On Sat, 14 Mar 2015 11:45:10 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 14 Mar 2015 07:52:17 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Sat, 14 Mar 2015 08:45:29 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Mar 2015 19:28:58 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


NH has salted roads and yearly inspections. When I told the
inspecting
mechanic that the line had failed he showed me a rack of flared
repair
sections to fix it, but said do NOT use compression fittings.

I cut out the rust-through and a suspicious spot caused by the
adjacent clip and put in a 20" premade section today, with enough of
a
service loop to cut off and redo the flares if they leak. The
spliced
line still fits neatly in the clips. I'll be rained/snowed out of
working on it this weekend but at least the line is sealed again.

Be sure to secure that service loop so vibration doesn't come into
play. That gooey cork/tar looking stuff they put around A/C low
pressure lines works well. It's sticky and stays put in heat.
http://tinyurl.com/nw88re6

The U is only a few inches long and will be restrained at one end
where it exits the plastic shield, after I bleed and leak-test the
line. On the other side the well-braced parking brake cable is
available to support the added mass of the coupler. One of the
mechanics I talked to suggested to pad a replaced line with windshield
washer hose and tie-wrap it to something nearby if duplicating the
factory routing would require too much disassembly of rusted
components.

Good!


Neither the factory nor the Haynes manual give much advice on
replacing brake lines. This may be one of those skills you are
expected to learn in person from the shop foreman.

I think you're right. UTI didn't teach that to me, either. I think
we flared a couple brake lines once, and spent more time on honing and
flushing/bleeding.


I feel sorry for mechanics who have to learn how to diagnose complex
electronics. The initial drop-out rate at the Army electronic repair
school was quite high during the Volts - Amps - Ohms - Watts section.

They use that damnable Math Voodoo stuff in there! shakes head
Come to think of it, I think we lost a couple guys (out of a dozen) in
the first couple months of Electronics had been into play for a short
while when I retired from the field in late '85. I learned everything
I could from the Mitchell manuals Electrical sections. And Echlin
(NAPA) had some free courses, all of which I attended. I loved
electronics (stereo buff back then), so it's the path I chose after
screwing up my back while wrenching. Newer courses surely teach a
whole lot more of Ohm's Law than I got in 1972. Either that or they're
criminally negligent. IIRC, I had a tougher time in the electrical
section at UTI, and that made me pursue it avidly to become better
skilled; druthers being that I master _it_, versus the opposite.

That said, far too many current mechanics and electronics techs are
merely board swappers. I was taught to troubleshoot to the component
level in Coleman College's Computer Electronics Technology course. I
just wish I'd stayed at it longer. Damned corporate takeovers. SKF
gave me some nice going away presents, though, when I told them that
cubicle life wasn't for me.
I learned a lot more about things like flaring lines in high school
than they taught at trade school, but our high school was much better
than most. We consistently had the top grads at trade school. Frank
Mader and Gerry Fry were EXCELLENT instructors, who were, first and
formost, excellent technicians. I saught to emulate them during my
teaching years.

Goodonya, mate.


Teaching automotive Mechanics in high school is a real challenge
because they tend to say "we'll never make an (engineer, electrician,
plumber,or whatever of this duffus, so let's put him into auto
mechanics" This means the auto instructor has to bring them up to
speed on their physics - electrical/electronics theory - hydraulics,
their math (ratio and propartion as well as measurement) and make them
into electronic technicians/plumbers/machinists/welder-fitters - the
whole works - before you can make a mechanic out of them....

Exactly. The general population thinks of mechanics as dumb grease
monkeys. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It takes a good
brain to be a good mechanic, a field which is in constant flux. We had
to be very flexible and ready to learn each week.

--
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
-- Sir Winston Churchill