Hi AVB,
Good on the kid for wanting to give it a crack but at 14 it is too difficult as you say to get around till he can drive. Repairs on mowers is a lifetime of experience, it just involves suck a skill level, it is being able to weld ,being able to fault find, it is being able to work out how to get things apart without breaking things. It also depends on the type of repairs you are doing and how old the equipment is that you are working on, it is just not a case of bolting new bits on and all is good. On top of all that you then have to deal with the customers who can't understand why it is so expensive to repair something when they can go down to Walmart and buy a new Chinese mower for what it is going to cost for the repairs. As you are well aware of it is too hard to make a living doing this sort of work. There is better work for a 14 year old to be looking at, he will never get rich in this industry. Most of the mower repair places have long gone around here, the few that still survive are mostly doing repairs for contractors and they only work on commercial grade equipment, they do not touch domestic equipment
Glad you are feeling a bit better, but the news after you hit 65 is always going to be downhill, the brain still thinks young, and I can do this or I can do that but the body can't do it and if you do do it what used to take you an hour now takes you 2/3 hours. I just get up each day and do one bit at a time, 3 years and I am 80
