Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

We saw a 72ish Chevrolet pickup at the sale Saturday with the hood up, I told Cole to look at the engine, you could actually sit on the inside fender well and work on it. He said what happened? I said emissions and kept walking

 

Bad LED bulb and out of gas, who woulda thunk it

 

It is nice though to be able to start your truck in 5° weather and not have to pump, pump, pump, crank, stall, repeat 5x

 

My freshmen year was the last year for auto mechanics in high school, sophomore year was the last year for masonry, junior year they got rid of drafting, senior year was the last year for agriculture and carpentry. I graduated in 1993

Fun fact, the agriculture teacher got out of college and started teaching at the high school and had my dad in his class the 1st year. When he retired, I was in his last class.

 

A well dialed in carburetor equipped vehicle (without a computer)* will start with little problem all winter long. They took more maintenance and adjustments for sure but it was easy work and shop rates weren't $100+ an hour back then either.

* Computer and carburetor are 2 words that should never be used together.

 

I still remember my shop class teacher, Bill Huff(sp?). Whenever he was remodeling his house the kids would make all the trim and such in the shop and he'd take it home on break. Lots of times class would start and he'd run home to install it all while the kids were alone in the shop. That probably broke all kinds of labor laws, but this was the early 00's before all that stuff went under a microscope.

We also had a little shop class in middle school that everyone was required to take. Mr. Reeve's I remember him clearly. He was very rough around the edges and always smelled of beer. I had him for homeroom in 8th grade. We'd usually clean out his beer cooler during this time

Man, those were some "wild" times. Honestly I'm glad I got to experience it looking back on it now. Can't do any of that stuff now-adays.

 

They sold a Clausing lathe at that sale Saturday with a 3 jaw chuck, 4 jaw chuck, and tool post. It was nice. It hammered for $1,000

My wife said I figured you would have bought that, I said I would if I could move it myself. It would cost me more to have it moved than it sold for.

I would have loved to have had it though, it was pretty big and in good shape. Looked kinda like this one.

 

Oh yea the 80's computer controlled carb's were like some NASA stuff back in the day. Honestly I'm glad to have never experienced it much. My first car, a 1987 Olds Delta 88 with the original 3.8 had sequential fuel injection and that thing just ran and ran. Survived under 16 year old me pretty good

 

Our carpentry teacher, Mr. Gannon taught us a lot, cussed at us even more, and would take us to McDonald's on Fridays if we had been good all week. If we hadn't been good he would take us to the store. It was a win either way

 

We made a workbench as our project and due to my situation at home I couldn't get it to my house. We loaded it up in his truck and he brought me home. Man you couldn't do that now.

 

Pretty sure that's a felony with 10+ years behind bars now

 

The manufacturers (all of them) struggled with driveability issues from the mid 70's until the fuel injection era.

The gov't was busy passing regulations and the only hardware they really had were relays and vacuum devices to try and meet them.

A lot of that stuff only worked marginally to begin with and most of the mechanics of the day really didn't understand how they were supposed to work.

Those vehicles could have been so much more, the automatic transmission had matured along with electronic ignition, powerful alternators and disk brakes. All the positives let down by the heavy handed regulations of bureaucrats with no understanding of what they were regulating.

 

Saw this at the Wally World near the house yesterday

 

Now everything is turbocharged direct injection. Although I'm not gonna complain. Love the engine in my truck.

Drove the S10 home yesterday which has the old 4.3 Vortech and I was like "can we get to 55mph please!"

 

Laughs in Pennsylvanian

 

I took building trades 1-4 in high school.

Freshman year we built a clock with a pendulum.

Sophomore year was a nightstand.

Junior year was a shed.

Senior year was a house. I shingled 80% of that house alone. I had 2 hours open before class started so I'd go home, eat and head back to work on the house. The teacher had a deal that for every 2 hours you worked on the house outside of class you could take a day off. He knew I was out there and trusted me to work alone so I built up a bunch of time. Ended up taking a few weeks off when we got busy at work.

 

We built outbuildings and the teacher sold them to other teachers. We also built a couple houses, which was cool as well.

 

Probably got put on the wrong truck, driver found it, sent it back to the hub.

 

"Arrived at hub"............hasn't left

 

You know that's actually more common than you think. I'll just stand there and see how long it does that. Normally another box bonks it up the belt. Sometimes it gets stuck in an endless loop if it's a cylindrical piece in a square box that gets a little squished.