I have to admit that I suffer from
similar tendencies.  I do my best to stay out of the economy.
Working for someone else for decent wages so I can pay someone else
top dollar to take care of my stuff seems like an overall loss, as
does paying interest to use someone else's money to have someone else
do work I'd be happy to do myself... if only I had the time.

I prefer to have the satisfaction of fixing
my own cars, building my own house (one day), growing my own food,
and living well in the simplest of ways.

The "forever car" idea is right where I'm coming from.  And the
"free horsepower" ideas are about clean work, pure and simple.  Do
the simple stuff right.  So I want to do it.  I'm hoping to find
out how some other folks have dealt creatively with the problems
involved in doing that work.

One of the biggest questions is: who do I allow to touch my
crank/flywheel, etc., for balancing, grinding off bits of piston,
etc?  Do I do my own piston
and rod balancing or farm it out?  Can I get by without a dial
guage, using the Tom Wilson feeler-gauge and extension trick,
and so on...

Are you folks doing this work locally or farming it out nationally?
I had my cam and heads done in CA, Weber and Mark Stephens were
great to deal with.  I had my crank done here; the machine shop
(Temple's Maschine in SLC Utah) was a pain in the butt to deal
with, and I'll never take anything there again unless I MUST.
Who did you talk to to find out about shops?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Shea                                                shea@xmission.com
Salt Lake City, Utah                         http://www.xmission.com/~shea