What got you started tinkering?

[Mark1boa]

Most people I have talked to have a car, truck, dirtbike ect that started them down the road as a gear head/tinkerer.  Mine was a 1984 chrysler lebaron I got it my senior year of high school.  It was a loaner car that from a body shop in town so it had lived a hard life.  I Learned alot about motors from that car because I couldnt afford to take it anywhere when it broke down.  It really was a tuff car thinking back I took that old beast all the places my buddies went with their pickups. That being said I had to fix something every couple of weeks. Funny how you can have fond memories of an old POS 

[Vintagesleds.com]

[Stepney]

Grandfather's 1968 Wheel Horse Electro 12, I tried to remove the key once as a little kid and the switch fell apart. It sat for years, and in the meantime, I went on a trip to the Owls Head Transportation museum, where I found my first Hit and Miss. Bought a '28 Fairbanks 1 1/2hp a little after that...
The tractor was sent to a shop that royally screwed up the electrical, and it sat even longer after that.
After three years of just engines, 12 of them and a total of about 6,000 pounds worth of iron.. I bought a '66 Cub Cadet garden tractor. About that time I made the connection about the wiring, in my 10 year old head. Rewired the E-12 and got that going.
Incidentally, I was just thinking of starting a thread like this myself.

Come to think of it, my first engine was actually when I was 4 or so, an Empire steamer. Mother brought it home thinking it was a model train with three wheels broken off...

[chris r]

Bicycles for me. I got a brand new bike for Christmas one year. I think I was 8-9 years old at the time. Parents told me I can't take it apart. After a couple weeks we realized it was a chameleon as it had changed colors. 

[jettawreck]

An old engine me and a friend found in his dad's shed. It was a Reo brand mower engine. I believe it was for a push type reel mower. We had plans to put it in a mini bike frame. What we didn't know/understand at the time was that it was made with the PTO shaft off the cam to run slow. It was an odd ball piece. One lobe on the cam which had some lifter actuators to operate both valve.
Anyways, I took it all apart. A case of stuck valves from sitting probably. My dad said if/when I got it all back together and it ran he would buy a mini bike. Incentive!!
I was about 8 or9 years old at the time. Didn't yet understand cam/crank timing and thanks to a tip from the guy that worked on my dads construction crew, got that sorted out and timing marks lined up before final assembly. So when the big day for start up came, dad figured there was no way it was going to run because he "knew" it had been put together wrong. When it fired right up, he knew he had been had. But, he found a old Suzuki 50cc Scrambler, which was way better than a mini bike, and kept his part of the deal.
That Suzuki and the 1968 Alouette 292 that he bought soon afterwards taught me a lot because if we wanted to ride, we had to keep them running ourselves mostly. If you couldn't fix it, you didn't ride.

[PolCat]

It was in 1959, I was 3 years old and my mom said I would take my highchair apart and put it back together again.

[Mark1boa]

I didn't even think about bicycles man we swapped parts around alot. We had a Honda MR50 mini bike so we never had to work on it.  It always ran.  The slue of 200$ snowmobiles on the other hand.  I knew a lot about small engines way before I could drive but ultimately it was the Lebaron that really got interested in working on all my own stuff.

[Desmo878]

Go kart given to the 4 brothers in @ 1970 when I was 10. Had a Clinton 4 stroke motor on it, and when it didn't run, we guessed a lot!! My brother & I bought some Craftsman tools shortly after that, & took apart a lot of stuff we shouldn't have! My Mom would get a local guy, Ken Hall to fix it after we worked on it. I then bought a 1971 Yamaha GT80 mini bike, & taught myself how to work on it. By 16 I was fixing all the other kids bikes for them, & I have never looked back. The good thing about that now is I learned Mikuni carbs inside & out, so now when working on snowmobiles, that aspect seems easy to me. As a kid, I never owned anything with a Keihin, & still really haven't. Only owned a few Honda's in my day, which used them exclusively. Anyways, that go kart taught me how to hold a power slide, never give up until you're in the bushes, & how to put vehicles to the outer edge of its capabilities. I'm not sure that's a good or bad thing now at 56, but I'm using that to teach the yung' uns' in the family how to ride/drive. Here's 11 year old Zoe with a XR 80 I bought her. Can't put a price tag on that smile!!

[GoofyLeo3]

My first set of wheels was this early 70's 8hp Rugg lawn tractor sold thru TrueValue stores and this crappy pic is the only shot I have of it, although I still have the wheels for it somewhere. Pops got a new rear-engined 8hp Murray so I got the old one. Battery was crap so I took the old, weak, take-out battery from Mom's Horizon and mounted it to the tail with a shock-cord & used lamp wire twisted around the battery posts to run it parallel with the original battery. Yanked the muffler & made a header out of chrome plumbing elbow. Added a car horn behind the grill slats & painted it gloss black with a can of Dad's Krylon, as well. Used to hook the yard-cart up and a coaster-wagon to THAT by tying the handle to the yard-carts axle and take the neighborhood kids for a ride like a train. Then I turned 16 and bought my 1st motorcycle ('81 Yamaha 400 Special II that I still have) and pretty much forgot about that 'ol orange tractor. Would LOVE to find another one..
Funny thing is; the red garden tractor I use just for blowing snow.. ALSO has a horn that I added AS WELL as a boat battery in a weight tray for extra traction and is ALSO wired parallel to the original tractor battery. 30+ years later and it came full circle. I should tell my Pops this story... 

[Get Fast]

What got me really into it was an old basket case Bridgestone 90 street motorbike that an old guy had and couldn't get running. I was around 13 then. He told me I could have it for free. Of course before then, my buddies and I all raced our bicycles and tried being the fastest. Now I had a bike with a motor on it! I spent endless nights tinkering on it trying to get it going. Tearing off the lights and all things not needed to lighten it up, and make it a dirt bike. I was proud as heck when I finally got it to run! I took it out on farm lanes and thru ditches, and I realized then this bike wasn't made to run on rough terrain well. I kept beating on it anyhow, till one day I jumped over a ditch and bent the forks bad, and the engine was about shot anyhow. I junked the thing then, but I was now hooked on tinkering and riding. Picked up a Hodaka Super Rat then, which was made for off road hell raising, and had a blast with it! Got me into snowmobiles then too, and more bikes. I'll never forget that old Bridestone junker.

[oldcadman]

in 1969 at the age of 11 i bought a sears mini bike with the money i made cutting lawns and shoveling snow in our neighborhood.it was just like having a sled back then, ride 4 hours repair 8 hours.

[emrickmn]

Was pretty much snowmobiles.

I was rather hard on my 78 TX so dad made me fix the screw-ups. By high school, I was making repairs to other kids & teacher's sleds.
Dad's mechanical ability leaked into me and carried me through BSIE/ME degrees

Fast Forward 35-40 years, still wrenching on the same type of sleds but being paid for it now.

I do remember getting my head stuck in a drill press when I was about 10

[kram69]

do LEGO blocks count?  It was them before the bicycle phase...

[jeeps567]

lived on a farm when I was young.  plenty of things to take apart. no one said anything about putting things back together again. I guess what realy started me tinkering was an old farmall m and fordson power major.  neil

[Rupp luver]

RETIREMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!