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Automotive Industry

Editor's report

Motor, Mar 2002 by Lypen, John

A 75-year-old article from the annals of MOTOR Magazine reminds us that some of today's biggest challenges for techs are nothing new at all.

The whole trouble in service work today is the colossal conceit and ignorance of the apes who pass as `mechanics.' They all seem to take pride in fencing their little brains in from any danger of contamination by a new idea or a little specific technical information. Only too often we hear this line': 'Aw, them dam trade papers is all right for amachoors to read, but I aint got time to waste on 'em. W'en y' work on one of 'em you can fix 'em all."

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Wow, that's a mouthful! Especially when you consider that it was written by shop owner/mechanic Fred J. Schaefer, who found himself so frustrated with the quality of automotive repair by his fellow tradesmen that he penned an article titled "Punk Repairs" for MOTOR in 1927.

"One of these boys that I know quite well got a crack at my own car recently.... He horsed around for some time and announced that the coil was burned out and put on a cheap gyp coil. Still she wouldn't shoot. Then he found the ignition outa time.' So in spite of the fact that this boy has a twenty thousand dollar plant that he calls a `Super Service Station' and also that the Hudson has the firing order stamped on the valve cover plate... this clown pulled the plugs out and played around for half an hour sticking corks in the plug holes and popping them out by cranking to get the firing order, which he then scratched in the enamel on the cylinder head for my benefit.

"Having 'retimed' the motor and pulled my high tension cables.. he got the motor to turn over When my wife got home with the car I found that as soon as the motor got up to about 1500 rp.m. it had a ragged scattering miss and would go no faster.

"I installed new points and a new breaker spring, as the old one was dead. I then hooked up my old burnt out' coil and everything was perfect again. I hooked up the gyp coil again and limped over to Jim's' shop and showed him how the motor missed when it was raced. He listened for a moment and then gravely uttered one impressive word: `Carburetion!'

"When he saw me pull the wires off his coil and put them on the old one, he got a laugh, but it wasn't so funny when he heard the motor run the second time-and then return his coil to stock."

So there you have it. Bad image, poor-quality parts, lack of training and needless parts swapping. Sound familiar? Earning success and respect in our business is never going to be easy. But let's not forget that it's up to each one of us to rid our industry of "amachoors" like Jim the clown once and for all.

John Lypen

jlypen@motor.com

Automotive Industry

Editor's report

Motor, Mar 2002 by Lypen, John

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