Before Ausmini, before the internet, before Ebay and before this over supply of information... Ive just had my mates 71 HQ GTS Monaro Coupe at my place for a few weeks. Ive been learning quite a few things about it all simply by jumping online.

Ive stripped his Holley 750 double pumper down to bits and rebuilt it, found out what a small block chev firing order is, found out where the dizzy should be positioned and that the oil pump is driven off the dizzy..

I couldnt help but wonder how much easier it would have been when i was restoring my Mini with this influx of info. I mean back in the day if I needed help, I had to make a 1902 call to the Mini Car Clinic Help Line... and get charged a fairly high rate per minute. If i needed some odd ball part, all could do was jump on the phone to Mini Kingdom or Mini Car Clinic and try to get them to source it for me.

All i had was workshop manuals, that was it..... No jumpin on Ausmini and asking the Doc a question... No searchin Ebay for that elusive part.. No searchin the net for answers or pictures.

I tell ya what people playing with Mini's or any old car really, have things so easy these days with all this info and help on hand. Makes me wanna do up another car... Hmmm XC Falcon ute for $1500 with a 351.....

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Hanras

Too true - but there were books. I started high school in a Public School where we were not allowed to use the library except as a class then transfered to a Private School after a couple of years where we were encouraged to use the library in our free time. Thats when I discovered reference books. - I developed my swimming style , learned to sail, and how small engines worked from books in the school library - now I've replaced the library with Google

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!

And I used to be be productive at work...

No doubts books and w/shop manuals are still great. I find it quicker sometimes to search through my books rather then crap on the net. I think i only got online full time at the end of 2005 when I bought myself a PC. I think back in the day our school had about a handful of PC's which were only used for crappy games...

I just hope some of the newcomers these days realise how much easier it is to obtain info on there resto/car/engine what ever.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Hanras

well I wasn't around back then but I used to be prodcutive at work before I found ausmini

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I used to be productive on Ausmini - wait a second no I wasnt - anyway then found I work

There was a time without the internet? wow dark ages they must have been LOL.
I remember way back when I was paying $5/hr for super fast 28.8k Dialup and a 1mb file was huge to download

I actually started looking for mini related stuff when NAV fell into my hands and found ausmini. and here we all still are

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I received my first modem from the Government in 1986 - 300 baud There were no service providers - you dialled the site direct or at least you typed in the phone number and the software dialled it. Everything was text based - no graphics and about the only sites available were shareware download sites - but it was fun

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!

i was 1 year old LOL

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i wasnt even around

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00' Forester GT

likewise

While it is true that the www has made it easy to find information/answers/parts it has also resulted in prices being pushed up. The days of finding that elusive part at a swapmeet for a bargain price is almost a memory, most sellers now keep the good stuff to put on ebay and only take the crap or easy to find stuff to swapmeets

Cheers
Steve

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1964 998cc Cooper
1971 Mini K x 2
1972 Clubman GT

I remember when I used to talk to humans...

DOZ

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Videos - Turbocharged A-Series on Dyno & at Wakefield
Mafs waz not my strong subgeckt at skkol

I remember reading 3 or 4 different workshop manuals trying to find out how to do something when they all contradicted each other .... Phoning my boss (was previously a Leyland agent) but only when it was a matter of getting to work in the morning or not . Phoning the elderly garage offsider who's father sold the BMC dealership to the then current boss and hoping he answered and not his wife who would give me a hard time about ringing him at night . A lot of experimental work (well , it blew the head gasket last time , what can I try this time ?) and flying blind (wow , running crossplies on the back and wide radials on the front really isn't a good idea) ... You young'n's don't know the fun you missed .

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I had my first ARPANET connection in 1987...not that we called them Emails in those days.... and they didn't connect you to many Mini people.

But you could write letters to Jan Odor, Bill Quine, Steve Harris and DV himself... and they would answer. I still use the engine I bought in bits from Manx Racing.

The internet is convenient - but we didn't feel deprived when we didn't have it.

Cheers, Ian