You're a slave driver! I think I started helping my dad work on my mom's 56 Merc Monterey when I was about 8, but I fell in love the first time I saw my Grandpa's former 32 on the bonneville flats thanks to an old hi-8 projector. (I think I was about 5 then)
I was conceived in the back seat of a 37 ford. does that count? no really I hitched a ride on a deep well socket all the way to the uterus
just before age 14, I met a guy with a cool custom. I've mentioned him before - you had a great spread/thread on his being reunited with that old custom pickup. He recently passed - that was also mentioned here. I sold/gave away my HO set in the basement and started reading HRM and the 'little books'. Neighbor kid (Jack K) had a neat 34 5w with a Stude V8 - I was hooked when I heard those duals heading down the street. I worked my butt off driving a pea truck in Idaho and bought a 48 Merc coupe. That was number one of over a hundred. It was a hot rod town, and I was a hot rod kid. dj
As far as i can remember I was always sitting out in the garage watching my family piece together their cars... they just wrenched to save money on their DD...
I was fetching wrenches as long as I can remember. Started fixin farm equipment at about 10 and was doing major maintenance by 13.
My older brother was 11 years older that me and he was always working on hot rods. My earliest memories are being out in the garage with him. When I was 12, I bought a 1925 model T coupe from a very good friend of my dad for $300. He let me pay for it as I could afford it. .. Took me 10 years to finely pay it off. I still have the coupe body but ended up selling off the running gear and fenders. The body is being built up as a street rod now and is titled as a 1915.
My Dad had me elbow deep in grease as far back as I can remember. He raced go-karts when I was really young, then had me riding and working on minibikes as soon as I could hold the damned thing up! I still have the burn scars, and some really kool memories.....
I grew up around cars and trucks (big trucks, 18 wheelers). My Dad started working me in the shop when I was 11 years old (he owned a trucking company). My Uncle was racing top fuel funny cars at the time, so I would peak in at what he had going on. I've always been a gearhead, I started building models early and just progressed to the real thing.
My folks got a picture some where of me tearing down a lawn mower engine at 3, don't think i ever put it back together tho
i was 8 when i took my dads new drillpress apart. after he made me put it back together, he started to show me how to work on cars.
Wrenches? My dad was a farmer. He had fencing pliers, crescent wrenches, hammers, axes and such. Had to go to town to see my Uncle to borrow wrenches! My first mechanical endeavour was with a pocket knife. After an unsuccessful attack on chickens with a bow and arrow that Santy Clause brought me was confinscated, I was told he would never bring me a cap pistol, so I decided to make my own with a pocket knife, a coping saw, and a paint brush. At about 8. Still have it.
Did it work after you were through with it? I was always taking apart my toys as a kid...can't think of one that didn't work after I put it back together...wish I was as lucky with cars!
I started when I was about 2 (1978).....my dad started taking me to the local junk yard (we still go as much as we can)............my dad ran an auto parts for 35yrs and worked at a ford dealer in high school.....I played hide and seek and checked out car parts in the parts rows in the evening after they were closed up.....(Man I miss that place)....I grew up around mustangs, fairlanes and other ford stuff....
i started out at 6 years old,holding a drop light and fetching tools for my grandfather,i also had to clean and put tools away after he was done using them
When I was 10 (now 51) I went with my dad to assemble a 59AB flatty for a guy and put it in a 46 Ford 2 door sedan. In exhange my dad got a 41 Chevey 2 door sedan that was froze up. We spent several weekends putting it together for the guy. The front dog house was off the car so it was pretty easy and I had a blast. We then took the head off of the chevy with the original 216 six cylinder and found 1 cylinder filled with water or gunk or something. We home the cylinder with a drill and a spring type hone. We then beat the cylinder down with a 2X4 and a sledge hammer. Honed it some more. Had the head milled. Put it back together and I learned to drive a stick in that thing. Wish I knew where it went to. Dad was sick and sold it while I was in college. Even attempted to do body work on that thing. Now the strange part. I was having coffee with a friend and he asked to borrow my car trailer cause his Aunt has a 36 Plymouth sedan that she was giving him. He had wanted it for a long time. I said sure, asked if he needed help and he said probably since the car has been in the same spot in the garage since the 60's. Well, long story short, the Aunt's husband owned the 46 Ford I worked on when I was 10. Car was in the same spot and still had the doghouse off of the car. The motor had never been fired. I told him the story and asked him if he ever wanted to get rid of it I wanted it. Well of course he isnt quite ready to get rid of it yet but he was impressed and said he would like the car to go to someone who cared. I stay in touch and hope to get the car soon. But Ill keep bugging him, just so he doesnt forget who I am.
