Technical WORST MECHANIC EVER............

You can’t shit like that up ,bet you scratched both ends after seeing that mess

 

You can’t make shit like that up

 

Back in the day I was a service manager for a couple of car dealerships. It always amazed me that you could hire a mechanic and he would do okay for maybe the first 30 days or so and then implode. Had one guy who came from another dealership with good references. He had been with us about 6 months and I had him tear down a slant 6 to re-ring. He came to me and said he had it back together, but when he torques the rods the engine locks up. I went back to look at it and asked where his marks were on the rods. He asked why do you need to mark rods, every cap fits every rod. Had to send out all the rods to get the big ends resized. He lasted about a year before we let him go.

Another guy was a mild train wreck from the start (the owner's son hired him). Had him check the front end on a Dodge Dart for wear. I was able to watch him. He said it needed 3 ball joints. I told him that I would show him the correct way to check ball joints. We went through the process of taking the weight off the joints and found 3 good ones and one bad one. After we were done he looked at me and said that isn't the way he checks ball joints. I told him from now on it is going to be the only way he checks ball joints. The straw that broke the camel's back was when he forced a left hand threaded tie rod end into a right handed sleeve. The owner's son fired him on the spot.

 

What amazes me, is how these “mechanics” manage to keep their jobs as long as they do. There is a severe shortage of mechanics, at least around here. I guess these idiots keep their jobs due to lack of replacements. It also amazes me what employers will put up with due to the lack of talent.

 

We had one gem of a guy years back. A customer comes in, losing brake fluid. So he digs into it, yup the master is leaking. Which is ultra rare on a '77-ish GM car. The master gets replaced.

During the bleeding process, it is evident that the leak is coming from someplace else. The car had a collapsed motor mount and the oil pan rubbed through a brake line on the front crossmember.

 

been in your boots more than one time as a SM,
crazy with how many so called techs get hired that have good ref's only to find out what they really are, hacks, given good marks to get rid of them from elsewhere.
i had one, supposed good B tech , working on a 67 vette/427. tripower mill with a knock, he felt it had a loose flywheel, pulled the 4 speed, clutch, checked the wheel mount bolts, wrong! i handed it to a more seasoned tech, turned out a pushrod had worn/broken though a rocker arm on number one exhaust valve
sadly i charged back the time to tech one and fired him.

 

There was a time when my dad was ready to put another engine in my mom’s car, an OT Ford with a 200 I6. He bought an identical car for parts that had a good engine. Mom’s car had this odd knock while idling and when revving it would cause this loud rattle in the back of the engine. My dad thought it had a bad crank but I argued it would have grenaded long ago. I jacked the car up and had someone rev the engine while I listened. The knock and rattle was at the rear of the engine.
It was an automatic so I pulled the torque converter cover off and noticed the TC nuts were loose. I tightened them up and all the noise was gone. It still had a bit of a lump when idling. I ran a compression check and one of the cylinders barely had any compression even with oil squirted in it. I took the head off the other engine my dad bought and did a valve job on it and swapped it out. The suspect cylinder had a badly burned exhaust valve which explained the bad lumpy idle and really exaggerated the loose TC to make it sound like it had a bad knock.
The car ran really good after all that for many more years.

 

Another story was when I bought an import pickup that belonged to a recently deceased relative. I drove it around for a while when one morning I couldn’t get it started. It ran fine until then. It was fuel injected so I went through all the various sensors. They all checked out fine and it was getting fuel. I was stumped and began to think it was the ignition coil. I didn’t want to risk another bad coil by buying a used one from a wrecking yard. I went to the dealer and was told a new one was over $300. I said no way I could justify spending that kind of money on a coil. That night I dreamt my relative was telling me it was something much simpler in the ignition system but didn’t say what it was exactly.
The next day thinking about the dream from the night before, I figured to check the spark plugs. That was the only simple thing left. Sure enough there was barely any electrodes left on any of them. I didn’t think to check them because the no start issue was so sudden and ran perfectly fine the day before. DUH!

 

Did a 7 year stint in the office of the body shop I work for had a 90s blazer come in whit cracked sheet metal were the power window motor is mounted. Told a young guy to remove the regulator and motor and weld it up caught him welding without a helmet, told the dumb shit to put on a helmet. The next day he called in complaining of sand in his eyes and he couldn't see he missed a week but when he returned he filled a workman's comp claim ,the whole shop had to sit through a 4 hour longe welding safety class. He bounced around the dealership until he flunked a drug test three times.

 

Having been both an employee and also an employer I have worked out that there is a sea of half-wits out there that go from job to job (after getting the bullet) and continue to float around until they do something really dumb that sends them broke or they dissappear. Anyone worth hiring is already in stable employment and is there for a long time.
When hiring you just hope you get the bloke who left his previous job because the owner went broke or they hired the bosse's son and someone "had to go".
When I used to apply for jobs, they used to have aptitude tests, and being in the electrical trades, would include fault -finding circuits, soldering or welding skills, using meters, etc.
Nowdays it's how much you can lie and get away with during an interview, usually conducted by "HR" people with no technical background. It doesn't matter how much you know or how much experience you have had, as long as you say what they like to hear (Where do you see yourself in 5 Years? Have you done a "conflict remediation course?").
When I was an employee, techs would get hired that I would not trust with a lump of wet clay, only because they had some "certificates" they could hang on the wall.

