Since my daily driver is a Mercedes (2000 with 240,000 miles on it), I joined the Benzworld forum to keep from sending my life savings to the dealer to keep it on the road. A lot of the service procedures are the same for those models. Over the years, members have documented the work such that there is a pictorial thread for just about every common service that needs to be done and a few uncommon ones. All of these are in a single place on the forum as stickies. It's amazing what a dozen pictures and a little narrative can do to assist on something you haven't done before.

I know some of what is being one to these trucks is in no way a standard procedure, but there's an amazing amount of expertise out there that could be documented for us all.

 

Jim, I'm in the same boat with my Porsche. www.Rennlist.com (also an Internet Brands forum) has members and vendors who have done how-to videos, pictorial threads, etc. for virtually everything you can do to the cars. One guy created an entire website with index and full parts numbers for all the major tasks. Conservatively I have saved $6,000 in stuff the dealer would have had to do (and probably done wrong). Check out this site, it is simply amazing what the guy did, in his spare time, and on his own nickel: Clark's Garage Home Page (click on "Garage Shop Manual" on the left) (Edit: I see he's now asking for donations to maintain the forum he's created, that's new)

I'd point out that I don't know anyone related to that forum that is charging for any of those videos or how-to's, despite an audience that is used to paying outrageous prices for everything related to those cars, and also an audience that generally can afford it.

 

I'd love to do videos for free, but I'm looking for a way to supplement my meager SS income after my ex got the elevator and I got the shaft in the divorce (no matter who was at fault, the guy is always going to lose). I need additional money so I can pay all my bills and have a few bucks left for fun. In this economy no one wants to hire a 66 year old guy with Afib no matter how qualified I am.
I love teaching and am very good at it, or I'd like to find someone with deep enough pockets to want me to do a high quality build for them.

 

I would love to have deep enough pockets for you to do a build for me. Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket......

 

It likely would be cheaper to just pay me for the build then buy enough lottery tickets to win it.

 

Further comments to AX can be made by emails, PM`s.