High School Shop: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
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Location
Upstate New York
Display Name
Geek on the Hill
I finally got rid of the last of the codes on the used Saturn I bought, with a month to spare before the inspection is due.

With the help of God and the folks on a Saturn forum, My total cost to get the car compliant was about $70.00 (new Bosch plugs, new Denso wires, new OEM gas cap, and new NAPA EVAP vent solenoid).

Every time I'm able to fix something myself that would have cost me good money to have someone else diagnose and fix for me, I'm grateful for the high school shop teachers who filled my brain with things mechanical for four years.

I do love those "0 dtc" readouts, let me tell ya.

-Rich
 

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I never took high school shop. I did academic stuff, but had a dad who was both an ATP and A&P and made our family do horrible things like "rebuild the motor on the old family car before it became the kid car" or "build a boat from a scrap hull and catalogue parts" or "build in our own cabinets in the garage and remodel the bathrooms"... stuff like that.

He's been dead over 20 years and I still have, and use, his tools.

In that time I've built a mazda rotary engine from scrap parts for airplane use, helped build a Velocity SUV, and remodeled my own kitchen and other whatnot...
 
It's nice to be able to fix things yourself. One of my friends just her rear brakes done. She picked her car up, they didn't fill the brake fluid!
 
I have similar warm feelings about the accounting and finance classes that allowed me to farm that stuff out.
 
By the time I made it to high school they had done away with shop class. Sports was more important then shop or industrial arts.
I went to a Christian College and took a two year course in automotive mechanics. We started with the combustion engine. I had to learn every part of the engine along with all fluids that it takes to operate said engine. This was in the early 80's when all the new stuff was coming out, meaning electronics and such. I can just imagine going through this same course today and what I would learn.
One of my instructors was Ernie Self. He was a head mechanic on an Indy team. Last I heard he owned Self Racing.
 
wabower said:
I have similar warm feelings about the accounting and finance classes that allowed me to farm that stuff out.
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I hear ya', but I am sure glad I know enough mechanical to know what they are up to and to be able to distinguish between the thieves and the good ones.

I think you know more than you let on, too. I bet you have tractors skills from Elk City.
 
Yep, ratings in Ford, Deere, Case and Massey-Ferguson with one-way plow, cotton cultivator and PTO add-ons. But all are pilot ratings rather than mechanic ratings. But we didn't have Ray-bans or big watches so we rolled up our Levi's by one cuff and wore white sox.

SCCutler said:
I hear ya', but I am sure glad I know enough mechanical to know what they are up to and to be able to distinguish between the thieves and the good ones.

I think you know more than you let on, too. I bet you have tractors skills from Elk City.
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Our high school shop class was pretty useless.

However, our Ag program and auto shop classes were great. Of all the skills I learned in school I think what I learned from those two classes have been of the most real world value to me in life.
 
wabower said:
I have similar warm feelings about the accounting and finance classes that allowed me to farm that stuff out.
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It's still nice to have a choice, and as Spike said, to be able to discern when a particular mechanic is trying to rip you off.

For me, most of the time, the deciding factor in choosing whether to do it myself or pay someone to do it is how much of a PITA I predict the job will be. That can actually swing my decision in either direction, though, depending on the costliness of the PITA factor versus the part(s).

There also are some jobs that I will farm out because I lack the tools or equipment. But there are very few that I choose to farm out because I lack the knowledge, because what knowledge I do have allows me to acquire the knowledge that I lack.

-Rich
 
cowman said:
Our high school shop class was pretty useless.
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Same here. I grew up turning wrenches on all kinds of equipment with my dad, he was a 30-year engineer for IBM and son of a farmer - so it varied from changing sweeps on a 50-year old tractor to repairing PCB's and retuning IF stages on radios and TV's, but it was an excellent background education in "How Things Work" that prepped me for an engineering career later.
 
This year I got reacquainted with some home construction skills and introduced to some new ones: running pex plumbing through our my 1700 sq ft completely remodeled retirement house. Created two full bathrooms took the old ones out to enlarge the core of the house for entertainment and take out extra rooms. Ran all new yellow jacket electrical, installed spray foam insulation, installed geothermal heat pump, installed a new well with the help of a local driller, working on the old lagoon now, got plenty of practice with drywall hanging, tape and mudding, then sprayed textured knockdown, prime paint same.
 
cowman said:
Our high school shop class was pretty useless.

However, our Ag program and auto shop classes were great. Of all the skills I learned in school I think what I learned from those two classes have been of the most real world value to me in life.
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I remember my HS Guidance Counselor asking me why I hadn't taken Ag or Auto Mechanics yet, that I would never amount to anything and not do well in college. My continued interest in taking Chemistry and Physics was a waste.

As a pilot, I am pretty sure my Physics class may have been the most beneficial class ever. Sure makes Energy, Acceleration, Stored Energy, and similar concepts in a plane easy to understand. (You won't hear me claiming Zoom Climbs are superior uses of energy.)

I also find the Physics class was helpful with all things electrical, to the point that adding circuits in a house or other wiring is understood.

Now, getting back to the HS Gudiance Counselor, not sure who was correct, as I did go to college, and then I did graduate from College, with lots of that Dean's List stuff.... Then I went and got a Master's degree with more honors and such.....

And now I find myself buying trucks from insurance companies and supervising the re-building of them into our company work trucks, including learning enough about body work to be able to offer advice when employees get stuck. Nice to be able to buy a 2009 Dodge 3/4 ton for $2900 and then rebuild it in two weeks and have a truck with 40k miles on it for employees to drive.
 
