Post by Volktales on Jan 1, 2016 22:34:19 GMT -8
Have I got a few stories about the good old school days shop classes... When I was in junior high over 30 years ago, there was a certain stigma to some about taking shop classes. I am not talking about woodwork, metalwork, drafting, etc. as they were considered respectable. No it was if you were in the greasy power mechanics/autoshop classes, then you were considered to be inferior in some way to the higher level trades or academic... Anyway I didn't care and enjoyed what I learned there. However some of my classmates tended to reinforce some negative stereotypes...
Our instructor was rumoured to have a drinking problem, but I did not notice that. Mind you it would be hard not too given the behavior of some of the apes in the class. Although our class focused on small engines, some automotive work was undertaken. Our teacher drove an old Volvo and was frequently being "repaired" in the class. One of the kids was told to get the floor jack and raise the back of the car. He did. Jacking on the centre of the gas tank seemed like a great idea at the time. The Volvo did not go home that night... Later in the year the same Volvo suffered another fate. I don't know exactly what the kid working on it was doing, but the end result was the entire dashboard harness melting. Again the Volvo didn't leave for awhile... It seems constant theft and some sabotage was common too. No wonder drinking was involved... At least the lawnmower engine I built back then survived. Still use it over 30 years later..
High school shop class was interesting too. Teacher was very mellow and again drinking problems were suspected. Our class was the general interest class, as opposed to those who were likely to make a career out of it. This meant more goofs and losers in general in my class. Highlights were a spectacular in class fight when the teacher left the room for a minute. Another was when a student was backing his big old Chevy wagon out the door and caught the front bumper on the side of the building, ripping the bumper half off. The solution was to drive said Chevy back into the side of the building which would reverse the damage. Surprisingly this worked better then you think, although the building took quite a dent. The obnoxious class bully that everyone hated owned a kind of neat Chevelle. Somehow washers ended up inside the engine but absolutely no one knew how they got there... Two slackers in the class ended up with a huge '60's Chrysler that took most of the semester to get running. They took it for a joy ride one night and managed to blow a rear tire doing a burnout. The next day someone gave them a pair of giant slot mags that would never fit under the back fenders. The cutting torch solved that when no one was looking... Most jobs had to be done several times before things worked it seemed. Still had fun though..
And finally college level first year apprenticeship. This was a ten month course at Malaspina which was cool because we got to work on REAL customer vehicles, not just "prop" cars. You would think most of the yahoos would have been weeded out by then, but think again... There was a wide range of age groups, from kids fresh out of high school, to older laid off raging alcoholics on job retraining programs... LOTS of beer was chugged and dope smoked by probably the majority of this class... Lots of things happened in the ten months, and lots of cars were broken in creative ways. One of my favourite memories was one guy in our class who had distinctive long platinum blonde hair... One day Blondie was doing an oil change on his beat up GMC pickup. He was doing it on the ground using a drain bucket. Somehow he managed to rest his head on the edge of the bucket which caused it to tip. Blondie quickly turned to gooey Blackie and the stream of expletives was impressive...
Later in the semester Blondie smoked a big doober at lunch along with a few other members of the class. When he returned he couldn't remember where the clutch was on his truck and drove straight into the back of one of the other teachers trucks. Surprisingly he didn't get into too much trouble. Lots of things caught on fire during the welding portion of the class... I fished a seized 36 hp VW engine out of the dumpster and convinced my teacher I was learning how to use heat to un-seize parts on it. He actually bought that excuse and I still have pieces of that engine today... We did have fun in that class, and I went to several parties in rented houses at the time and even may have visited the peelers as well. Haven't heard the term "peelers" in a LOOOONG time... Incidentally my shop partner at the time was a student from Germany. He owned a 5.0 litre Mustang and a turbo diesel Jetta. He drove both at autobahn speed at all times... This guy was very interesting as he and his friends in Europe used to sneak into the pits at the formula one races over there by dressing up as pit crews. He actually had lots of tall stories, but ALWAYS had photo documentation to back them up! I was relatively sane compared to most of the class, but did get in trouble for one thing... At the time I was driving a 1967 Cougar that I had bought for parts for my restoration project. The car was a bit beat, but did run and drive. Anyway we were learning about transmissions so I brought the car in to check the trans oil pressure and other checks. Doing the torque converter stall check, I basically stepped hard on the brakes and revved the engine up in gear. Didn't quite do that right, and ended up with a huge smoky brake stand inside the shop! Well it was kind of fun...
