Your best bet is to join a club.

Usually on our training days, we carefully go over the newbie's planes. We trim them out, check them out, tune them up and even make repairs and fixes to get them flying... and of course we do it for free.

Most of our instructors have easily saved dozens of planes from destruction each, that would have died quick deaths in the hands of a novice... and that before actually flying or providing flight training.

The tips and tricks you'll pick up on one visit alone, makes it worth it to take a long drive if you have to, a few times until you get certified.