‘It didn’t work before, and I never know what I did, but it’s fixed.’

Dale R. Duey dropped out of high school to take care of his father, who was dying from cancer. At 17 he got married and joined the Navy. Ten years later, Duey left the Navy to be closer to his five children. He became a skilled mechanic and recently struck out to start his own business. Duey, 48, and his wife, Jane, live in Canoga Park.

I started fiddling with cars when I was 15. I rebuilt a motor for my car when I was about 16. It was an old ’50 Chevy, and back then you could have people come out and bore the engine right in your garage and turn the crank and things like that. So I rebuilt this engine in my garage.

When I tightened up the rods on the crank, I really tightened them up. A neighbor was towing me to turn it over, and at about 20 m.p.h. I let out the clutch, and all it would do was just slide the wheels. It wouldn’t budge that engine a bit. I finally figured out it was too tight, and I loosened it up. I thought I got it just about right. I got it started, and I was really proud of that. I pulled up behind the neighborhood parts store, and the guy come out, hollering, “Shut it off! shut it off!” About that time, the rod went right through the side of the block. It wasn’t tight enough.

I found another guy down the street who had a ’48 Chevy that was a real piece of junk, but it had a good motor in it. I bought it for $20 and put the motor in my car and drove it.

I’ve always been good at mechanical things. I used to be able to fix just about anything. I think it’s just a knack. Sometimes I’ll take something apart and put it back together, and it works.

It didn’t work before, and I never know what I did, but it’s fixed.

I started working my way up to being a mechanic in a filling station. Mostly I used to work nights in the gas stations. Then I started taking some classes from Pierce College over here. And one place I worked, the guy told me if I learned air conditioning he’d put me on days. So I learned air conditioning.

When I got a job at Firestone, that’s the best thing that happened to me. I built up a nice trade over there. I made very good money. I was there for 10 years. But then this last contract we had two years ago changed everything. I was going to lose probably around three to four hundred dollars a week. So when this shop became available, I was here in the afternoon and bought the shop by the next day.

Basically I run the shop myself. I don’t have any employees. I haven’t been able to build it up big enough to really be able to afford to hire somebody.

It’s really hard to find anybody who you can trust. I try to make sure everything is right the first time, and when you put your trust in somebody else you have to know that they can do it, too. It’s pretty hard to pay for somebody that’s good until you get really busy.

The general public doesn’t realize that small businesses have so many licenses. Everybody’s got their hand out. The city’s got me with four licenses. The state’s got me with two, and the county’s got one. It costs you money.

There’s a lot of hidden costs that you don’t really realize about till you get into it. The hazardous-waste laws now make it really tough. You used to be able to sell used oil. Now you have to pay to have somebody take it away. The laws are getting tougher every year. There’s too much waste, especially in the big cities; they’ve got to control it. Otherwise it would be getting into our water.

One of the things I didn’t realize is how much time is spent on the telephone talking to customers, doing paper work. Sometimes you get so busy doing all these other things you don’t have time to work on cars, and then you’re behind, you got to work late.

I’ll always want to be in my own business, though. I like it. I really do. It’s not because you have a lot of freedom or you’re your own boss, because you have to work harder than you do when you work for somebody else. It’s just that I like owning a business. It never gets boring; I guarantee you that. You never have time to be bored.