O.T. Technology vs Time

John B. · Oct 16, 2012

My neighbor told me a story we both found ironic. He drives a tractor trailer for a Conoco Phillips Petroleum delivering oil. He has a tractor repair business on the side at his house. He told me one of his nephews went to trade school for auto/diesel mechanics. His nephew called him to ask him what he should do with a set of points on a tractor he was working on!!!

I guess it's a new generation of people and machines...

You have to laugh !!

oldtanker · Oct 16, 2012

John, go check out you local trade school. They don't teach points or carburetors anymore. Haven't for some time. My #1 SIL graduated from trade school about 14 years ago with 2 years auto tech and one year of diesel. He told me several years ago that they didn't teach anything about them even back then.

Rick

dlbuck · Oct 16, 2012

Stopped at a auto parts store for a set of points for a 70 John Deere. I ended up with the parts book showing him the part number.

John B. · Oct 16, 2012

I believe you Rick.

rrlund · Oct 16, 2012

My oldest son was at a party a few years ago and there was an old pickup that needed to be moved. It was a three speed on the column. Nobody there,him included,knew how to shift it so they could move it.

Rick Kr · Oct 16, 2012

I rebuilt a carb for a guys straight 6 Jeep at work. He had no idea how to do it, other than remvoving it off the manifold.

He told how great fuel injection was. He went through trade school (Ferris State) MI in the late 1990s. His comment "they don't even build cars with carbs any more, they quit that a long time ago in something like 1985 or 86." Explained to him 85 or 86 wasn't a long time ago to me, and how a carb can run without wires hooked to it and a computer to control it.

I still don't feel old, but another guy told me I was his parents age. Made me laugh.

Rick

ss55 · Oct 16, 2012

I appreciate the laugh, but as you said... it"s a new generation of people and machines. Classes at most schools are driven by what the employers and recruiters want to see from the new graduates that they hire.

Was the tractor more than two or three times as old as the mechanic? New farm equipment, trucks, cars and lawn mowers, chain saws, etc. haven"t ben built with ignition points since about 1980. Production of gasoline farm tractors ended in the early 1970"s, that"s fourty years ago already. That"s almost two generations ago, not just one generation.

Now I feel really old.

old · Oct 16, 2012

Ya now days points and people do not mix well. Many people now days have not clue what a set of points are and even how to check set or clean them but if we get hit by an EMP pulse point systems will be the only thing that works

fixerupper · Oct 16, 2012

Go to the parts store and ask the kid behind the counter for a points file and look at expression on his face.

Last summer I was at an auto repair place and I asked them if they had any used 14 inch tires as I needed one for an old wagon. The young mechanic said they had a couple out back that had been ice picked and they couldn't be patched. I told him I'll just put a tube in it. HE ASKED ME WHAT A TUBE WAS!!!!!! Jim

Royse · Oct 16, 2012

Rick, you mentioned the Jeep and it reminded me that my nephew told me a month
or so ago there was no need to turn the gas off on a particular 9N because it didn't leak gas.
I told him that they needed to be shut off because they could leak into the
engine even if they didn't leak externally.
This past weekend he was over telling me his neighbors military Jeep "filled the
entire engine with gas! The whole thing! Even the oil was over filled!"
I said "I bet he wished he had a shut off valve and had used it."

dmiller · Oct 16, 2012

I'm a high school ag teacher. By no means a mechanic but work on a lot of this old stuff so I can farm because things older than me are in my price range.
I have a 1940 IH farm truck. Once a year I drive it to school to show the boys in the shop. I tell them if they can start it they can drive it. For 10 years only 1 kid has been able to (his dad runs the fire dept. and they have a 38 fire truck they use in the 4th of july parade).
Between having to connect the battery (in the floor), the floor starter button, two stick shifts (for the split rear-end) and then two sticks for the hoist (PTO and valve). They look at it and give up.

PJH · Oct 16, 2012

If you were in a radio repair class, you wouldn't hear much about vacuum tubes.

60 acre hillside · Oct 17, 2012

And my wife does not know how to make soap!

NEBeef · Oct 17, 2012

I learned my mechanic skills before there were computers in cars - or houses for that matter. But the much-older-than-me gent who taught me a lot about cows would shake his head at me 'cause I didn't know how to harness up a horse!

Time and technology march on... :lol:

MFPoor · Oct 17, 2012

My grandfather worked at a wagon manufacturing plant, making wooden wagon wheels.

Not a lot of demand for that profession these days.

My father taught radio navigation in the Army Air Corps during WWII.

Not a lot of demand for that skill these days.

Later on in life, he was a first mate/ships carpenter, specializing in repairing wooden hulls on river tow boats.

Again, not a lot of demand for that trade these days.

Here's to hoping the demand for my skills as a small farmer at least holds on until the end of my days.

Time stands still for no man.

rrlund · Oct 17, 2012

I got to thinking. Most all of the old John Deere 2 cylinder mechanics around here have died off. Those things still stump me. You hear all the time about how if you had a screwdriver and a pair of pliers you could keep them going. I hear all the time about how guys buy them bacause anybody can work on them. Well,I'll be the first to tell you,I can't.

How many more of you who aren't Deere guys can diagnose and fix things on them?

mkirsch · Oct 17, 2012

Solid state ignition has been around in production vehicles for 40+ years, and has been used almost exclusively for that entire time.

Heck, I would bet in 10 years the counter guy won't even know what a distributor cap is! We've had coil-on-cylinder ignition since around 2000.

Time passes, technology changes. The old is obsoleted by the new.

How much technology has been lost to time? At least now we have information on these things all stored for posterity on the Internet.

Mike (WA) · Oct 17, 2012

Friend of mine has a wife a bit younger than him. She was there when he gave me his cell phone number- I said it would be easy to remember, because the last 4 digits, 1966, was the year I graduated. Wife laughed and said, "That's the year I was born."

Sometimes I don't like geezer-dom.

O.T. Technology vs Time

John B.

Well-known Member

oldtanker

Well-known Member

dlbuck

Member

John B.

Well-known Member

rrlund

Well-known Member

Rick Kr

Well-known Member

ss55

Well-known Member

old

Well-known Member

fixerupper

Well-known Member

Royse

Well-known Member

dmiller

Member

PJH

Well-known Member

60 acre hillside

Member

NEBeef

Member

MFPoor

Member

rrlund

Well-known Member

mkirsch

Well-known Member

Mike (WA)

Well-known Member

Similar threads