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Message started by Armen on 03/31/19 at 10:17:14

Title: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Armen on 03/31/19 at 10:17:14

Trying to figure something out. Are there many younger folks doing actual mechanical work on their bikes? Not just bolting on an LED thingie or wrapping the pipes, but serious mechanical work.
It just seems that serious puttering as a pastime is fading away. We have a generation of kids who grew up without shop classes in school. Maybe no-one to mentor them. Reliable cars and bikes that don't require constant routine maintenance.
Just wondering. Plenty of graybeards doing it, but not many kids.
Now with all the nice new retro bikes, the kids are buying them instead of clapped out 70's Hondas.
Feedback?
thanks,
-Armen

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Panhead on 03/31/19 at 10:58:17

All of us past retirement age grew up in a simpler world and wrenching was the most enjoyable of pastimes. It allowed us to ride or drive things we could not afford if it didn't need repair. Today our children and grandchildren live in a fast paced society where things need to happen very quickly or be replaced. To some degree I have become more that way myself because there is more that needs to be done than I have time for. I have offered to mentor younger riders to do their own repairs, offering the use of my shop, tools, help, and failing miserably. To further promote that mindset, newer machines have become too complex and parts are nearly impossible to find for older machines. As for us oldtimers, we have been blessed with the Savage.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Fast 650 on 03/31/19 at 11:15:19

There are very few youngsters who even understand how to use tools any more, much less wrench on anything mechanical. Someone at work told one of the youngsters (early 20's) one day that he had a low tire and that he should air it up before leaving. He ended up getting someone else to check the pressure for him and air it up because he had never used a tire pressure gauge or put air in a tire before.

Those of us who still know how to maintain/repair/modify anything are becoming a vanishing breed like the dinosaurs.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 03/31/19 at 11:23:58

Watching people grow up to be incapable of solving the simplest of problems, only to have them possess strong opinions based in Bullshit has been frustrating for me.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Dave on 03/31/19 at 12:12:04

I am currently 63, and I grew up in farming community and folks didn't often buy stuff new.....they repaired the old or bought used. Everyone fixed their broken stuff and made it work again. Every farm had a workshop with drill presses, welders, and tool boxes. My high school had shop class, and the boys that were in the FFA (Future Farmers of America) got to learn to weld and they welded up a hydraulic press as their shop project.

I was lucky enough to be able to schedule my classes early and get out of school at 1:30 - and I worked at a shop that sold Simplicity and Toro mowers, and Poulan chain saws. The owner was a great mechanic and teacher.....I learned a lot from him, and it wasn't until 1990 that I got my first "new" car - the previous 18 year of driving had all been in cars that were well worn by the time I got them. The cars could all be repaired with common tools......something that doesn't really apply to today's cars/trucks/motorcycles. (I also worked at a couple of motorcycle shops in the early 70's and I would take new bikes out of crates and put them together).

Most kids would not get hired by the motorcycle, car or mower shops - they probably have to be "certified" and full time in order for the dealer to be properly insured.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by DragBikeMike on 03/31/19 at 12:12:31

My wife & I have both observed that teenagers today have little interest in driving. Of course there are still some who are into their cars, and a few that like motorcycles, but a whole heck of a lot of them don't seem interested in getting their drivers license. We think its related to social media. The kids are glued to their phones. They date on-line. Who needs wheels for that?

Let's face it. Times change. The kids today may not be great mechanics, but they will most likely have other skills, good or bad, that will leave us in the dust (literally, we will be dust someday). My eight year old grandkids can read like crazy, and they are already solving simple equations, and using a number line to solve problems. They get around on a smart phone or tablet like its second nature, and have to teach me how to use the contraption from time to time.

Old school, new age, its all good.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by verslagen1 on 03/31/19 at 12:20:13

got a nephew who's heavy into m/c's offroad mostly. he works on his own stuff. and it's growing into a mechanics career, he's working with a group that hops up 4x4 trucks.

yes, reliable cars have diminished the opportunities to expose youngin's to the inner workings of the mechanical beings we live with.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Gary_in_NJ on 03/31/19 at 17:00:40

My boys have worked a long side me since the age 7 or 8. They have helped me build decks, renovate rooms and repair/maintain their motorcycles, my tractor and now their cars. They don't have the love for it that I did, but they know what to do. My middle son who loves photography and works in the film industry (which is 100% digital) likes to work along side me in our darkroom and he has several 35mm cameras. I've done my best to teach them analog skills. Only time will tell if all of the effort translated. I think I'll have to wait for them to buy homes and see if they are willing to maintain and improve them.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by hotrod on 03/31/19 at 18:41:33

