Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:37:15 -0700
Reply-To: mdrillock <mdrillock@COX.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: mdrillock <mdrillock@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: Are Today's Young People Mechanical Nitwits?
In-Reply-To: <1ed6d210808151001v15d0b615x83597a990c09865f@mail.gmail.com>
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For me this is one of the attractions of our Vanagons. They are of the
older class of vehicles where most things can be fixed by driveway hacks
with common tools. Newer vehicles are much harder to work on and need
more special tools. As others had already said, younger people have
grown up with fewer things that are meant to be fixed or able to be
fixed and so they never had as many chances to learn that fixing
something yourself is possible.
I have encouraged and helped my various nephews to get a Vanagon as a
first car. One reason is safety but another is so they can learn about
the different systems in a car from experiences with a car they can work
on themselves. One did his waterboxer head gaskets at 19, another
rebuilt his Vanagon diesel engine at 20, a third has replaced clutches
and transmissions and now works on his BMW. These young men are all in
their 20s and I doubt they will work much on cars later in life but at
least they could if they needed to. The young may in general know less
about cars but given a chance and a reason to learn many of them do.
Mark
On 8/15/08, Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This got very long, hit delete if in a hurry this morning....
>>
>> I've been following this thread (that started yesterday) with great
>> interest. I decided to wait till Friday to jump in because of the little
>> Vanagon content but don't take that wrong, I think the subject and the
>> thread that has evolved is pertinent to our interests and endeavors.
>>
>> So, why can some of us understand the working of a motor vehicle and even
>> work on them while others don't and can't? I think just about everything
>> that I understand about the past (I just turned 69) and the current society
>> and maybe even the future has already been said in this thread by the time
>> I'm writing this. But I want to emphasize several points that have been
>> made, especially about how our fathers and grandfathers saw things and
>> dealt
>> with them and how that affects us today.
>>
>> The fathers and the grandfathers of many on this list were raised in what
>> was essentially a rural America, either on a farm or in a farm town and
>> community. Especially in the West. And they had lived through the Great
>> Depression where you only survived if you could do it yourself and they
>> came
>> out of the depression with a strong sense of how important every penny
>> could
>> be. Before WW2 the majority of the population of the US was not in the
>> cities, it was rural. There were no 'suburbs', especially out West. And
>> that meant you did it yourself. That's the way people survived. And when
>> it came to motor vehicles we were talking Ford and Chevy and John
>> Deere. And
>> they were very basic machines. The major (and I mean major) improvements
>> in
>> wheels, tires, suspension, steering, engines and transmissions were things
>> of the '50's and later. A couple of years ago I walked into a friends auto
>> repair shop and there sat a '39 Pontiac (I believe it was a Pontiac, could
>> have been a Packard, not important) that my friend maintained for a local
>> collector. Front suspension was King Pins, no ball joints, leaf springs
>> and
>> no shock absorbers!! And a flat head straight 8 under the hood. Since
>> virtually every male had grown up with tools in his hands maintaining such
>> vehicles was second nature to the original owners. Now move ahead nearly 70
>> years and think about the complexity of the vehicles today. But also think
>> about what has been gained in performance and durability. Even in the
>> 1960's a car with 50,000 miles on it was suspect but today we think nothing
>> of driving vehicles with over 100,000 miles on them. And since I just
>> mentioned the '60's, let me make some comments on the so called 'Golden
>> Age'
>> of the muscle car. In 1968 I spent most of that year selling cars for a
>> Chrysler-Plymouth (RIP) dealer. I had a chance to drive, at least once,
>> virtually every muscle car of the time. They had power but they were, in
>> general, pigs to drive. Sure they could do 120 mph on the straight but for
>> God sake don't try to go around a curve at 60 or even change lanes above
>> 80.
>> The suspensions on virtually all were way, way under engineered for the
>> power they had. For those that never had the experience imagine a Vanagon
>> with worn shocks, factory springs and passenger tires. That's what most of
>> those Muscle Cars felt like from the factory.
>>
>> When I was growing up most of the fathers in the neighborhood (good upscale
>> middle class) were in the 'trades' one way or another. If they weren't
>> carpenters or plumbers or such they had been at one time in their lives and
>> had moved on to a related job. They either used tools for a living or
>> their
>> customers and clients did. My father was a machinist, all his life. I
>> grew
>> up in a machine shop, either where he worked or in our basement and garage.
>> Big lathe, small mill, big drill press, welding equipment, and tools,
>> tools,
>> tools. The rule was simple, use the right tool for the job. If you don't
>> have the right tool, make it. Only if you don't have it or can't make it do
>> you go out and buy it (see references above to Great Depression and living
>> on a farm) but, my dad hated woodwork. I don't know why but he hated doing
>> any carpentry. I guess I inherited (or got by osmosis) his mechanical
>> skills. If it's mechanical I've never been afraid of it. Especially if
>> made of metal. When younger I'd tackle anything, tear it down, fix it, and
>> put it back together. And that included my cars. But then I reached a
>> point
>> in later life where I was able to make a trade, my money for a mechanics
>> time. My time with my family was worth more to me than having those
>> dollars
>> in my pocket. So I quit doing my own wrenching. And that is the decision
>> that many in the last couple of generations have made. In the quite
>> affluent society that has evolved in the US over the last 50 years fewer
>> and
>> fewer people have fathers that take a tool box to work. And the trade of
>> dollars for time has become the norm; we go to specialists for most things
>> today. I still do the basics and have done a lot of mods to my Westy but
>> any
>> real work goes to a mechanic. And yes, I pay close attention to Larry
>> Chases Repair Shop Reviews.
>>
>> So, should the younger generation learn how a motor vehicle works?
>> Absolutely. Should they understand the basics of maintenance?
>> Absolutely. Should
>> they learn to use basic tools? Yes, yes yes. Should they be doing engine
>> swaps? Now that is another level of involvement, a choice to be made by
>> the
>> individual. But they should have enough knowledge to understand what is
>> involved.
>>
>>
>>
>> The quote below sums it up for me, from the famous Lazarus Long (though we
>> should add "Troubleshoot a Vanagon FI System" to the list.)
>>
>>
>>
>> A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher
>> a
>> hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts,
>> build
>> a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate,
>> act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
>> computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
>> Specialization is for insects.
>>
>>
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