Chevy & GMC Vans

Yesterday my 17 yr old son called me at the office to ask me where the gear oil was in the garage. We've been doing some rehab work on his 96 cherokee. The previous owner checked a curb and bent the hub on right rear axle shaft, so we have been working on replacing it. Got it all put back together, resealed the diffy cover with rtv sealant and hand tightened the bolts to let the sealant set. Mike decided he was going to finish it up by himself. I have three torque wrenches, he found the inch pound, looked up the torque specs, did the calc and set the wrench and torqued the bolts. He filled the diff with gear oil and done deal. I quizzed him about the setting on the wrench, he described what he did and he got it dead right. I guess he has been paying attention all this time I've dragged his ass out to the driveway to get greasy.

Cool its a nice feeling when they have been paying attention isn't it. I remember my dad bringin me out to help him work on cars when i was young,at the time i didn't reallyenjoy it because I was the tool monkey, but i eventually learned what was what and it has paid off in spades over the years,to this day i still thank my dad for makin me learn,lol

Thats cool , my dad never had the patience to show me anything & he was a perfectionist . so learning from him was just not realistic . but i had & still do have a cousin 10 years my senior that i hung out with (he had his own repair business ) & he taught me alot , everything from basic maintanance to pulling & rebuilding motors . He was also my chevy influence where my father was a Mopar fan .

Thanx Bobby , i learned alot !!!

that's exactly why this was such a big deal to me. My dad didn't know s**t about engines. he used to freak when the car started acting up. I got hooked when I was 17 with my 68 bug. Lord I wish I'd had the internet back then.
To me, being able to fix my own vehicles is a self sufficiency kind of thing, being able to stand on my own two feet and not have to be dependent on someone else to fix it. Now I know my son won't have to either.
he does in fact have the grease gene....

Very cool, Steve. Give that boy a big pat on the back from the whole ASV family.

It's awesome when they finally "get it" :>) My oldest son use to gripe and complain when I made him help me on our cars. He used to tell me he didn't like getting his fingernails dirty...girl... Anyhow, now he's a real grease monkey and has modified and worked on every cars he has owned since high school. He's 28... He currently is driving a tricked out 2001 Audi A4. Very nice... =D>

Man, that's great. Nothing like it really. Tell him we all said he did a great job.
The same happened to me years and years ago. I was supposed to get up early and help my son build the motor for his Carmen Gia. Well, I got up about 2 hours later than he did, went out to the garage and he was just finishing it up. Told him to tell me step by step what he had done,,,right on.
As for me,,I sure didn't get the grease gene from my Dad. He was an Doctor and his work around the house was a nightmare. Caulked the tub once,, cut the tip off right next to the tube and laid a bead out about 2in. wide. What a mess. Asked him once how he could perform surgery on someone but couldn't use a screwdriver ? Pissed off that Dr. ego they all have.

When I was really young my dad used to do routine maintenance himself and let me "help". That changed after he had surgery to repair a slipped disk in his back. From then on he's been take it to someone and let them fix it. I followed suit till I was no longer attending college, mostly cause they would help pay for the repairs while I was in school. The first thing I taught myself was to swap disk brake pads and bleed the brakes. Seems that I'm able to figure/find out how to diagnose most anything and perform the repairs on it. Having torn into rebuilding an engine or trans yet, but I'm sure they'll both happen. Trans will most likely come first though.

My wife make me sooo proud too. Ever since she's had her Jeep Liberty she's been completely willing to tackle repairs on it. Yesterday leaving work she noticed a brake fluid leak front right, same corner that we replaced a leaky diff axle seal on last week. By the time I had got off work, picked up our daughter, and arrived home, she had already removed the wheel, found where the leak was coming from, tightened the banjo bolt, checked for leaks again, and was about to put the wheel back on. Today we volunteered to help another Liberty owner replace his upper control arms/ball joints, tie rod ends, and water pumps. She was all over it. She just totally rocks.

My daughter is starting to get in on the act to. She's spun a few wrenches working on both Grumpy and Eugene. I've been telling her that if she's good, I'll curse her with Grumpy instead of making her buy her first car, but she has to help maintain it for the next three years. It's funny cause she hugs Grumpy. She told it to get better when I was having trouble getting the AWD parts out too.

Sure does give you a warm feeling Steve,doesn't it??.I think your only as good as what you teach others that are coming up behind you.For me my mentor was Paul Weaver a world war II motor pool mechanic that owned a repair shop where he took me under his wing and let me work there as a kid.His house was next door so his for sure church going wife would stop by to check in on Paul from time to time.While she was around he couldn't swear,smoke the hidden cigars,or yell at us kids for doing stupid things.LOL One thing for sure,Paul could fix anything.

kings-x59 wrote:Yesterday my 17 yr old son called me at the office to ask me where the gear oil was in the garage. We've been doing some rehab work on his 96 cherokee. The previous owner checked a curb and bent the hub on right rear axle shaft, so we have been working on replacing it. Got it all put back together, resealed the diffy cover with rtv sealant and hand tightened the bolts to let the sealant set. Mike decided he was going to finish it up by himself. I have three torque wrenches, he found the inch pound, looked up the torque specs, did the calc and set the wrench and torqued the bolts. He filled the diff with gear oil and done deal. I quizzed him about the setting on the wrench, he described what he did and he got it dead right. I guess he has been paying attention all this time I've dragged his ass out to the driveway to get greasy.

Isn't that just awesome??!!!.
Stephanie in the beginning was very uptight about doing maintenence,(not so confident).
She has a great eye & a excellent "engine noise" ear.Working on our vans together
has really brought her out of her shell.She went from listening & pointing & talking
to full on repairs,IE brakes,intakes,TBI modding,electrical,custom work,interior,exterior
paint,etc,even Datalogging.
She has also performed her first engine removal & will soon be performing a engine teardown
& partial rebuild (motor's headed for the machine shop).She's really learned allot
& it's only getting better,& my favorite part of it all is that she really enjoys it.
I couldn't be more proud of her

Rebel wrote:Man, that's great. Nothing like it really. Tell him we all said he did a great job.
The same happened to me years and years ago. I was supposed to get up early and help my son build the motor for his Carmen Gia. Well, I got up about 2 hours later than he did, went out to the garage and he was just finishing it up. Told him to tell me step by step what he had done,,,right on.
As for me,,I sure didn't get the grease gene from my Dad. He was an Doctor and his work around the house was a nightmare. Caulked the tub once,, cut the tip off right next to the tube and laid a bead out about 2in. wide. What a mess. Asked him once how he could perform surgery on someone but couldn't use a screwdriver ? Pissed off that Dr. ego they all have.

Reb, my dad is a commercial artist, very successful one at that. He could paint a thin straight line with an art brush, ask him to paint a wall, or a door and it was the worst freaking paint work you've ever seen. I suspect it was because he was from a long line of carpenters and house painters....do a job well, you'll be asked to do it again

kings-x59 wrote:I got hooked when I was 17 with my 68 bug. Lord I wish I'd had the internet back then.

I remember before the internet I used to hang out in a fast food parking lot on Saturday nights when all the custom cars and street racers used to meet up. I would spend hours yakking away with guys about water injection and carb tuning.

Man I just remember struggling with the crappy write-ups and pics in the Chilton's and Hayne's manuals, yeesh. I didn't have a lot of knowledgable resources back then.