It was he summer of 52 , I pulled hay for my dad all summer,and for my effort he bought me a 29 Ford 2sd. sedan. Dad and I spent that winter rebuilding that motor and getting every thing everything back together and running. the next spring when I was 12 I got to drive it, what a blast, I was hooked . I've been a gear head/ builder ever since,almost 56 years since that first drive. .......Jack
Somewhere there is a picture of me with my feet hanging out from my dad's 67 Cutlass at age 4 or 5 (right next to him). "We" were replacing the exhaust system on it. My dad started it up with no exhaust on it and I loved the sound of it. Dad said I was pretty upset that it didn't sound like that after we were finished. According to him, I was taking things apart and wanting them to go faster and louder at a pretty young age.
My grandfather had me pounding nails when I was about 3. Paid me a penny for every one I drove straight and didn't bend. After that I was his constant companion and his farm workshop was heaven as far as I was concerned. He always had something for me to tear apart and shortly had me reassembling "correctly" or I didn't get anything new to work on. Frank
started for me beatin to death tonka trucks in my imaginary construction site on the hill out back,my name was bill connelly if that makes a shit . oohh the wheel
Both my grandfathers inspired me as a kid to build and work on things...one had me stuffed down in the tail section of his airplane bucking rivets when I was 8 or 9 and the other took me to flea markets and yard sales scrounging for anything we could wrench on mini bikes, go carts, lawn mowers bicycles, you name it we had a lot of junk… Man those days where fun....
I bought my first car at age 12. It was a 1952 Plymouth Cranbrook that ran on five cylinders. I drove the car home that way, about five miles or so - yes, I drove it home. When I pulled the plugs on that flattie Six, I discovered that there was NO #6 piston - it had broke and was sitting, with the rod, in the pan! So, fixing that was my first wrench job on a car. I had been wrenching on bicycles since age nine, so it's been forty years plus.
1951, my Dad brings me and my Mom home in a '27 Roadster pickup. Earliest memories of cars was playing in my Dad's '34 Ford Sedan. Grew up driving tractors before I went to school. After the '34, we had a '49 Ford Sedan and a '49 Chevy 3100. Bought my first car at 15. $50 for a '54 Buick Super. When overhead valves came out, my Dad may me wrench on his cars. He only knew flatheads.
My earliest memory is being around 3, maybe 4 and holding a drop light while my Dad put pistons into a Ford flathead V8. He raced the Sportsman division in a stripped down 40 Ford Sedan on a small oval track every weekend for years. The track is long gone, but I've been there as an adult and you can see where everything used to be. My childhood was spent on that ground and it's all still there in my memories. They started every race night by playing America the Beautiful, they didn't have the Star Spangled Banner. The flagger was a big red faced guy named Rosebud. There was a live announcer and the stands were filled with cheering fans. There were always fights in the pits over somebody cutting somebody else off. And they tore down the engines a lot to prove they were honest or cheating. And everybody drank heavily. AMERICA! It was a great place to grow up!
i was 4 years old when my dad started tacking me to dirt track every weekend to watch my uncle race.we would go to his shop 3 or 4 times a week to work on the car to get it ready..i love the smells and sounds of the engine when they would fire that car up!!!
I started out with bikes and lawnmowers that I garbage picked, I'd tear them apart and put them back together and see if they would work. Then when I turned 15 my dad got me a 65 mustang to rebuild to keep me out of trouble, that was the start of my automotive sickness. Now, I have a son who is 15 and I gave him my 36 chevy pick-up(that i've had for 30 years) to rebuild to keep him out of trouble!It seems that history repeats itself sometimes. Mike
My grandpa helped me build a gocart when I was around 10 with parts we scrounged at the local junkyard. He taught me to rebuild the engine, weld, and to be creative to solve problems. I've been hooked ever since!
The Jalopy Journal
