I love being a dad. With two boys, I get plenty of opportunities to do things that guys do because my guys want to do them. When my oldest son was old enough to have his own car, we bought him one.
It was 2006, and he was 16. I found a great car with really bad brakes. Perfect. That's exactly what he needed. I took it for a test drive, made an offer and took it home. What can you do with a car with bad brakes? Learn how to fix brakes.
Being a homeschooling family, everything is school. (We're not all old 
hippies with kids, even though . . . .) I told my boys early on that I would teach them how to maintain and work on their own cars. I didn't want them to be at the mercy of any car repair shop even if they chose to take their cars to a shop. So, I bought a car with bad brakes for my son and we set out to work.
My son and I put the car on jacks stands (very shade tree mechanic-ish), and we pulled the first wheel. Whew! It was bad. Not only did it have bad brakes, but it had bad rotors that were broken away from the hubs. The wheels were actually holding the brakes on the car. Awesome! It was better/worse than I thought.
We went to a parts store, bought rotors and disc brake pads for four wheels and set out to learn how to do brakes. A previous owner brake job had broken the mounting screws off the rotors so we had to move the rotors to a new location on the hub, drill out and tap new threaded screw holes and remount the rotors. Then we replaced the disc brake pads, re-positioned them and re-installed the wheel. One down.
I did the first one with step by step explanations to my son. Then, I turned my 16 year old loose on the other three. I watched with each wheel. Once the last one was done, I took it for a drive. Brakes!
A couple years later, I came home from work and my driveway looked like a teenage shade tree garage. My son, was now 19. He was teaching one of his friends how to do brakes. He did the same thing. He did the first one with explanations, and his friend did the next three.
No matter what you know, someone can benefit from it. Pass it on with the understanding that the recipient pass it on. Knowledge is a gift that you can always share with anyone anytime.
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