Tim W. SoCal

Training young newly hired techs is part of my job that I find especially challenging because they have very little to NO formal training and very little experience, and as LennyB posted above, they just want to access YouTube videos on their phones to teach them everything

A customer of our shop bought his daughter a beautiful gold '79 Fiat X1/9 when she went away to college in the mid-80s. When she would come home for Christmas break, and then again at the end of her summer break, he would call and make an appointment to bring it in for service. They were lucky as X1/9s go, she got a good one... Other than the common electrical problems, all it ever needed was routine maintenance. Anyway, before she was headed home for Christmas or almost ready to head back to school at the end of summer, her Dad would call and make an appointment, stating "She's comin' home and we'd like to bring her Fiat in so you can Fix It Again, Tim", and the day before her appointment she would call and remind us "I'm bringing my X1/9 in so you can Fix It Again Tomorrow!" They were GREAT customers...

You raise a REAL interesting point, Bill, and it makes me wish I thought in the 80s like I think now... Back then a (good) reman GM 10SI alternator was about 60 bucks. My memory is kinda foggy, but I think my shop's labor rate was about $36.00 per hour at the time. (I also currently have NO recollection of what the Yugo looked like under the hood) To modify the Yugo to accept a GM alternator, I'm thinking the first go-at-it would take possibly 12-16 hours labor time. After the first one, the labor time would decrease considerably. So, for less than $500.00, we could have created a permanent solution to the Yugo charging system debacle, and, considering the popularity of the Yugo in my neck of SoCal at the time, if I advertised this alternative to scrapping your Yugo, I could have made enough from the number of these repairs to afford the blown BBChevy Ski-Boat I always dreamed of...

presume minus the "p" is resume, which can be pronounced "reezoom" and mean to start again or "rezoomay", which is part of an application process when seeking employment

wearing animal skins

Back in the late 80s we sent quite a few Yugos to the crusher because the $5800 car had a $1200 alternator that tended to fail soon after the car's warranty expired and the owners refused (wisely) to authorize the repair and asked us to dispose of the car. We also sent a bunch o0f Renault Alliances to the crusher because the transmission control module would fail and the new replacement cost more than the value of the car.

by Mrs. Howell

pool float ring

base between first and third is known as second, and if you can get passed third base you can head for home

in weird scales

"known good part" used for testing purposes is often a quick and easy way to diagnose pattern failures, especially regarding electronic component or driveability issues, on motor vehicles

the Black Lagoon

that may be

"done busted it up real good this time, ya'll did!" Skeeter exclaimed as he surveyed his cousin's rolled and mangled muscle car

packed to the

transmission class was my most challenging and interesting when I was a student at trade school

with Wayfarers on

"right as rain" the carb guy exclaimed as he whacked the throttle on the Quadrajet open and listened to the engine sing

Wish I could

emporiums of fun and frolic used to be known as Penny Arcades and Pinball games were the main attraction

legs workin' real hard to carry my butt to my computer and order all the stuff I need to build these replicas from online sources and vendors

with elbow grease

America's favorite veterinarian

completely ready to start on my next model car project, a couple of '66 Shelby GT350 Convertible kit-bashes, is what I will be as soon as my decals are delivered

x2. I've ordered from Hart's Parts several times and the products and service have been great each time.