I am putting my HOS in for a new engine, struts and brakes lol I'm a happy guy. My question is this the engine will be a reconditioned engine and I am a little curious as to what I should be looking for after the work is done, I don't know very much about what goes under the hood in a car.

I am planning to pick my mechanics brain a little (about as much as I can without having a spanner thrown at me) on how it works, because I feel like a neglectful parent not knowing the why and how of my Magna.

On other matters, I will need to recode my stereo, tis only a factory standard so I might just toss it, but failing that who do I contact to get the code for these things? And has anyone pulled the little fold down cushion that sits in the middle of the back and put a speaker stack in there, I'm thinking about it and would like some sugestions, I am thinking about a metal mesh cover on it to match the new upolstery. :badgrin:

Any thought suggestions or ideas would be appreciated. Cheers

thats a kinda open ended question. If you know a heap about cars then theres not much to say and you can ignore everything here but if your just learning then starting with the basics is always good. This site http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car.htm is really good for getting down the basics of whats going on inside the engine with all nice little pictures and such describing everything from the basics of the internal combustion engine to hybrids to how auto transmissions work.
Once you can start to pick whats everything and what its for then probly the best way you can build on that is by actually seeing. Asking your mechanic if you can watch while he does the rebuild is one point to start so you can watch without having to do anything. Then you "could" take some tools down to pick a part or similar and get into an engine bay, pull everything apart and put it back together. im sure someones not impressed with me for saying that but short of buying a bomb and playing with it, the wreckers is the closest thing you can get to practise. It also helps doing it to a car which isnt going to be going anywhere. coz pulling apart the personal car or family car will only get someone angry, either you when you cant put it together or missus or olds coz they cant go somewhere.
If your looking for more specific info on the 2.6L magna engine then gregorys manual or haynes has a lot of info which is also good if you want to do some things yourself.
i hope you find at least something there usefull and welcome to the forums.