Our shop class was utterly useless. Would have been cool to wrench on cars and stuff, but we didn't do that.
 
I don't usually rebuild them myself but I have been driving re-builders for over 20 years. I suspect my auto purchases have been about 1/2 of most families in a similar income range.

JoseCuervo said:
I remember my HS Guidance Counselor asking me why I hadn't taken Ag or Auto Mechanics yet, that I would never amount to anything and not do well in college. My continued interest in taking Chemistry and Physics was a waste.

As a pilot, I am pretty sure my Physics class may have been the most beneficial class ever. Sure makes Energy, Acceleration, Stored Energy, and similar concepts in a plane easy to understand. (You won't hear me claiming Zoom Climbs are superior uses of energy.)

I also find the Physics class was helpful with all things electrical, to the point that adding circuits in a house or other wiring is understood.

Now, getting back to the HS Gudiance Counselor, not sure who was correct, as I did go to college, and then I did graduate from College, with lots of that Dean's List stuff.... Then I went and got a Master's degree with more honors and such.....

And now I find myself buying trucks from insurance companies and supervising the re-building of them into our company work trucks, including learning enough about body work to be able to offer advice when employees get stuck. Nice to be able to buy a 2009 Dodge 3/4 ton for $2900 and then rebuild it in two weeks and have a truck with 40k miles on it for employees to drive.
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I discovered re-builders because our vo-tech classes included auto body which allowed you to buy a wreck and build it over the 2 or 4 semesters into a fully functional auto for materials only. For a while they would even take other peoples vehicles to work on so they had inventory for the students to fix.

Similarly our auto mechanic and trannie courses allowed you to bring in your car and work on it, rebuild it.

I was disappointed when the A&P course did not allow us to rebuild our engine and work on our own aircraft.

Considering how the last 40 years went, If I should have taken the carpentry track which taught all forms of rough carpentry from framing, roofing, siding, flatwork concrete, basement forming and finish carpentry which taught everything else to build a home.

steingar said:
Our shop class was utterly useless. Would have been cool to wrench on cars and stuff, but we didn't do that.
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I was gonna start a similar thread. Right now I'm rebuilding an old VW engine, and I'm clearing ground for a hangar. I could buy an aircooled VW engine rebuilt for about $2700, or a bit less depending. I'm spending around $1100 in parts and it'll be just as good, maybe better depending on the quality of the guy they have in the back doing the stuff. My valves will be lapped in, and not have a 3 angle grind. Boohoo. My bearings will all be in the right way, and the crank will be perfectly true.

I'm also building a flat bed trailer to haul my new plane. I wanted a 2500Lb 9x16 flat trailer. No one has them in stock but I got a quote to have one built for just under $4k. I bought the axle and hubs complete, the suspension hangers, and some steel and I'm out in the driveway with the wire feed welding it all up. My total cost when done will be about $2100 and it'll be exactly what I want.

Can't turn a wrench? Weld? Plumb? route or join wood? Wire a car or house? Fine, hire a pro, go in and watch Amer Idle on TV. shop class was pretty useful for someone who wants to do that stuff.
 
docmirror said:
Can't turn a wrench? Weld? Plumb? route or join wood? Wire a car or house? Fine, hire a pro, go in and watch Amer Idle on TV. shop class was pretty useful for someone who wants to do that stuff.
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I think that part of the equation that should always be in bold caps as the intro to any such discussion. The other genius-bar factor that might be worthy of consideration is that the alternative use of time might be worth far more than any of the numbers mentioned so far in this thread.

In such case which TV programs would you recommend?
 
Tony_Scarpelli said:
I don't usually rebuild them myself but I have been driving re-builders for over 20 years. I suspect my auto purchases have been about 1/2 of most families in a similar income range.
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We have done 5 in the last 18 months, they get worked on in between projects/jobs, so it keeps the guys busy with productive stuff.

I have one employee who, since this thread is kind of about HS, can fix anything with wheels and a motor, but can't read or write to save his life, despite being a High School graduate. Spot him the "C" and "A", and I don't think he could spell C-A-T. Kind of a sad deal what the schools pushed thru. But, he can figure out how to fix stuff, understands all sorts of physics.

First one we started on was a Ford Ranger that was totaled and the front end was about 10" to the right. We hooked a tractor and a chain to it and pulled it back over to the left. Kind of has one small dent on the right side, but, for the most part looks like every other crappy Ranger on the road. Still surprised the Insurance Co. totaled it with only 40k miles, we spent an hour on it. Since then, we have upped the complexity, bought better tools, and now look at nicer vehicles.

Side benefit is that the guys take more pride in keeping the trucks they rebuilt clean than they did on the trucks that were purchased and keys tossed to them.
 
N801BH said:
:lol::rofl:..

That is pronounced " a one uh and a two uh ";)
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"wunnnerfullll, wunnnnerfulll. And a now, we will have the lovely Dotty Hamilton singing "Where my heart is"." :wineglass: Champagne muzak just for Wayne.
 
My High School auto and metal shop classes helped get me a 10+ year career in the racing industry.

The last 5 years of it were spent with John Force Racing running their cylinder head and blower programs.

After that, I kinda got burnt out on it. However, I did get the chance to go to a black tie formal party and get drunk with Carroll Shelby, Edsel Ford II and Henry Ford III.
 
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