Have you heard that in many schools they don’t teach cursive writing any more?  In this era of texting and twerking, I guess that elegant and civilized penmanship is an anachronism. You know what else is a relic of the past? Lubing your car’s chassis, that what. Well, that’s for the most part anyway. Almost all of the cars today have sealed balljoints and other stuff, and hence the little lubing nipples have been eradicated from almost all them. As the owner of a lot of old cars however, I still have multiple grease guns – even an air-powered one – and know how to push out the old with the new on my be-nippled rides.

I also happen to have a pretty good understanding of how to balance and tune carbs, although my mad skills are mostly relegated to those of the constant velocity variety. Give me a double pumper 4-bbl and sadly I’d probably have to refer to a manual. In today’s cars, both of these skills are unneeded, and I only get to ply them on the old stuff. Some skills that were once de rigueur such as coking a head are now so very old that probably few people are even aware of them.

What about you? Are there any obsolete or anachronistic maintenance activities that you still know how to do? If so, tell us what they are, and when was the last time you were able to exercise them. 

Image source: MercuryStuff