Read my OT post and you'll see I got an 85 Dodge truck which I can work on.
But not all parts have to be bought ... my step-=dad taught me to make gaskets for carbs, for example, with a small ball-peen hammer and a cereal box.
Two labor rates is not good public relations, in my opinion, but then I've only started four businesses (I can start them but I don't like to run them) since age 14.
Oh this is really helpful ... In case you hadn't noticed, I DID admit my skills were lacking and that, for reasons other than laziness, I hadn't kept them up.
Why, yes, I am a conservative and I believe in free enterprise over entitlements, big government and straying from the Constitution as written.
FYI, like I said, I started my first business at age 14 (1961) and I was mowing lawns in a grassless prairie town in Colorado making miore money than the president of the local bank.
Einstein said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and expecting different results.
I don't blame the government for my Jeep troubles, I blame unqualified government employees/appointees that have been allowed to circumvent the Constitution to enact laws forcing their opinions and interpretations of specious facts upon the automotive industry.
I worked for a major OEM exhaust system supplier (Arvin Ind. Inc.) when the laws were passed forcing Ford to lose 50% of the fuel economy, GM and Chrysler lost 30-40% plus all lost performance. Dieseling, stalling and worsened emissions were the results.
Then we worked with engineers from GM, Ford, Chrysler to set up to run catalytic converters (AMC used cats from GM or Chrysler) While the Big Three's engineers spoke among themselves of how the substrates have to reach 900+ degrees (unobtainable around town) from exhaust flow to "light off" at all.
Then we got stuck with computers like the infamous Chrysler "lean burn" which was an absolute failure but led to what we have today: cars that could be knocked out of service by a lightning strike a few feet away (EMP) or a small nuclear device a few hundred miles away.
So, all in all, your post was no more helpful than some others.
Budd