Michael Jackson had Never- Never Land. A place where all thoughts were happy, and no one could harm him. I have that same place. It's called my garage, where I work on my bikes. It's my heaven on earth. Sad that most kids won't have that joy.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by batman on 03/31/19 at 18:53:56

I think Panhead kind of hit the nail on the head when he said ,thank God we have the Savage. Modern cars and bikes maybe more reliable but at the cost of being more complicated , we can wrench on a Savage,and at most need only a volt/amp meter as Tech gear. fuel injection requires a computer to map. Frankly I'd be lost ,and headed to the dealer. Old VW's I started driving(60's-70's) ,could be rebuilt with a box of hand tools in the middle of a corn field , times change ! Sadly, you'd be lucky to get today's kids to change their own oil.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by stewmills on 03/31/19 at 20:41:38

All of my family is mechanically inclined. Dad raced dirt track and super speedway cars most of my childhood and built houses. I learned to wrench on my bicycle as a kid as did my siblings.. I’m 45 and always worked on my vehicles and motorcycles, mowers, chainsaws, weed eaters, tillers... etc. One brother is a industrial electrical foreman and still involved in speedway racing part time with some big name teams, younger brother who is 22 is an A&P aircraft mechanic and has worked on vehicles since he was very young. Little sister is handy with carpentry and some shop things, and middle sister changes her oil, fixes plumbing and electrical problems at her house, does tile work...not much she won’t do or try.

I attribute most of this to dad showing us how things worked, what different tools are for and what they do, and most importantly to never be afraid to try something and don’t be upset if you fail at it the first time. No one is keeping score!

Kids these days only know how to call for help because sadly it is what most of their couch potato parents are teaching them.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by jcstokes on 03/31/19 at 22:42:07

I was in an auto parts shop the other day, it's Australian, not NZ owned, they were showing a video where it was said that most young people under 25 would keep driving if they saw a dash board warning light come on. Vehicles have become incredibly reliable and people just expect them to keep going. Some years ago I took a fancy to Toyota Cressidas and found one at the price and mileage I wanted. I had it inspected by the Autombile Association, who wouldn't road test it because of low oil in the sump. Incredibly they recommended I buy it. This car was on a Citroen franchise dealers lot. You would have thought they would have tipped some in out of a car in for servicing. Many young people here don't bother driving because the safetystapo have made license tests stupidly difficult. Motrcycle sales in this country dropped when cheap second hand cars from Japan arrived here 35 years ago.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by LANCER on 04/01/19 at 04:27:17

RYes, it is sad to see so many young folks with absolutely no basic mechanical knowledge and skills. I wish I had learned more from my dad and grandpa when growing up, but I did learn a lot. My grandpa Eslick owned peach orchards and often almond and walnut also, and since my earliest days I loved being in the orchards. He and my dad were always fixing, rebuilding and operating an assortment of equipment, tractors, trucks and an old Jeep. Any of our cars or trucks that needed maintenance or rebuilding an engine was accomplished in our garage. Dad did everything. He helped me rebuild my first engine. Knowing and understanding the use of tools, what needs to be done and how to do it is so very important.
I am thankful.
I taught my son and 2 daughters how to maintain a house and fix things, the basics of Car maintenance and repair, and what to look for when you do need professional help.
And, they were all trained to handle firearms and to shoot correctly. They are quite proficient.

I am thankful for what God has provided.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by ohiomoto on 04/01/19 at 08:53:05

I have two sons, 19 and 16 years old. They have no interest in tools, motorcycles, or working on them. I do make them swap winter/summer wheels, do brakes and suspension work their car so they have some knowledge, but I think they both plan on making enough money to pay other people to do that stuff.

Like others have pointed out, they live half their life through social media and video games. The other half is spent documenting the cool things they actually do like skiing, golfing, traveling, etc.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Eegore on 04/01/19 at 09:05:36

When I go to a mechanic, and I rotate my mechanics regularly, it is not as if every place I go to has a bunch of guys near retirement working there.

Same for service centers like Wal-Mart, Jiffy-Lube etc. that provide basic services. I see plenty of 20 year old's working on vehicles. the difference is that its at a company, not a driveway.

