I am bored so im just gonna talk about stuff thats on my mind and see if anyone posts back because my parents dont listen. They think 4 wheeling and me wanting to be a mechanic is a waste of time.

I am 16 and right now i drive a stock 1992 dodge dakota extended cab with a perormance 3 inch exhaust and glass pack crappy loud muffler. its 4wd and ive already learned the risks of 4 wheeling by having to pay 650 for a new transfer case and took 5 hours to replace the old cracked one after i got high centered on a log in the middle of a mud hole.

Later i want to take an old flatfender and completely redo it. start from scratch by strengthening the frame and then building the suspension off of it with dana axles and arb air lockers front and rear. Then i will build the drive train im thinking of a few engine choices either a 22re from a toyota pickup or a dodge magnum v6 or a 350 chevrolet fuel injected. then whichever transmission to fit the engine. after that ill add a military heavy duty transfer case and strong driveshafts like aluminum graphite like on my dodge or something. then a fiberglass body warn winch and some other miscalaneous accesories. oh and i want 35 inch super swamper krawlers.

i pretty much want it to be a rock crawlin jeep that i wont get upset if i break it. I hope someone is as bored as i was to write this that they can write back and give me some feedback on my future jeep plans

If that's what you want then go for it.  To know what you want to do at 16 is great.  I wish that I had known at 16 that I was going to become so interested in mechanics.  As for being a mechanic a waste of time, I would beg to differ.  What's great is that you are interested in that and 4 wheeling.  That combo could lead you to being highly successful owning your own parts and fab shop.  It all depends on how much effort you want to put into it.  I would recommend getting into a trade program if your school offers one.  Also, you might think about taking some business classes like accounting.  The right amount of knowledge in both mechanics and business would certainly make running your own operation much easier (easier-not easy).  Your effort and imagination are your only limits.  Besides actually working on vehicles, your interest could also lead you to an interest in research and development and you could actually wind up engineering new systems for successful, established companies such as Rancho and Pro Comp.  No doubt with the ever increasing interest in 4 wheeling and even in the show truck scene where lifted trucks never see dirt there will be more demand in the future for capable and knowlegable designers and techs keep pushing innovation.  So go with what you like, as I said what you get out of it is what you put into it.  SO GO GET GREASY!  

hell ya dude we need all the 4 wheelin grease monkeys we can get I'm 18 soon to be 19 when i was 15 I wanted to be a tech and poeple laughed at me and called me a loser and told me to get a real job  including my mom and dad and I herd that even more when I started to 4 wheel with my first truck which I still have ( 1978 dodge power wagon w150) but I stuck with what I wanted to do and 4 months ago I graduated from UTI and now I'm working at jerrys dodge in springfield va making  just over 65,000 a year granted i'm working my ass off 5 days a week but i'm doing a hell of a lot better than any of those ass wipes who laughed at me and my dad has told me he felt bad for telling me that I won't make anything of my self being a mechanic  so stick with  what makes you happy and if you work hard and don't give up you'll show then all

well dude i think that wanting to be a mechanic is a great profession, considering many are making between 35k and 70k a year. to me 4 wheeling is probably the best pastime that a person can get into, you learn a lot of new ideas, you build  great friendships, and it is a very family oriented hobby. i take my wife and 2yr old son with me quite often. you might try sitting down with your parents and show them some magazines on 4-wheeling and tell them your heart, i'm sure they will listen and give their input back. busting your t-case probably didn't give them too much ease about it though. 4-wheeling can be exspensive, so be a little more careful and maybe take them with you on a trail ride to let them experience the joy first hand and it might ease their minds.        i would ditch the glass packs and put on a borla muffler, more flow and better sound. as for the jeep idea, most of it sounds great, but if your going to do all that, just build a tube buggy. being a bronco man, i would use a 351w and a np 435 tranny, 205 t-case, e-lockers instead of air, cause air lines get cut on rocks. by the way, bf goodrich makes the krawlers, oh yeah, ford 9" rear, there's nothing stronger, except rockwell's, but who can afford them? good luck

That's what I'm talking about.  Sometime I think Mom and Dad forget who fixes alot of their cars.  Working your ass doing something you like is the greatest thing in the world you can do.  Keep turn'n them wrench's.  

Maybe your parents are mostly scared by how much breaking your parts cost. I'm 23 and I'm afraid to spend hundreds on broken parts, even though I still live at home.

I agree with what other people said regarding career planning. You know a lot more about trucks than I did at 16. If someone had given me a few thousand dollars to modify a truck, I probably would have bought a lot of stupid stuff for it back then.

Re; lifted trucks that'll never see dirt... I think that's practically a sin. (Total waste of resouces. Same with 4x4's with low profile tires on 20" plus rims or, gasp... a lowering kit) 

If someone'll pay you to build a lifted rig that won't see dirt, more power to you. I do lots of work that ends up being useless, like a dog chasing it's tail, but if at the end of the day if I get paid and the boss wants me back I'm happy. BTW I'm not an aircraft mechanic now. It was to hard to find a job as an apprentice in the aircraft industry so I do stuff like ultrasound and x-ray for industrial purposes. You might want to checkout the job availability in your area for people with the qualifications you'd have after you finish a college course. I should have done that. There's actually a lot of jobs available for "licenced" aircraft mechanics but it takes 3 years of work experience, I'd need 300 different tasks signed off in my logbook and then write an exam. If I had a job and my boss didn't let me get 300 tasks done than I could still be an apprentice after 80 years of being in aerospace. So that's why for now I left it.

I agree, lifted trucks should see dirt, lots of it, but hey, we said, there's plenty of people who'll pay you to do it and won't have a clue what your putting on their truck or how to fix when they inevitibly brake it backing of the show hauler wrong.  

my mom and dad were not afraid of me breaking stuff on my truck because they didn't help me at all with parts  they said you break it you fix it  

Actually, I agree with that approach.  

first, discuss with your parents what you want to do, but definitely stay in school till you graduate.

second keep working if you can, maybe get a side job as a mechanic for now, cause although you claim to want to be a mechanic, many of your ideas for what you want to build show that you are not yet an expert (nothing wrong with that, jsut keep researching)

Also keep your options open, it's good to not close off options even if they come from your parents, you'll find what's right for you if you keep an open mind

keep wheeling, it's a good way to learn ingenuity and build character (believe me, walking home in the rain after getting stuck in the mud with a girl you really like but hardly know definitely builds character)

It's nice to hear responsible enthusiasm for our hobby from you guys of high school age.   Every older generation tends to put down thoughs who come later and they are always wrong.  A contrivertal idea I would share would be to contimplate the military, IF, you can't get into that trade school or college right away.  I know with a war on everyone says "Not me" but the service takes a good kid and turns them into a disciplined man.  Bad kids just get worse.  There are a number of routes that would increase your mechanical skills and not all involve getting shot at.  Something to think about.