Such perspective as I was looking for Dennis, thank you. Going the other way, I know exactly what you are talking about. I've always liked playing around with cars and motorcycles. At 15 I buiilt my first car out of a salvage yard. I worked as a dismantler on weekends and was paid in parts. I built up on a 57 ford body I found which only needed a windshiield, fenders, grill etc, engine, front end and running gear all of which I found on other cars in the yard. There was a little porthole Tbird there with a 312 sporting a triple duice setup and it had been crushed from the rear, making the body unusable, so I used the engine.
At 16 I became interested in Harleys and quickly learned all I could about them. My father bought me a "full dresser" and in a few months I had put the Panhead engine and running gear into a Knuckle Head ridgid frame after jacking the seat post height and moving it back to make room for the slightly higher head height of the panhead and clearance between the seat post for the valve cover ring. New "Stacks" were made for me by a friend who's dad owned a muffler shop. I made the new leather seat myself and also laced a Triumph front rim into the harley spool with spokes I had custom cut at a bike shop, thus making the narrow 21" front wheel that was common to the outlaw "Choppers" of the time.
I had also glass sculpted the frame and did my own paint as well as fished all wiring through the frame to make it "invisable". After tasteful chrome, sandblasting and front end cup turning and a coordinated color scheme, it turned out to be a beautiful piece of machinery. No one could believe it was the first bike I had ever built. I developed a lot of skill in glass sculpting, wiring and asthetics and worked on customizing machines for others. It was this skill, and eye for creating distinctive one of a kind machines that ended up more then anything else getting me involved with the dominant outlaw MC crowd in my area.
All I'm saying is I have a life history of working with and around vehicles. My experience with this gender wise is that while I could before walk into a parts store, state what I wanted and regardless of if that part was normally associated with the make, modle and type of vehicle I was working on, I was never questioned about the discrepancy, they just pulled my part, wished me luck and took my money.
It's getting different now. I go in, order the correct part for the vehicle and salesman always askes me what is wrong with the existing part, what my problem with it is and other things that could be causing the problem. All this after obtaining all possible information on make, modle, engine size, transmition etc and am I sure I can handle such a job. Sometime I feel like telling em to shut thier yap before i plant a size 9 in it and just give me my damn part, but of course I always give them a bright smile, tell em thank you for the information and explain If there is any problem, I have friends I can ask.
It drives me crazy to be treated like this, incompetant. just because they perceive I am not male.
Terri