Also someone here mentioned how youth are very competent in things related to digital tech. One thing I have been looking at lately is augmented reality systems where a mechanic, and a customer wear a headset that digitally projects the repair process onto the physical machine the customer is looking at. This system works, and it works well.

This is what youth are interested in. That doesn't discount the value of traditional mechanic skills, but saying we should maintain a shop/welding/mechanics class in middle and high school as it has been done in the 80's - 2000's is like saying we need to have typing classes like they had in the 80's - 2000's.

Are we really going to bring back the typewriter someday? The full-size keyboard? The driveway mechanic?

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 04/01/19 at 10:08:12

shop/welding/mechanics
Will continue to be important for a while longer.

The need to operate an IBM Selectric III,
Notsomuch.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Dave on 04/01/19 at 10:13:30

76696F6875724373437B69652E1C0 wrote:

The need to operate an IBM Selectric III,
Notsomuch.

Hey....I used to type on those - it was soooo much nicer than the ROYAL manual typewriters....it had a button that would erase your mistakes!

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 04/01/19 at 10:30:26

That's what they used when I was fixing copiers and cash registers. The typewriter guy did almost no others. They would make triplicate copies and offered the quick change of font via that Frikken super lightweight ball. That machine, assembly line built, was so accurate and dependable, it's a marvelous piece of engineering. That ball rose up, twisted and tilted to drive the correct letter into the ribbon, and the text came out straight.. and a tiny ribbon of metal made it work.
I worked on some strange copiers, the strangest was probably an old Xerox, that used a roll of paper. Feed a roll of downhole data, and copy it. Today, the digital age has made such needs disappear.
Type in the information, get copies.

Run the logging instruments, and what?
For all I know there is no hard copy generated today..

Ohhh, BTW, we're old.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Fast 650 on 04/01/19 at 11:24:28

1737353D2037520 wrote:

The problem is that the tech is not allowing them to learn what we would consider to be very basic skills. I saw an article the other day saying that there are kids in med school who have all of the book smarts that they need to graduate but that they lack the physical dexterity skills to tie off surgical thread. They never learned the finger dexterity to tie the thread because they learned to swipe right on their devices instead.

I already work with a few kids who can't figure out how to use a screwdriver properly. To them, any size screwdriver should work equally well in any size screw slot and they can't understand why they strip the screw slot then. And lefthand threads are like some kind of black magic to them. It is great entertainment to watch them try to assemble something like a tie rod or a turnbuckle. They will almost always unscrew the lefthand threaded end while having this confused look and saying "but it is righty tighty, lefty loosey" and watching the part unscrew as they turn it to the right. I would love to watch them try to rotate tires on a 60's Chrysler product. ;D

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by jcstokes on 04/01/19 at 12:09:33

I was travelling on one of our small motorways the other day, thousands of cars around, saw two breakdowns, one a 'sixties Morris Minor, google Morris Minor if unsure and a later Japanese import. What if you live in an innercity apartment with nowhere to work on a vehicle. If your vehicle is reliable and regularly serviced by some mechanic who knows his stuff do you need or want to work on it. I've no doubt you can buy OBD1 and OBD2 scanners to tell you where the fault codes are, but where do you plug them in?

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Armen on 04/01/19 at 17:41:59

Apparently, there was a high level meeting of Home Depot mucky-mucks a while ago. The stores pride themselves in offering pretty serious home repair classes. One VP suggested that many of the millenials don't know how to use a tape measure, screwdriver, or ratchet. At first she was laughed at, but she presented data that proved her point.. She further theorized that these kids can't admit how clueless they are, so they wouldn't come to the store to learn and let others see them. So, the solution will be to offer online tutorials/Youtube type stuff and help out the kids.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Fast 650 on 04/02/19 at 12:13:36

That is a brilliant idea putting up howto videos. Now if the kids will only sit down and watch them.

