Kids and Cars

by Jake Volkers

Part of being a good dad is finding ways to connect with your kids.
When I was a teenager, I started getting interested in cars. In particular, the cars at my dad’s shop. In the mid-1970s, he started and single-handedly ran a business that was strictly about British cars. He found ways to connect with my siblings and me through British cars. We grew up around them, and those cars were always cool.

When I was in high school in the early 1990s, he found a project car for me in town. A split bumper 1970 MGB GT for $200. Southern California car in western New York. Faded reddish paint, rod knock special, with a knackered 3rd gear synchro. Perfect for a 15-year-old kid who needed to learn all of the things. I loved working with him on this car. He taught me more than the specifics of British car upkeep. He taught me about the relationship between effort and reward, how often a great deal of patience is necessary, and many other lessons.

Fast forward to mid-2022. I’d had a few MGB projects that I’d worked on, modified, enjoyed, and sold off. I had a long-term Healey 100 project in the garage on a rotisserie. We’d even brought a time capsule TR7 roadster back to life during COVID after the original owners needed to unload it for an upcoming move (also a $200 car). My daughters, Carly and Annelise, were in high school and the idea of getting them involved in a car project seemed like a good idea.

A friend from church approached me one day about looking at a long time garaged MGB. He knew that the widow owner was looking to move and wanted to know if I was interested in taking a look, either to buy or help sell. When I got there, I found a rubber bumper MGB with a thick layer of dust and some mold growing in the interior. The engine wasn’t seized, oil and coolant looked good. Twin SU conversion.

Overdrive. Painted before it was garaged in 2006. The owner didn’t want very much, she just wanted it to leave. It seemed like a great opportunity to engage with my kids. We settled on a price above what she was asking and that sent us off on the next project.

We picked up the car in the rain, but in August, that’s not terrible, just wet. The next day, the girls started washing the car and working on cleaning out whatever was growing in the interior. I started going through the standard procedure of identifying the issues with each system. The hydraulics and fuel system were the most pressing to get the car running, driving, and stopping.

I’d like to think that part of good parenting is getting my kids to be okay with dirty hands. My girls have been pretty good about that. Pulling a greasy TR7 starter out? No problem. Removing, cleaning the points, and reinstalling the fuel pump with new fuel hoses? Easy, even if it means laying on the ground with pine straw in your hair. It feels like they’re preparing for real life by being willing and able to do these things.

Aside from the pump, the SUs needed some attention. I’ve always loved rebuilding carbs. The linkages to drop the jets, setting the jet height, working with small clean parts. Therapeutic. I used this to introduce them to the clean side of working on cars, that not everything is covered in grime. They got to pull the carbs, clean them in solvent, media blast the aluminum bits and install new jets. We did the work inside and each girl got to do one carburetor while I helped them see what they needed to do and why. Set the needle into the piston. Align the needle to the jet. Set the jet height with a micrometer. Install the little springs into the choke mechanism. With a needle oiler, nut driver and screwdriver, the carbs came back together. We spent time together, laughing at the little parts that were difficult to sort and, I hope, building better lines of communication between us.

Carbs back on with initial settings, we also retorqued the head and reset the valves. I played with the distributor and swapped in some new spark plugs. Everything was ready to start. With the fuel pump pushing up through the filter and no leaks after filling the float bowls, we cranked it over and it started up! It was what we had hoped would happen, and it always surprises me when the plan comes together into something viable.

I wish I could say my daughters were super excited to work on the car all the time, but that’s not even true about myself. Sometimes, I’d rather be able to drive a car more than a half mile before the rust in the gas tank plugs the float bowl valves. That problem reared its head soon after we got it started. Still, the kids did engage and as we worked thru the issues, we slowly made progress toward a reliable MGB. Being able to spend time with my daughters doing this is something that I’ll treasure. It was a good experience for me, to get to see them using their gifts and abilities to solve problems and do greasy, hands-on work. They may not go down the road of life in their own British cars, but they’ll at least have the experience of having done some car work, know that they can do it, and remember that they shared that time with their dad.