Since I can remember, I have been good with my hands. My mother always told me that if given enough time, I could take anything apart and put it back together. Seeing my first car on the James River Turnpike really got me into fixing cars. It didn't take very long for me to get the hankering to get my hands dirty. My Uncle Buck started the garage way back in 1910 to fix up tractors and once the "T" came to our town, my future was set. I learned by watching Buck take apart each engine and once it was put back together hearing the purr of the engine was music to my ears. I guess you could say that I am a "self-taught" grease monkey. Once I learned to repair the "T", everything seemed to fall into place. The Ford Model T, or the "tin lizzie", had a 177 cubic inch 20 hp engine. I will always remember this because it was the first automobile I had ever seen. Doctor Robins arrived in town driving a two door roadster. He scared Ben Thompson's chickens so bad that they didn't give eggs for two weeks. I will never forget the day he drove into the garage. Uncle Buck was out back and I just about tripped over a bucket of oil on my way to open the garage doors. Boy did it look great. He climbed out and told me that he must of run over something coming back from delivering the Burton Twins. He said that he was leaking oil. Sliding under the chassis it didn’t take long before I found the problem. It seems as the oil pan down under the car on the fly wheel casing had been hit by something and was the source of the leak. We fixed it in no time and he was able to be on his way. The usual repair was with the gas tank. You had to take the front seat out to access the tank. I always wondered why Henry Ford put it there but later it was moved to the back of the car.
