Kids Like Buttons
[Project | Jeep Cherokee | Part 16]
The previous part of this story can be found here, but if you’re just joining us the beginning is all the way back here if you’d like to catch up.
November 2014 | 178,300 miles
A few months later my headlights stopped working. I fixed them. Eventually. Good times.
At the same time I was fixing those headlights I found some time to make a Jeep for my sons. They were getting to the age where they wanted to join in whatever I was doing, but were still too young to be of much help. Whenever they joined in any kind of project task you could basically figure that all forward momentum was halted, and nothing would thereafter be completed.
In an effort to try to give them something they could actually do and have fun with while dad was working on the big Cherokee, I came up with this little XJ. The last thing I wanted to do was tell them to get lost because they were getting in the way, but with this blue thing I could at least try to steer them into a parallel lane so that forward momentum could be maintained.
I even included a modular engine for them to remove and play around with, made (like the rest of the blue Jeep) out of random pieces of scrap and such whipped together. There were gauges in the dash made from old pressure regulators at work that quit working ages ago, as well as a bunch of buttons from some old analog radio. Kids like buttons.
The gamble seems to have worked out well. They took to the bait, and are well on their way to becoming gearheads themselves. And aside from just wrenching on their broken-down wooden Jeep, they’ve mimicked all the other things the big Jeep was known for, including adventuring and work horse stuff.
Loads of fun have been had by all… yet events were soon to unfold that would require significant changes to this burgeoning fleet. This may or may not have included the addition of another project vehicle.
Your Dream Car's Dream Car
Warning. What you are about to read is ridiculous. I wrote it a few years ago. It is mostly true, but I may have misremembered a few things due to brain damage from getting knocked out several times as a kid. I blame Jackie Chan and Dragon Ball Z.
Stay tuned for the next episode in my epic automotive history disguised as poor life choices.
My wife loves the pull-out engine! She thinks you should put that on the radar of Lovevery, a company in Idaho that makes tacticle, non-flashy kids toys and senes them out in age appropriate boxes.
Cool series!