ShadowsPapa
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Bill
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2019
- Threads
- 247
- Messages
- 40,504
- Reaction score
- 54,031
- Location
- Runnells, Iowa
- Vehicle(s)
- '25 JTMX, '23 JLU 4xe, '82 SX4, '73 Javelin
- Occupation
- Retired auto mechanic, frmr gov't ntwrk security admin
- Vehicle Showcase
- 3
Could be, for sure.
I'm not saying it was never a thing anywhere, just that with all of the places I worked, and all of the diversity of people I've hung out with over the years - I, me, personally, never heard it.
As far as education - Andy, my first boss as far as mechanic - was old-school. And - I consider him a very large part of my over-all "education". I suspect many people can point to someone and say "they taught me a whole lot". Maybe he couldn't diagram the schematic of a Ford starter system, but he COULD diagnose in his way - and it worked and it wasn't wrong, it just wasn't technical. He started working on tractors - I mean 1930s, 1940s, Allis-Chalmers, then came the Korean conflict where he spent some time, then back state-side and took over the shop for a friend's AMC/Rambler dealership.
I was a bit confused when he talked about polarizing generators for the first time - he said "I'm going to take this over here and motorized it". HUH?? What is that? Well, to him, it made sense as when you polarized it, it ran like an electric motor! Oh, that's what you mean. He was like a father, and a boss, and a good friend, the latter most of all.
Then Neill Porter - my job after college. His father started a shop, then a parts store attached to the shop (made sense to stock the parts and make a business of it, too). When Neill wanted to clean out the old warehouse, which had been the first shop building. I went over to help dump stuff out. That "stuff" was new old stock (NOS) Ford and other parts by the hundreds - Model T, Model A, and other parts - new head gaskets, hard parts, and one tool he showed me was a sort of a J shaped thing, long handle about 4' or so, with a pad at the shorter J part and 2 steel wheels at the bottom of the J. He asked me if I knew what it was - no. He said - Model T jack. You put the pad under the axle, pull back and down on the tall handle until it goes over center. Now you can pull a wheel. If you need both off, you put a Coke bottle under the axle, let the jack down and go raise the other side. I also learned countless tricks of the trade from him. He was smart as heck, and kind and nice and cared about customers over anything else. He had operated dump trucks before coming back to run the shop and told of his adventures with the old 1940s type of trucks, his trip with his new bride to Alaska before there was a highway. Learned a lot from him.
I've been extremely lucky - to have such great people in my life as bosses and friends.
I learned little tricks from them all - things you don't learn in a school (or they may frown on it in school), like crossing two specific plug wires, starting the engine, revving it a couple of times and letting the backfires through the intake blow crud out of the carb's idle passages to smooth things out. Pouring a coke bottle of water down the carb to blast out carbon buildup, or cellophane from a cigarette pack to go behind Babbitt bearings in an early Chevy engine to shim things up.
Yes, I've been very lucky with the bosses in my life. (not so much in later years, but those years, working in shops)
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