Plymouth Troubleshooting Contest

Does anyone remember them? High schools from around the country competed. I was in one 1960. There were State playoffs and then the nationals in Detroit. It's amazing how much of what I still do I learned in high school auto mechanics class.

 

We took 4th in AZ in 1979....by then they had electronic ignition, smog stuff, and we got to set the idle mixture with the propane bottle, I think. None of the teams got the missing hood latch thing (they removed the second safety catch), but my shop teacher saw it was missing right away when the hood sprung open.

I have the trophy around here somewhere.

 

i was in one when i was in high school(the late 80's), but it was sponsored by gm. the teams were made up of the best 2 guys from autoshop, from all the high schools in northern illinois. the 2 best teams got to go to the finals which was in chicago. the winning team got a scholarship paid through gm, to go to the trade school of their choice. we made it to the finals, but we lost. the other team beat us by 2 minutes. there was a runable engine strapped to a stand and they sabotaged it to not run. each engine had a different problem each time...so you never got the same problem twice.

 

I graduated from High School in 1995. I was in Auto Body but i remember the Auto Tech guys going to something like that

 

When I was in it they had a judge overseeing each car and a guy there with a sack of parts. It didn't take us long to figure out that if we asked for a part and he didn't have it, we didn't need it. Once we got the car running it had to make one lap around the grounds. They would do some wierd shit but then again, all we had were distributors and carburetors. No hi-tech stuff back in the day. So here I am almost 50 yewars later and still twisting diddys and tweaking carbs.

 

I graduated from the auto prgram at our local trade school is 1965 and remember the troubleshooting contests well. Two of the best students from the senior class would get selected and we'd all go to the contests,usually held on a week day at a local park or ball field and cheer them on.
Plymouth sponsored it and supplied the cars. I forget who got to screw the cars up, probably some of the officials,but the kids from area schools would work to solve the problem and get the car to run and drive. Then they would move on to a regional and then a state contest.

I have no idea how many years these contests were held.

Glenn

 

I just looked at a convertible 63 plymout with a slant six this week. The guy said the engine was almost brand new since it was from one of those troubleshooting programs at the high schools in Oakland. All my troubleshooting was learned on the side of the road usually at night...guess thats why I am not really that good!

 

Check out the flag in this pic, it's hanging on my wall. I wasn't actually in it, the flag came from my old shop teacher.

 

Hey Squablow, that's cool!! Wonder how many of those are still around???

 

I was in the 1991 Plymouth trouble shooting contest in the state of Missouri. I took auto mechanice I and II my Junior and senior years in high school, anyway we took a written trouble shooting test and me and my buddy schored in the top ten in the state and had the chance to go over to St. Louis and take the hands on part of the contest. It was very cool. They gave us hats, shirts and coats for coming and participating (I still have them). We didn't do so hot in the contest we didn't know how the deal was going to go down, it was set up like the vehicle was in the dealership and you as the mechanic was to find everything you could to sell your services and parts to the customer. Well it was very cool and wouldn't change the memories for anything.

 

Yes I remember the plymouth troubleshooting contest. My brother and his autoshop partner won it here in Oklahoma city at the fairgrounds in 1963. Thats how I learned my car skills, thanks bro.

 

I remember our autoshop going down to Chrysler for a troubleshooting contest. I also remember 2 of the guys in my class getting expelled for getting caught in a bar down the street.....

 

I took auto mechanics class 3 years during high school and had 3 different teachers. The first one was a vetern Plymouth trouble shooting contest teacher and was one of the state Champs back in his day. He had the proceedure down pat, the last 6 years he was there his teams placed 1st or 2nd everytime. He went on to open some tech center.

The second auto teacher was one of the students that was under the first teacher that had won th state level and placed pretty high in the national comp. He was a cool guy, but not much of a teacher.

The last teacher was a book educated guy with no hands on experence. By this time I was doing auto repair at one of the better auto repair shops in town, I think we both got about the same amount of education from each other. My education was more along the lines of commucation with other people, his was hands on experence. The last guy reinstuted the Plymouth trouble shooting contest. They wanted me to be part of it, but at that time I wasn't interested. Two of my buddies went. They placed in the top 5 in the hands on area, but missed a few questions on the written part. Funny thing, after the hands on contest, the top 10 teams had to stay with the engineers and repair all the cars because they had to be delivered back to the dealerships the next day. They said it was a great experence, at one time I wished I would have gone, but you can't change the past. Gene

 

I was in the Plymouth trouble shooting contest in Helena Montana in '67 . I placed 4th in the school , but didn't make it to the state. I worked as a mechanic from '67 to '71 in the Navy, then spent the next 25 yrs. as a heavy equipment mechanic. Now work for the Colorado Dept. of Corrections (better hours & pay. )

OLD HEMI

 

Remember it well! We had a very serious program at our highschool out in Torrance, CA. Made it to the state finals and we should have had 1st place -- they gave us second place (we were 2 seconds behind first). We found that the 1st place team had missed something . . . which should have disqualified them -- and Chrysler acknowledged that we should have 1st. But . . . because they had already announced the other team, they would not retract the win. Even as a Highschooler, I realized what a load of corporate crap it was . . . but that was the deal and we had to eat it.

