Is mechanical ability a matter of genetics?

My grandfather was a blacksmith; I can remember hand-cranking the blower for his forge.

My dad was a mechanic and kept our old cards and tractors running.

My oldest brother buys and works on lawn tractors and mowers. My younger brother ran a transmission shop for 35 years. I've worked on cars and motorcycles for more than 50 years.

So should I blame my addiction to Goldwings on heredity or environment? At least, I am not alone because the rest of you people are in the same boat.

Yes! Heredity and environment is absolutely the reason!

I don't know about heredity. I think it has more to do with how you were brought up, maybe more a matter of necessity working on my own stuff like how it was for my dad.
My kids know very little about cars, not because I haven't tried to show them but because they have very little interest in such things and for most all of their lives I've been able to afford newer cars and have work done on them for me. That is what they've been exposed to.
Bikes on the other hand are more a fun thing to do. My son has expressed a lot of interest in building a custom oldwing at least. He wants us to get a couple dual sports to ride up in the hills. I gotta make that happen.

Environment, if hereditary you'd collect old tractors

Growing up poor as Jobes turkey might have played a part in my case and being married 3 times keeps my skills well honed in my "Golden Years " phooie!! :BigGrin:

Boy can I relate! 3 exes behind me and a princess living here now.

its certainly not a degrading thing ....smart people have sissy hands and eventually poor health ....smart hands people seem to use what you were born with so heredity is involve in this way for all of us ...and most stay in shape out of life in general...so call smart people have retarded hands by choice ...making me think they are not smart at all ....

[url=https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=182637#p182637:1clsa39x said:

slabghost » 4 minutes ago[/url]":1clsa39x]
Boy can I relate! 3 exes behind me and a princess living here now.

Click to expand...

Many Men Live in quite desperation Bro . I think It would of been easier to cut our own throats with a rusty pocket knife :BigGrin:

Everyone has gifts, talents and abilities unique to them. I have 3 daughters. Only 1 has mechanical ability to problem solve and swing wrenches. I tried to teach the other 2, but the oldest has no mechanical ability at all. (Or car sense either). Example, (and I love her dearly), but she drove home on a flat tire on her 1998 Ford Escort coupe......right front tire no less........burned it right off the rim and drove it into the driveway on the rim alone. She had no idea. When asked about the screeching sound she heard??? She heard it, but turned up the radio! :shock: :smilie_happy:

My middle and youngest daughters did help with restoring the bike. The youngest worked mostly with painting and pin stripping where the middle one pulled and installed engines.

It seems both heredity and environment are factors in my kids' lives.

My oldest daughter has an 86I that she bought cheap, repainted, and maintains. Her first car was a Vega wagon that she paid $300 for and we kept it going for many thousands of miles.

My oldest son built a dune buggy from the iron pipe kit; it seats 4 people, has an 3.8 V-6 in it, and runs faster than I want to go on the trails.

One of my granddaughters has a passion for the mid-80s Fiero; she owns 3 right now. She (with the help of a friend) restored and repainted one; one sets in the back of my garage, and the third is awaiting maintenance in her friends garage.

My great-grandson (5 years old) loves spending time in the garage with me when I'm working on a bike.

The passion continues into the sixth generation.

If it's hereditary then something bad happened to 2 of mine. Wouldn't trust them with a wrench, might hurt themselves :smilie_happy:

[url=https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=182687#p182687:ry52jvfi said:

julimike54 » Fri Oct 21, 2016 2:56 pm[/url]":ry52jvfi]
If it's hereditary then something bad happened to 2 of mine. Wouldn't trust them with a wrench, might hurt themselves :smilie_happy:

Click to expand...

I can relate! :shock:

Of course, none of us have ever sacrificed skin and blood when a wrench slipped on a motorcycle.

If I don't have scratches, cuts and scabs on my hands, I haven't been playing mechanic for a while!

yeah lots of blood zones in a oldwing project .....my hands aint to pretty either..

More necessity than anything for me.
The old man wasn't to mechanically inclined but his dad was one of those guys who could build or repair anything.......!
We were just hard up most of my childhood and had to get up early and pump up dads tires on his old Buick with a hand pump. Didn't have much choice. We thought he was pretty ornery to have us do it till one day I realized that he had to work all day then pump the tires up to get home!
Patching up those old tubes taught us the value of being able to get home on those old worn out recaps.
Wire coat hangers and electrical tape were staples to keep in the car.
He never had a complete set of tools in his life! Always missing two or three sizes. Doing valve jobs with a brace and bit and valve grinding compound. Running a car with the valves burnt out till spring then pulling the heads with a lug wrench cause that was all you had!
Now it's kind of fun .Sure wasn't when it was the only way to eat!

My dad was a farmer....he did all the work on the tractors, and farm equipment, but not the family vehicles. My brother trys, but he's lost when it comes to actually wrenching on anything more complicated than a door knob. I have a niece that will dive right in and do anything needed on a car. She's building a street machine out of a '64 Nova wagon right now.
I have always been mechanically inclined. I was the kid that would tear his Christmas/birthday toys apart to see how they worked, then put them back together...

I started fixing cars with my father around 7 or 8 years old. If we couldn't fix it we had to do without. So I got pretty good at fixing just about everything.

[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=182704#p182704:2z6pcu93 said:

AApple » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:29 am[/url]":2z6pcu93]
My dad was a farmer....he did all the work on the tractors, and farm equipment, but not the family vehicles. My brother trys, but he's lost when it comes to actually wrenching on anything more complicated than a door knob. I have a niece that will dive right in and do anything needed on a car. She's building a street machine out of a '64 Nova wagon right now.
I have always been mechanically inclined. I was the kid that would tear his Christmas/birthday toys apart to see how they worked, then put them back together...

Click to expand...

:good:

For me it is nurture more than nature. My biological father wasn't very handy with tools even though he understood vehicles and new all the right tradesmen t get things done right. Dear old Dad ( raised me since 3 years old) is still bending spanners (wrenches) at 80 years of age commercially. He was always amazed by my mechanical ability as he swears that he really didn't teach me ( used to work away from home and only home for 2 days in 14) but I am sure that observing him over the years and always being able to get an great answer from him made all the difference. He is just under 4K kilometres away but he rings me all the time with auto electrical and now mechanical queries from vehicles in his workshop.
I think most times he is just looking for a second opinion ( maybe just refreshing some of those old brain cells) but it is always pretty cool doing long distance diagnostics and helping him out now. :good: