Bikes are fairly easy to work on Tim. There's nothing you can do to a bike that your local bike shop can't either fix or provide a replacement part for (even wheels), so it's pretty safe fiddling around with them - having said that, it's a bloody sight cheaper NOT ruining parts.
The
Park Tools website is excellent for working out how to do things, though I don't know how it goes for the older stuff (because I learnt that as a teenager and haven't had to go looking). My local library has a collection of books that cover bike repair so I'd suggest that yours might too.
Go for it.
Don't mind the grumps above.
Just bear in mind that you do NOT have to take your current bike and do a total, thousand dollar conversion. My own Europa (see my avatar), started as an 80's roadie. The first step was to pull off the gears, screw on a track cog and go riding fixed, much like Sheldon Brown's
Fixed Gear on the Cheap article.
Once I'd decided that fixed was for me (oh okay, that happened in the first few kms, but a couple of months later where I could afford it), I bought some new wheels for her with the correct rear hub. Later, I was able to fit some better brake levers and about then, removed the spare chain ring. And so on and so on. She didn't reach her final form till about 3 years later ... and probably hasn't reached it yet.
Richard