Now days, I would kick their rear for being too chicken shit to acknowledge that they'd made a mistake . . . so we ate a big turd and took second place in state. I remember how POed our shop teacher was -- because he was the guy that worked the hardest, and should have made the Nationals if it wasn't for the political BS that prevented his team from making it. It was still a fine day.

 

Funny how the HAMB works.....Tonight, I borrowed a set of pipe fitting wrenches from my dad. He won them for placing in one of the Plymouth trouble shooting contests back in the mid-60's (66??). I think they were gold anodized, but they've been floating around his tool box for a few years now, not sure if they've every been used though.

 

Yep, 1989 in Wisconsin. My teammate and I were the first of the 10 teams to get our engine running... and they did plenty to make it not run... Instead of studying the service manual in the hotel the night before like everyone else, we were out drag racing. Still have the Plymouth Troubleshooting Contest fender cover, jacket, hat, etc around somewhere...

 

Thought I'd bring this back around. Any more of youse guys remember this??

 

I remember these contests as one was held at my high school when I was a sophmore in 1971. There was a football field full of new dusters & furys with the hoods up. Pretty dull as a spectator, probably pretty cool for the participants

 

Found This At The Barrie Flea market.
Was to Cool to pass up for 3 bucks.
I bet this one belonged to Ratmotor........HA

 

Oh Yeah, sure do remember! I was in the competition, representing Taft High School here in the San Fernando Valley, in 1973. Myself and a friend, John Klumph. There was a written test, as well as the hands on competition fixing the screwed up Plymouths. we had our car put together and running around the track. but, as mentioned by someone else in a previous post.....we too were felled in the second round by not finding the inop secondary hood catch.
I still have my trophy from the first competion, as well as the "Plymouth Trouble Shooting Contest" sticker on my old tool box.
I believe AAA sponsors these contests today.

 

I also was in the Plymouth trouble shooting competition reprsenting Clark HS in LAs Vegas,NV. in 1970. My Sophomore year. We had Cudas with about 10 bugs in them. We didn't win but we got her running. I think we placed third or fourth but I was so proud that me and my partner got it running.lol. We got a trophy that I still have today. I didn't do offical sports in HS, I was too busy working at the filling station and buying parts for my old 56 chevy and chasing girls.lol. Sports didn't do a thing for me. Bit I still look at my trophy every now and then and think of my glory days and how I represented my school. The trophy has some sort of angelic figure on the top who is missing a few limbs today. But she is still beatiful to me.lol. Good memories. How come they don't do that kind of thing today? YRUHOT.Doug

 

What's a Plymouth?

 

Was in the contest in Dallas in 1968. Still have the participant trophy and flag. We would have finished first except for an air filter cartridge wrapped in masking tape. It was inside of the air filter housing and we kept putting the filter assembly on and the car would die as we put it in gear. Finally my partner dropped it and the cartridge fell out. By then we were third.

 

Never seen the hats & shirts but I had a gold plated 3/8 drive socket set I found at a garage sale that was stamped with something to do with that program. Bonney was the brand IIRC. Sold them on Ebay for pretty good bucks.

 

.....That's funny.

 

I was in San Diego in 68 ... didn't get to far (bad condenser!) but I moved 700 miles away as I got older and 40 years later I found out my present neighbor's dad was my judge from San Diego! ... small world

 

In post #21, I said i still have the trophy and a decal from the '73 contest. Well, here they are. The slash on the metal nameplate on the bottom of the trophy where the wording is, came from falling off the shelf in the '94 earthquake.
Like YRUHOT posted, I wasn't really interested in sports , I too worked in a service station in high school, and always had (have) a cool car. I guess the Plymouth Trouble Shooting Contest somehow links us, and defines us. Today, 40 years later, I work at a well known performance engine shop, doing engine final assembly.

 

I was in the the contest in 1968 , Charleston , WV. Bill

 

2nd place, 1967, S.L.C. Utah