are there any good free mechanical cad programs?

Try this website...
http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=solidworks
I found a working version of SW2011 64 bits (with keygen) there.
Not fully legal but if you not use it for commercial purposes it won't be a problem.

Draftsight is one (http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/overview/)

There is also CREO Elements

Inventor Fusion is currently free for a limited time, unless you have a MAC then there is no time restriction

I think Delcam offer free software as well.

You should try a student version of SW, CATIA or similar.

Try Sketchup. Not a robust modular but free and very versatile. It's the best value for free.

thanks for the comments guys. i found a program called freecad 0.12. its free and i'm kindda fooling around with it. not enough good tutorials but the software is opensource and seems to have much more than sketchup.
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page

please do look into it and give me some feed back.:) its got the potential to be big like solid works or solid edge.
i've used blender and i like it
free cad has a much more easier interface than blender and seems to be able to get the job done.

i'm just a beginner, i sketch pretty well and i make renders on gimp (2.8 version is as strong as photoshop) mainly cars and motorcycles.

I've been poking around with Onshape & AutoDesk Fusion 360. I like 360 the best so far. I don't want a program that cuts out after 30 days.