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Moses Ludel

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When we were in kindergarten, it was common to take a watch apart—and not get it back together.  Some of us, not content with things that no longer worked, went on to fixing things instead of just taking them apart.  Toying with mechanical things versus putting things back together properly is for most a clear fork in the road.

In my early childhood, I was fascinated with all things that rolled:  trucks, cars, bicycles, motorized cycles, locomotives, take your pick!  By age eleven, with the go kart and mini-bike craze in full swing, a neighbor built his sons a gasoline powered, wooden cart with a Briggs & Stratton lawn mower engine that had a rope starter…I was hooked.  On my birthday two years later, my folks found a used Bug Kart with a bent front axle and a Clinton 2.5 horsepower two-stroke engine.  I witnessed my first oxygen-acetylene welding repair when a family friend, Paul Starjack, restored the front axle with a fresh piece of new chrome-moly tubing.  The task could have been a candidate for TIG, but Paul's adept skill with a gas torch made quick work of the 4130 chromoly welding repair.

Image result for bug karts

55 years ago, I had a Bug Kart similar to this one.  Mine came with a bent front axle tube.  Watching a skilled welder replace that tube with a fresh 4130 piece taught me the the merits of welding!  The end result and a fresh coat of paint made my cart look and run great.

By fourteen, other mentors crossed my mechanical path.  Joe Bruns ran a traditional postwar garage at Gardnerville, across the street from the Hancock gas station where I held my first job.  An $8 street legal Cushman/Allstate scooter occupied my time and money that summer, and when the magneto would not fire, Mr. Bruns taught me the intricacies of a condenser on his grease-covered work bench.  The dimly lit, acrid oil wafting shop, full of old cars like a Graham-Paige, a Willys-Knight tow truck, a Hudson Terraplane and a Packard, captured my imagination. 

Image result for 1955 Allstate scooter pictures

This beautifully restored 1955 Allstate (Cushman) Deluxe scooter is the 'as new' version of the $8 "beater" that I bought in the summer of 1963 at Gardnerville, Nevada.  Mine came with a rod knock and white paint job that looked like it had been applied with a broom.  Nevada's Scooter Law enabled riding at 35 mph maximum on highways with a "basic speed law".  It was not uncommon for cars and trucks to legally pass scooters at 100 mph on Highway 395.  (Photo courtesy of the owner's posting online...Thanks, it's gorgeous, and the mountain backdrop looks like Carson Valley!) 

I grew up around older Buicks and Packards in our family, which drew me to the C.O.D. Garage (Chevrolet/Buick/Jeep® dealership) at Minden, Nevada.  The dirt field across the main drag was the dealership's parking lot for Depression Era, 'forties and 'fifties cars and trucks that made their last run into Carson Valley on a tow hook.   Rolling into valley from California and nearby rural Nevada communities, these vehicles had died unceremoniously from overheating, cracked blocks, throwing connecting rods or frying transmission and axle gears.

I worked at the community’s service stations under the tutelage of full-service mechanics, in those years men who performed breaker point tune-ups, chassis work, tire busting and detailed lubrication and fluid changes.  An oscilloscope tune-up was the hallmark of the era, and working at Bud Berrum’s Minden Chevron Station schooled me at vehicle light service and lube room repairs.  This would prove ground school for my early automotive trade employment as a light and medium duty truck fleet mechanic. 

From age 14 to 18, I had my share of four-wheeled “project” vehicles plus numerous trips to Werner's Machine Shop at Carson City.  Bill Werner smiled each time I showed up with a Ford flathead V-8 block.  Several of these blocks failed the test for machining and landed in the iron scrap pile.  Most often, they had cracks from freezing or cylinder wall weaknesses that opened up during the boring process.  Bill was relieved when I moved to mid-'fifties Chevy small-block OHV V-8s.

