The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Stu's Little Helper Meets "Mr. Tire".

If you guys have not found and read the sagas on this website, you need to do it. There are some amazing stories there. I lifted the paragraphs below from one of them. When I read this I laughed my head off.

I may have to write up the saga of everything on my truck that was not as represented by the seller. It was a much nastier can of worms than I was led to believe. I would encourage all of you with a story to get it written up and submitted. These are great reading.

Stu's Little Helper Meets "Mr. Tire".

Restoring an old truck from the ground up in a two-car garage where two cars already reside and while trying to raise a three year old is, to say the least, a challenge. As I said, I had put up monster shelves to hold parts and resigned my daily driver truck to the outdoors. But entertaining a kid while dismantling that truck was no mean feat. I had taken to giving him a wrench and some old bolts to improve his fine motor skills. But this never seemed to satisfy for very long. So I started to come up with actual tasks that he could do to get a feeling of accomplishment and participation.
One day while I was pulling the front bumper off, I put one side of the rear axle up a little, blocked and chocked it to beat the band and gave Chuck a 3/4-inch socket on a 1/2-drive and told him I needed the rear wheel off. "That ought to hold you for a while" I said sotto vocce. Later, as I was cranking away at a particularly stubborn bumper bolt, I heard, in a small yet demanding little voice, "Daddy, need a little help."
Thinking he probably needed me to get the lug nuts started for him, I dropped my tools and went around the side of the truck. I found my son had not only managed to remove the lug nuts, but had pulled the tire and wheel off the axle. But it hadn't stopped there, the combination of his strength and the momentum of the wheel had landed it on top of him. He lay there, spread eagle, with that big old 16-inch rim and 29-inch tire covering everything but two feet, two hands and a head. He looked up at me cool and calm and said, "Have a little problem."

So Stu, If you ever read this, how old is Charlie now? Is he as good a mechanic as this story indicates his potential to be?

The little one already has the jump on many,, he knows when to ask for help

now that is a good story. i couldn't stop laughing. it seems something that i would have done around that age if my dad was into that stuff back then.

Oh, who was the fellow who was having problems having to watch his little one rather than working (or while working) on his truck. Hope he sees this post (and reads the saga). Stu's little guy was pretty smart -- and very occupied! That would have made a great photo!

Peg

That was me Peg. I did read this thread and can't wait for my son to be a little older. Right now, he likes to taste everything he gets his hands on. With so much toxic stuff in the garage, I cannot afford to take my eyes off of him in the garage. If I asked him to take the wheels of, he would try for a while, then start beating on my truck with the socket.