Anyway in my first year class, only two of us actually went on to become mechanics. And that was probably a good thing...I do kind of wonder what all the rest of them did however...
Anyone else have any auto shop class stories???
Our instructor was rumoured to have a drinking problem, but I did not notice that. Mind you it would be hard not too given the behavior of some of the apes in the class. Although our class focused on small engines, some automotive work was undertaken. Our teacher drove an old Volvo and was frequently being "repaired" in the class. One of the kids was told to get the floor jack and raise the back of the car. He did. Jacking on the centre of the gas tank seemed like a great idea at the time. The Volvo did not go home that night... Later in the year the same Volvo suffered another fate. I don't know exactly what the kid working on it was doing, but the end result was the entire dashboard harness melting. Again the Volvo didn't leave for awhile... It seems constant theft and some sabotage was common too. No wonder drinking was involved... At least the lawnmower engine I built back then survived. Still use it over 30 years later..
High school shop class was interesting too. Teacher was very mellow and again drinking problems were suspected. Our class was the general interest class, as opposed to those who were likely to make a career out of it. This meant more goofs and losers in general in my class. Highlights were a spectacular in class fight when the teacher left the room for a minute. Another was when a student was backing his big old Chevy wagon out the door and caught the front bumper on the side of the building, ripping the bumper half off. The solution was to drive said Chevy back into the side of the building which would reverse the damage. Surprisingly this worked better then you think, although the building took quite a dent. The obnoxious class bully that everyone hated owned a kind of neat Chevelle. Somehow washers ended up inside the engine but absolutely no one knew how they got there... Two slackers in the class ended up with a huge '60's Chrysler that took most of the semester to get running. They took it for a joy ride one night and managed to blow a rear tire doing a burnout. The next day someone gave them a pair of giant slot mags that would never fit under the back fenders. The cutting torch solved that when no one was looking... Most jobs had to be done several times before things worked it seemed. Still had fun though..
And finally college level first year apprenticeship. This was a ten month course at Malaspina which was cool because we got to work on REAL customer vehicles, not just "prop" cars. You would think most of the yahoos would have been weeded out by then, but think again... There was a wide range of age groups, from kids fresh out of high school, to older laid off raging alcoholics on job retraining programs... LOTS of beer was chugged and dope smoked by probably the majority of this class... Lots of things happened in the ten months, and lots of cars were broken in creative ways. One of my favourite memories was one guy in our class who had distinctive long platinum blonde hair... One day Blondie was doing an oil change on his beat up GMC pickup. He was doing it on the ground using a drain bucket. Somehow he managed to rest his head on the edge of the bucket which caused it to tip. Blondie quickly turned to gooey Blackie and the stream of expletives was impressive...
Later in the semester Blondie smoked a big doober at lunch along with a few other members of the class. When he returned he couldn't remember where the clutch was on his truck and drove straight into the back of one of the other teachers trucks. Surprisingly he didn't get into too much trouble. Lots of things caught on fire during the welding portion of the class... I fished a seized 36 hp VW engine out of the dumpster and convinced my teacher I was learning how to use heat to un-seize parts on it. He actually bought that excuse and I still have pieces of that engine today... We did have fun in that class, and I went to several parties in rented houses at the time and even may have visited the peelers as well. Haven't heard the term "peelers" in a LOOOONG time... Incidentally my shop partner at the time was a student from Germany. He owned a 5.0 litre Mustang and a turbo diesel Jetta. He drove both at autobahn speed at all times... This guy was very interesting as he and his friends in Europe used to sneak into the pits at the formula one races over there by dressing up as pit crews. He actually had lots of tall stories, but ALWAYS had photo documentation to back them up! I was relatively sane compared to most of the class, but did get in trouble for one thing... At the time I was driving a 1967 Cougar that I had bought for parts for my restoration project. The car was a bit beat, but did run and drive. Anyway we were learning about transmissions so I brought the car in to check the trans oil pressure and other checks. Doing the torque converter stall check, I basically stepped hard on the brakes and revved the engine up in gear. Didn't quite do that right, and ended up with a huge smoky brake stand inside the shop! Well it was kind of fun...
Anyway in my first year class, only two of us actually went on to become mechanics. And that was probably a good thing...I do kind of wonder what all the rest of them did however...
Anyone else have any auto shop class stories???