There were many other “teachers”.  My Douglas High School Ag and Welding instructor, Mr. Gray, taught me the foundation skills for welding that led to my lifetime interest in metallurgy and all forms of welding and brazing processes.  The Odom brothers at the East Bay, George Zirkle at the Nevada City NAPA machine shop, veteran truck fleet mechanic colleagues and service pros, machinists and chassis/alignment experts each deserve their due.  When I served an apprenticeship with Local 3 of the Operating Engineers Union, old hands taught me the new and old school repair, welding and operator’s skills around heavy equipment…To all of these folks and any not named here, I am grateful. 

The learning was typically hands on, often accompanied by patient discussion, and I looked over many shoulders before performing work myself.  Years later, after 15 years of hands-on professional work as a journey level truck fleet mechanic, motorcycle tech and 4x4 restorer, I worked at Cunningham GMC/Pontiac in El Cajon, California, representing the service department at the General Motors Burbank Training Center and bringing that information home to be shared with the dealership's techs.

Just prior to working for the Cunningham family and fresh out of the University of Oregon, I had my first taste of teaching at the San Diego Job Corps.  That was my original stint of “giving back” through teaching, passing along those years of exposure to top professionals.  My next step along the path was journalism, writing technical articles and columns for a broad range of enthusiast trade magazines and newspapers.

Learning to Teach

When I taught at the Job Corps in the early ‘eighties, the breaker point ignition era was barely ended.  Electronic fuel injection was the lofty undertaking of German engineers at Bosch.  That quickly changed, and by the mid-‘eighties, American vehicle manufacturers brought the internal combustion engine back from the edge of emissions extinction with the use of EFI and electronic spark management systems.  All of us went back to the drawing board, up the learning curve, and became familiar with the new electronic technology.  I held California smog equipment Installer and Inspection licenses during that period.

Learning EFI/spark management required a foundation at automotive mechanics and the willingness to read.  I was writing simultaneously to the tune of 880 published pages of magazine articles per year by 1989 (not to be confused with manuscript pages).  1990-1998 became a period of book projects alongside my continuing flow of magazine and newspaper assignments each month.  Consulting to 4x4 truck, Jeep® and SUV manufacturers, plus new book editions, involved even more writing.

After an intensive career at photojournalism, tech column writing, book authorship and building magazine 4x4 projects, I took a detour and returned to the classroom from 1999-2004, five teaching and administrator contract years.  Working with the Rite of Passage program, first as an Automotive/Diesel Technologies instructor then as the Director of Vocational Training for four Rite of Passage campuses, we taught automotive, welding, construction trades and IT.

Within the Rite of Passage training process, I was as much a student as teacher.  Sure, I brought over three decades of profession level trade skills to the classroom, but my effectiveness at teaching was only as good as the delivery.  What I quickly discovered in the era just before the onslaught of internet information, was that students without a clear direction and foundation in a subject were as apt to “take the watch apart” as to fix it.  When left to their own devices, some students were perfectly happy dismantling mechanical things with no sense for how to put them back together—and not an inkling of academic ambition nor the curiosity to read a manual or textbook!  Lectures or audio visual training tapes could easily put a non-invested student to sleep.

These young adults provided the humbling lesson that without context and a drive to learn, human beings are capable of remaining kindergarten level performers forever.  And that pre-internet learning environment was merely a portent of things to come, heralding Toffler's glorious, consumer driven Information Era.

Along Came the Internet

The fledgling internet and its information exchange showed promise.  Maybe the Tofflers' predictions in their 2006 book Revolutionary Wealth were true.  Alvin and Heidi Toffler predicted that the internet's wealth of “free” information would lead to a society of consumers who were less dependent upon paying for services and far more self-reliant.  The emerging age would be a virtual barter system of freebie facts and answers meeting consumer needs, essentially a way to circumvent the increasingly pervasive co-dependency on corporations and professional service outlets. 

This idealized view of the internet, a virtual blueprint for opting out of consumer dependency, was the optimal solution to the rising costs of consumer services.  In fact, outsourcing and subletting labor costs, using automotive “professional” services as just one example, have skyrocketed over the last dozen years.

