Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:59:00 +0000
Reply-To: Bill Shawley <easywind1975@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Bill Shawley <easywind1975@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Are Today's Young People Mechanical Nitwits?
In-Reply-To: <86476e250808150853p479a1b9rcdac1aef75a73291@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
(ramble alert)
Loren,
As a relative youngster at 33 this sums up my exact thoughts on the subject. I still hold a grudge against my dad for not showing how to do any of this shit. My learning curve started very steep at 19 but with the help of surrogates I've grown in my skills and abilities. One particularly memorable moment occurred when I was 22 or so and I had an old Mazda (real mazda not ford mazda) 626. The spindles were worn or something and the rear bearings would wear out quickly. The first time I set out to replace them I had a can of grease, new bearings, and very vague instructions from the parts store guy. My neighbor must've sensed I was in over my head and came over and gave me a lesson in wheel bearing replacement. "use a punch to tap em out, find a socket the same diameter to put back in, pack the grease like this" I hope I can someday show some kid this stuff, or maybe one of my "nitwit" friends. Let them decide if they WANT to turn a wrench since they know they CAN. I tell you this I have one kid, a daughter, she'll be three, when she gets older I plan to enable her with a few tools. The trick will be make it a fun, sharing, and bonding experience, not a chore. Someone had mentioned about the "kids" on VWVortex being quite capable, it is true, they've saved me at least a thousand bucks in repair cost to my Jetta just from their know-how. I'm sure some of them started like me, a compleat mechanical imbecile. It wasn't the Haynes manual that encouraged me to change my own timing belt, it was DIY write-up on the VW Vortex. Cheers to them and cheers to everyone on this list for fostering the DIY, shadetree, gravel driveway, you-can-do-it spirit.> > This got very long, hit delete if in a hurry this morning....> >SNIP
> > So, should the younger generation learn how a motor vehicle works?> Absolutely. Should they understand the basics of maintenance?> Absolutely. Should> they learn to use basic tools? Yes, yes yes. Should they be doing engine> swaps? Now that is another level of involvement, a choice to be made by the> individual. But they should have enough knowledge to understand what is> involved.> > > >
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