I had to help a millenial replace the hose on the sandblaster at work the other night. I told him to get a screwdriver to take the hose off and he came back with a chisel. His explanation was "well it fits the slot". I sent him back for a real screwdriver then. He came back with one that someone had reground to a chisel shape because they needed a chisel. While that sounds bad enough as is, the screws were Phillips heads. I am glad that retirement is so close now.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by DragBikeMike on 04/02/19 at 12:22:47

The vids are great. My son-in-law is a lawyer. He's not super mechanically inclined but he gets by. He really has almost no experience working on cars. He had an old Ford Ranger and the gas gage crapped out. He went on line and found a YouTube vid that gave him the low down on changing the float on the sending unit. He went out in his driveway, pulled the bed off his truck, removed the pump assembly from the tank, replaced the defective float, and got it all back together just fine. Pretty cool.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by verslagen1 on 04/02/19 at 13:17:04

My daughter is doing a dental on a rabbit today.
She reviews the Youtubes for the latest tips.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Ruttly on 04/02/19 at 13:53:44

I hear you all , but I'm here to stick up for some young mechanics. Where I work there is no faking it , either your good or your down the road. We have several under 30 techs that are very talented. At the same time the same age group amazes me that they can wipe themselves and tie their shoes. Any group that thinks beer pong should be a Olympic sport doesn't show much promise. Me being a wrench all my life and as a job for 31 years , I know the difference between a labor faker and a talented wrench.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by madmikesmech on 04/03/19 at 07:43:30

Hello all[ch128075]
Great topic!
I'll turn 55 this June, just so you all know what generation I am. IMHO, we ( my generation) were raised and grew up in the best times. Most of us just became mechanically inclined... why [ch129335][ch8205][ch9794][ch65039], but thank God we did!!!
I think this T-shirt says it all
http://oi68.tinypic.com/t52hye.jpg

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Eegore on 04/03/19 at 16:31:11

The Home Depot approach of using videos to show basic home improvement skills is a good idea. People complain that younger generations spend too much time watching videos on there phones. Incidentally these tend to be the people that grew up being told they watch too much TV by the generation that grew up listening to too much radio.

What I find interesting is the complaints that shop/metals etc. classes are less available in public education, yet somehow also wonder why fewer youth don't know how to use a tape measure. If they shouldn't watch it on YouTube, and don't learn it in school, where do they learn it?

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Ruttly on 04/03/19 at 17:01:21

Madmike, Where can I find that shirt ? I got to have one. ;D

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by madmikesmech on 04/03/19 at 19:36:40

Ruttly, stumbled on it on one of those pop up ads on the Facebook. Get a size BIGGER than you normally wear!! The XL I ordered looks like a tight belly shirt on me! ;[ch129315][ch129315] I'm 6' 210lb, an XL usually fits me perfect

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by madmikesmech on 04/03/19 at 19:44:09

092E2F2F37225B0 wrote:

Madmike, Where can I find that shirt ? I got to have one. ;D

Ruttly, not the exact skill and cross wrench logo mine has but the same logo!![ch128077]
https://www.google.com/search?q=old+school+mechanic+t+shirt&client=ms-android-verizon&bih=560&biw=360&hl=en&prmd=isvn&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9oenBtLXhAhUhx1kKHUZgCiIQ_AUIDigA

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Junker on 04/04/19 at 00:00:38

Don't give up on the younger generation just yet, there are a few running YouTube channels based on wrenching. GoldGuy is worth checking out.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Gary_in_NJ on 04/04/19 at 07:58:05

754A51545A4D3F0 wrote:
Don't give up on the younger generation just yet, there are a few running YouTube channels based on wrenching. GoldGuy is worth checking out.

There is a YouTuber that goes by the name "Classic Octane". He's in his late 20's and restores/mods bikes from the 60's and 70's His videos are well produced and his craftsmanship and knowledge is first rate.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 04/04/19 at 09:39:40

Exceptions exist.
Just like once in a while I see a coupla kids riding bicycles. It's nothing like thirty or forty years ago.
Manufacturers have been building more and more dependable cars. More and more complicated to repair. Requiring electronic readers and tools not found in grandpa's toolbox. The times of a seventeen year old kid needing to carry a set of points in the glove box are over. The days of slapping a quick tune up on it in the garage are over. Now it's cleaning up idle air passages and map sensors instead of new points, condenser, cap ,rotor, wires and plugs, check the timing, blah blah blah,,
Can't even adjust the idle speed on the Rogue. But, the throttle cable is good forever... since it don't Got one.
I don't remember a crankshaft position sensor on my 62 Chevrolet, or oxygen sensors.
If I was the same inquisitive kid today I don't know if I would have been so drawn to fixing my own cars. I know how few opportunities I would have had to
Hold the Light
for my step dad.

I guess the boys are still boys as long as schools can scrape up enough of them to field the teams.
Not to say I'm not concerned about the youts in America, I am.

Title: Re: State of the mechanical world?
Post by Ruttly on 04/04/19 at 13:43:01

Thanks Madmike