At North America, there is no more glaring example of consumer dependency than the automotive consumer market.  Imagine paying $75,815 for a new, decked out Ram 4x4 with a Cummins 6.7L diesel.  Now add to that the maintenance costs at the local dealership.  CANBus troubleshooting and diagnostics equipment, exotic transmission filling and draining methods plus a host of other "specialty equipment" requirements compel many DIY consumers to reluctantly creep back into the dealerships' service lanes.  Once the warranty period ends on the vehicle, consumers often try the nearly as expensive independent shops, aware that second tier aftermarket diagnostic equipment may not be up to date.  A dealership's labor rate can be $110 per hour or higher.   Independent shops are at least $75-$90 per hour.

So given these conditions and the potential information available online, what if you could get diagnostic and troubleshooting information—or even actual how-to repair steps—for free online.  Yes, how about gleaning information gratuitously placed before your eyes by simply participating at a free forum?  Many believe this is possible, and to such an extent that they cannot envision paying for any kind of automotive information. 

Of course, we do want to avoid the high cost of labor and limited parts choices, i.e., the additional and arbitrary cost for dealership provided parts.  Do we also expect to become independent mechanics without scaling any kind of learning curve or paying for schooling?  As a point of interest, aside from earning a Pac-Ten university four-year degree with Dean's List honors and all the textbook costs that entailed, my library of classic and contemporary professional automotive factory and trade service manuals, plus a dozen welding instruction and metallurgy books, would today cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,500.

I bought the Tofflers' book as an audio CD version and played it in my shop while performing professional restoration work on vintage transmissions, steering gears, engines, engine peripherals and axles.  The book's theme was captivating, suggesting that we could be energy independent (off the grid) and consumer self-sufficient, sidestepping the endless grind of societal consumerism in America.  Pondering just how well that would work with automotive service or IT needs, it took little thought after four decades in the automotive trade (when this book came out) to realize that bartering information, or even information in itself, is not enough to get the job done!

 So Where Do You Get Your “Free” Information?

For automotive service work around sophisticated powertrains with 8-speed automatic transmissions or variable cylinder EFI/MPI systems, where do you barter for your free service information?  Consider the bevy of diagnostic tools needed to service a vehicle and the $200-plus CD set that makes up the factory service manual for a particular model.  Do you know a trained service professional who has spent $10,000 or more on equipment and data and wants to freely offer that investment to total strangers surfing the internet's Google Search engine?

According to the Tofflers theory, the model would apply better to pouring a garden foot path and needing information on how to set forms.  This kind of information can be found at the Lowe’s or Home Depot professional contractors desk.  It’s not critical, "permitted" work and does not require meeting code.  Seldom will anyone get hurt by a DIY foot path project or improperly laid sidewalk pavers.  These two retailers will gladly offer free information since they will be providing the materials you need for this job.

Now let’s fast forward to your automotive project.  A motor vehicle is built to SAE, DOT, NHTSA and EPA standards.  Whether an owner elects to honor the EPA requirements, the SAE, DOT and NHTSA standards for brakes, steering and safe suspension are something not to be ignored.  There are sanctioning bodies like ASE and dealership tech training programs, apprenticeships, military training schools and college trade programs intended to support these professional standards for automotive service work.  Why?  Simple:  Because your life and the lives of family members and others on the road depend upon vehicles that perform safely and reliably.  This includes brakes, tires, chassis members, steering, suspension, the engine/powertrain, axles and electrical/electronic systems.

So that begs the question:  Where do you get your automotive service recommendations?  Exactly who is at that forum with years of professional experience, mentoring, college level courses, military training schools, apprentice training or dealership training?  If they have that level of schooling and experience, why are they at the forum giving away information for free?

The Toffler paradigm may apply to shoveling and forming the ditch for a garden path footing or macramé, but do you really want to fix your brakes or troubleshoot that engine issue without a service manual, a basic knowledge of automotive mechanics or a “mentor” with some trade experience?  I taught adult education level automotive and diesel mechanics plus welding for seven years.  As of this month, I have a half-century of professional experience at mechanics, yet I still pull a professional trade manual or “FSM” off the shelf for any work I perform on my vehicles.

—Moses Ludel  

 

 

 

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