I have a cousin who was on the high school golf team, and then became a golf pro at a golf course.
Actually @B.L.E they already teach that in HS English class as my wife will attest to. Every state is different though.
I never had any auto classes and only general shop in junior high. You couldnât do shop and college prep at the same time. As kids though we always worked on small engines and equipment and just progressed as we acquired more stuff.
The way cars are advancing, your education actually never ends. Itâs real easy to fall behind and find yourself with obsolete skills, especially if you take a hiatus from the job for a few years.
And, that doesnât just apply to auto techs. If IBM punch card machines and FORTRAN should ever make a comeback, Iâd qualify as a computer programmer.
Right after feeler gauges, dwell meters and adjusting wheel bearings.
Talk about obsolete we have a dialer, at a lift station to send emergency messages, or call in for conditions. It is called an analog or pots (plain old telephone service) line. The owner of the building ripped out all the wires, now we can move the line to a new address, but ATT is no longer installing new POTS lines.
Dwell meters, I can pretty much agree with that
But feeler gauges and adjusting wheel bearings, I disagree with you
I donât know what kind of vehicles youâre thinking of . . .
But in my field . . . fleet . . . that stuff isnât going any any time soon
The procedures for which those tools are used arenât disappearing. Not at all
I remember back in 87 trying to get Twins world series tickets on Saturday morning. We were right there the instant we could call in but we had only dial service plus an electronic phone that at least could do redial. We just couldnât dial fast enough time after time to be able to break in line for tickets. Right due to the central phone office-they hadnât upgraded yet. We did eventually fire AT&T, Bell, Quest, all of them.
Feeler gauges for adjusting points, I have not done wheel bearings in years, My thought they are part of a hub replacement, not tightening the bolt until you feel resistance, then backing off 1/4 turn, or whatever it was.
Feeler gauges are also used for valve clearance adjustments on engines that donât utilize hydraulic valves. We also have a super long set of feeler gauges to check lobe to case and lobe to lobe clearance in Roots blowers.
Feeler gauges are used for a lot more than adjusting points
Why didnât you just say adjusting points is a thing of the past, and youâll get no argument from anybody, I would guess
As for adjusting wheel bearings, again, I donât know what kind of vehicles youâre thinking of
But there are still tons of vehicles out there which have adjustable tapered roller bearings. Very common trucks, actually. The Ford Superduty being a common example. Also rear bearings on full floater axles.
I guess my point is that small cars and light trucks are not the entire spectrum, as far as automotive goes
Stuff that is considered old or obsolete nevertheless still has its place, but perhaps no longer for the cars and small trucks
A good example . . . our fleet has lots of 2016 Ford F-250 super duty rear wheel drive trucks. And they still use conventional tapered wheel bearings in the front, which need to adjusted.
But I do admit those âunitized hubsâ are becoming more common, even for larger applications.
As for the feeler gauge, there are lots of checks and adjustments, where you need to know the clearance, to determine if a components is okay, or needs to be adjusted, replaced, overhauled, etc.
I believe there are still several recent . . . and probably even new . . . Hondas with adjustable valve lash. Toyota has moved away from that, but Honda has not, as far as I know
Believe it or not I need a feeler gauge for adjusting printheads on a bill printer, Yes valve clearance is a use, but I was alluding to maintenance of points, I stand corrected dear sir! What does one do with a roots blower?
They are used to provide medium pressure air at a medium volume. Low pressure high volume air is best left to centrifugal blowers and high pressure low volume air is best done with piston compressors.
Commonly used to unload cement trucks using air and aerating sewage and of course, superchargers for dragsters and scavenging blowers for two cycle diesel engines.
Roots is a trademark now owned by Dresser Industries but there are a lot of Roots style blowers in use.
The phasing of the 1:1 timing gears that synchronize the intermeshing rotors is super critical or else the lobes on the rotors will collide.
More than one person/organization benefits when a individual drives on a road. If they are drivng to the store to buy something, the store benefits. If they are driving to work, their employer benefits. To be fare fair everyone who benefits should be paying for the roads. Not just the individual. Just my opinion is all.
True, but bicyclists use the roadways, pedestrians use the sidewalks put in with roadways, the Little old lady gets groceries delivered to her store by roadways, Fire departments and police and ems use the roadways that serve people without cars. OOH OOOH Pedestrian tolls!
Actually I think the way we do it works just fine provided money doesnât get siphoned off for other purposes. Yes the fed tax needs to increase but people donât trust the fed to not use the money for other purposes, so it is stalled. Same thing with some states. Minnesota has a lot of money but they have trouble allocating it according to reasonable need so people think they waste it. So maybe some tolls are needed until confidence in the funding decisions can be restored. It doesnât help when you have a couple billion surplus because of stringent spending and others immediately try to make sure it all gets spent. Didnât we all have relatives like that?
Unfortunately the tolls will be run by private business it appears, so the proceeds are not all going to the highway fund but private for profit corporations.
Well most places people donât work for nothing.
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It seems that a large percentage of people going to automotive forums think mechanics should work for close to nothing.
âŠand not everyone is motivated just by money. If the only reason you work is for the paycheck, thatâs sad. You should do something you enjoy.
Thatâs all well and good as long as it pays your bills. If your life-long love of macrame doesnât provide enough income to support you, I donât think the taxpayers should kick in the rest.
I have always had the philosophy that âYou should do something you enjoy as long as it supports you in the style you wish. Otherwise find something you at least like to do that pays well enoughâ
But you are right, not everybody is motivated by just money. They are motivated by their own self interests.
If those were the only two mutually exclusive choices, Iâd agree. I donât think putting happiness before materialism necessarily leads to taxpayer-funded subsidies.