 

Kerry
I watch videos on youtube once in a while that show guys working on dirt floors in machine shops, foundries, welding shops, etc, mostly from the East/Middle Eastern area. They predominantly wear open toe sandals, long sleeve (whatever they call them) and when welding, at best, they just have a piece of cardboard with a welding lens taped to it as weld arc protection.
I can only shake my head!

 

I accidentally deleted my post trying to edit it:

In China they all wear sandals in these factories. I've seen them walk around with an extension cord and no wall plug.
They simply use a screwdriver to connect the extension cable straight into the wall .[then undo it if they have to move it]
My friend owned a truck assembly plant that didn't even have a torque wrench on the premises [or know what it's for]
I also had to teach them how to pack wheel bearings properly.

 

One of those videos from Pakistan depicted a really quite excellent repair of a cylinder block that was missing a piece that included the motor mount boss.
They did a really good job heating the block over an open fire while welding it up, then tipped it on its head gasket surface and dragged it along a broken up concrete floor.

 

I see chevy sm block "cores" all the time local on FB marketplace for some ridiculous price. . Usually they are advertised as "ran when removed" or some other ignorant label. I see these locals geniuses advertising $500-1500 + for worn out engines sitting in the mud and weeds. They are cores! I would not pay over $50 bucks, and then that is just a crap shoot if anything is usable when you tear down bubba's precious old motor.

 

seems prices of those old gen 1 and 2 SB chevy's has gone crazy since gm stopped making them, even the bone yards around me are asking crazy numbers ,
how many of us have taught that we should have grabbed a few of those brand new $1.500.00 chevy's when we could have gotten them just to have in stock for a rod build?

 

So a few months ago I came across this channel on YouTube it's called "just rolled in" it's a series of mechanics videos that start out with the service writer "customer says..."
https://youtube.com/@JustRolledIn?si=veS4nbASmCGloM4A
Some of the things that other mechanics or customers have done to their cars is just unreal.

 

There is one where a broken snapped in half truck crankshaft is put back together... really the most rudimentary of equipment, PPE to say the least.

India is a clearinghouse for salvaged ship steel. I have seen videos of men in robes, no shoes cutting up hulls with just a torch. Maybe they have sunglasses on.

 

There are many places in the world where people do dangerous work because that is all there is available and if you don't want the job, there are many who do. Some people rail about unions and OSHA but here we have, generally, safer work environments, despite corporations' best efforts.

 

most of those are from India.

 

something i highly doubt any dealer tech or sm hasn't seen roll in.
one of my own problems came from a DIYS'er, lowered a vw gti 3 inches than came to us saying his car bottoms out, reused the stock shocks that only had 4 inches of travel to start with, played smart called in our factory DSM, who told him to his face not covered. warranty on your suspension is void. turns out the ebay seller told him the stock shocks and struts would work,

 

36roadster hit all the right points in his post. I just left the heavy equipment repair business after 29 years. Did I ever mess up?... absolutely did but I would do everything possible to learn to not make that mistake again and worked hard to always push myself to do better. With alot of guys ok was good enough. I was lucky to have trained in a time when an apprentice was there learn from journeymen and wasn't just cheap labor like it is now. One of the main reasons I shut my business down was because hiring skilled mechanics was nearly impossible, the worst part being "certified" guys that had never learned the basics or been shown any fundamental shop skills. Learning is something that no one wants to pay for anymore and the customer usually suffers the results of that. High price poor quality. Part of a journeymans job is to teach and pass on knowledge but that rarely happens anymore as well as the special snowflakes coming into jobs these days that you can't get mad at or yell at or even correct anymore. I'm glad I hung up my hat, now time to go mess something up in my shop.

 

with you blackdog.
my last years as a SM. i to found it almost became impossible to find a good tech, being near the local Lincoln tech school i tried a few, each didn't last a week, had one come in from wyotech, there was one, I kept and made sure, SHE got the factory training needed, clean ,hard working, not afraid of asking for help when in over her head by so much as a single inch

i can remember when i started working for Malcom Konner chevy as a helper, wasn't easy back than and a 3 draw roller was all we needed,

 

These are the guys who will have great job-security for a long time. Not too many want to work that hard in those conditions. Turnover must be impressive due to injuries. I have been hurt on the job, despite better safety, shit happens and I'm lucky to be in one piece.

 

Love it….watch them all the time; if I was a tech I’d turn away 90% just because of the filth…

 

my writers had to go out and record the mileage and look the car over for damage and record it, when checking in the car, you would be surprised at how many we told to come back when the car was cleaned out. coffee cups. food wrappers .partly eaten food items. nose buggers wiped off on the dash and steering wheel . barely enough room to sit from the over flow . some people are just outright discus ting

 

When I used to go to my favorite junk yards, back when they were called junk yards, you could always tell which cars had female owners. Fast food cups and wrappers, old makeup crap all over the floor, old clothes etc. And the title and insurance paper, old check book with the girls name on it. All left in the car. The guys cars just had a lot of empty beer cans on the back floor.

 

In exact order: Draft beer, bottled beer.....................................................canned beer

 

These were all canned beer!

 

We would get disgusting things in cars that came in for alignments. One had a paper grocery bag stuffed with garbage... the alignment guy took a whiff and refused to work on it. The owner cleaned it out and brought it back.

The one that took the cake was a lady who came with a car, with a used TAMPON between the seat and console. She too was told to clean it up and bring it back, we never saw her again.

Probably this is the reason why I keep my cars spotless inside.

 

Ohhh you should see my girlfriend's car... wow. She's sort of a compulsive shopper. All sorts of things here and there. She gets change and the bills all go into the glove box. Now and then she asks me to sort it for her.