A Valiant Restoration: Day 3 & 4

According to Google, valiant is defined as "possessing or showing courage or determination".  In addition to literally restoring a Plymouth Valiant, I believe that the restoration itself is a valiant act.  It's Jacob trusting that I know what I am doing and am able to help him know what he is doing.  It's taking something apart that most people wouldn't dare in fear that they'd never get it back together.  It's knowing that there are risks but valuable rewards to be won.  Maybe, I'm being too deep here, but I just think that the name of the car is significant for this endeavor that we've taken on. We continued pulling...

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A Valiant Restoration: Day One & Two

The rules were simple: I would buy Jacob a vehicle of his choosing when he was 14 years old up to a decent yet frugal dollar amount. We would spend the next couple of years fixing it up to his satisfaction. I would only work on it when he was working on it and I would match him dollar for dollar for replacement parts. My goal was for him to gain two important lessons from this process: He would learn to appreciate the vehicle more since it had his own sweat equity in it and would hopefully treat it with a respect one rarely sees from a new teenage driver. He would learn some advanced mechanics and be able to diagnose and repair any future...

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