do it right. In this stock car example you should take a year or two ,learning everything you can along the way.Once you get in with these people, You will know who you can turn to for help.Now, If this is what you want to do in life,get your foot in the door,learn and work you way up. If its just going to be a hobby,Volunteer to help out in the evenings after work or on weekends,It may be that you can only do that twice a week but it will be a valuable experience for you. Gene

thanks dave , .

Hey, in the Philly suburbs you could commute to Drexel and pay your way through as a Coop student and gain a lot of practical experience as well as earn a B.S. in Mech. Engr. That's how I started, but found my grades were best in Chemistry and switched to professional Chemistry and now I can (finally) afford to build a street rod after raising a family and paying off my house. You might make more with an engineering degree and of course I was able to play/learn rodding messing around with a whole series of cars on the side. You might be surprised how many other classmates are rodders in the Mech. Engr. major! The emphasis on math could be a shock, it was to me, but amazingly you can learn math if you hang in there for the first two tough years!

Don Shillady
Retired SCientist/teen rodder

Amen to that, Don!

It looks like the hot-rod building (and chopper building and so on) are a lot like Major League Baseball. There are a lot of guys doing it for a hobby and having a great time, and some guys doing it in the minors and making a living, but only a very few hitting the big time. For all the good shops out there, only a few of the folks are "celebrity" status.

Sometimes something like chemistry (for you) or electrical and computer (my case) work out. Don't know a lot of employees at shops making what an engineer makes, thought the owner of a good, established shop can do even better. A cousin's husband with a shop in a small town in Missouri does really well, but another cousin has been a terrific body and fender guy for 30+ years and just makes a living. Even running the body shop for a Ferrari dealer, he didn't get paid as much as most of the systems administrators and programmers I knew. Of course, he was doing what he loved, and that was worth a lot.

Still, if you're building cars for yourself, you may be better off doing what Don did. The extra money comes in handy, and if you are doing it for a living, its less fun to do it as a hobby.

All the carpenters I know have a load of half-done projects in their houses, which only get finished when they want to sell the place. Butchered wood for ten hours during the day - don't want to do it off-hours. That's why most computer professionals will help you out off-hours, but don't act like they are having fun. I'd far rather work on my car than replace a hard drive.

I suspect the value of Wyo Tech and such, for someone trying to get into the car industry, is that it gives an opportunity to learn the basics of a lot of areas of fab and mod. Not enough to be really great (or maybe even really good), but a starting point. The challenge, in any field, is not to come out of a school and be convinced you're the greatest thing, and going to set the world on fire. You've got the essentials at that point, but the true craftsmen can still teach you how to put it together. I can't speak for the shop owners, but if I'm hiring someone to work on systems and networks, I look for two things: do they know the basics - the vocabulary? Are they trainable? A BSci or MSci in EE or Computer Science gets you in the door. Enthusiasm and not having a know-it-all attitude, and looking to learn, clinch the deal.

I've got a friend with a cabinet shop. His dad has been building wooden boxes for sixty years. No formal school - just learned from HIS dad, who was an old Swedish housewright. I've watched this eighty year old man cut out a compound miter for a picture frame, using a radial arm saw, purely by eye. I could go to a trade school for four years and still not be able to do that. Heck, I can barely do it with clamps and a chop saw with a laser guide.

well dang guys.. im going to wyotech.. starting october 3rd... and im accually really excited... but umm... travis.. what classes did you take and what were you looking too learn??/ with me for example, ive already worked in a body shop for 2 years... a lube,tire and service place for one, and i restored a 1950 chevy pickup with a little added custom touches... the things im looking forward to are the high performance engines, chassis fabrication, louvering, chopping tops.. sectoining and metal filling... i dunno about you but im really excited to learn this.. im also going the 3 months extra.. so its got the nice 38 g price tag on it... haha that kinda sucks.. but hey.. if it gets me goin in life... why not.!!!

I took
Collision and refinshing
chassis fab and high performance engines

The high performance engines is all old technology there isn't an instructor there that knows anything about fuel injection or turbos or any new technology! it is all carbs and roots blowers

Collision refinshing is about what you could learn in a body shop for a couple of years if you know what sandpaper is and which side sands! trust me it is that basic

38k is alot of cash
it only cost me 24k