Ah… were he closer…
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With so much less competition it might be easier these days? I dunno.
Cheers
DD
I was an honest mechanic: I worked my ever loving ass off, six or seven days a week, for years. I never, ever had anything like riches from it.
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Back when I was in the car repair business I lost a number of young, bright, capable technicians to higher tech industries. Trade school and even some college grads.
Apparently better pay, better working conditions, and staying clean has a certain appeal. 
Twenty or so years ago I served on an advisory board trying to keep auto shop classes up and running in the community. Three high schools and one community college. In a nutshell there just wasn’t enough demand. Students weren’t interested. Low enrollments. Too expensive to keep the auto shops open on all the campuses.
The end result was expanding the college facilty a bit and closing the others. High schoolers taking auto shop had their classes at the community college.
Cheers
DD
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Every machinist I know is crazy busy these days, but then again, my buddy at Panoz didn’t shutter his shop for lack of work.
We had plenty of interest in the skilled trades at my old high school. We were a rural community but only twenty miles from major industries.
Enrollment was high. I learned small engine repair, welding, woodworking, plastics, and leather working. Our machinist and auto repair classes were always full.
Years after I graduated they were all shut down. Cost of liability insurance was prohibitive. Also requirements of two classrooms for ESL forced the issue as federal funding would be curtailed without it.
Me, too.
But that was decades ago.
Also, I’m sure this is something that varies from place-to-place. The example I mentioned was a PNW mill town of about 30,000 so there was a trades/blue collar presence…among others.
Funding, yes. Hard to ask for the funding for four auto shops when there was only enough demand for one or maybe two.
From memory, welding classes and construction technology classes always had high enrollment, indicating there wasn’t wholesale rejection of the trades. Drafting and architecture as well.
Auto repair is not a particularly easy or lucrative career. There are better choices and youngsters are aware of that.
Cheers
DD
No merde…
For decades, when asked by young people about my opinion of going to a trade school, and becoming an auto mechanic, I always answer with a one-word reply: don’t.
I tell them that it’s going to be tough on their body, and the chances of ever making anything like a really excellent living is pretty minimal.
My son is a talented machinist. yet he closed his auto machine shop. Hard work, difficult customers, low profit, shrinking market.
Now markets auto performance products on line. Still has a plethra of the machines!!
3d printing now a feauered part of hs products. Makes stuff on te 3d’s from gaskets to spacers…
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Over half a century ago, it was a condition of my university that all engineering students spent a few months in a machine shop, in a drawing office, and doing general mechanical apprentice stuff. I thought it was a good experience. I’d have liked to do it at Jaguar. They offered me a place, but travel/finding somewhere close to live ruled it out. I did get to meet William Heynes as he interviewed all prospective apprentices.
These days making stuff seems to be out of fashion not only with young people, but also with the financiers that ought to support it. It’s sad because making things and generally being creative is wonderfully satisfying.
That’s a real shame! i have one of his 700r4 conversion kits on my XJ6 and while I’ve had to do some tuning myselt to things like the TV cable and the like it is a great kit that makes my XJ6 much nicer to drive on the highway! i can cruise at 80mph at just above 2,000 RPM.
With ever more strict enviro regulations and old Jags even more thin on the ground than in John’s heyday in the 90’s, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for that genre of business to die a natural death. It won’t be long before you won’t even be able to buy a lump let alone shoe-horn it into a air-bagless antique.
I would disagree with the idea that there are fewer people interested in making. I actually think there’s greater interest than ever before - crafts stores, Etsy, etc. have been doing great business the past 5+ years.
However, people aren’t going to trade school or apprenticing to learn how to “make.” They’re learning on their own. With 3D printing technologies, more people are making stuff than ever before, not just for hobbies and crafts but as parts for application to working, productive machinery and devices.
As that tech improves, moving into the realm of metal printing, then the possibilities will expand manyfold. For machining, the prohibitive cost for the hobbyist or self-taught person is the cost of the tools as well as the space needed to accommodate them.
Compare this to 3D printing. The machines are getting cheaper, and even if you don’t have the space or money to buy a 3D printer with the capability you need, you can take your design and pay a 3rd party company print it for you. So it’s all about just having the ability to design the part yourself, which one can learn and practice if they have a decent PC setup to run the 3D design software (and the desire to do so.)
One futuristic possibility that alleviate the machining skills deficit could be CNC machines take a step forward towards the 3D printing model - developed from the outset to accommodate external designs from 3rd parties. Maybe these machines could be loaded with tools and blanks of the necessary alloys needed to make the part the designer wants and then they just load the program and let the CNC machine make the part.
If people can readily get even small parts machined on demand, then a lot of things are possible. Doesn’t help getting existing parts machined for repair though.
Dave
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The advent of the crate motor played a big part in the demise of the local machine shop.
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Very true.
GM began selling the Chevrolet “Targetmaster V8” in the 70s. They were $695 as I recall. Brand new, with a warranty.
Some other contributing factors:
Fewer manual transmissions = fewer flywheels to resurface.
Brake rotors and drums inexpensive enough to make it attractive to just buy new rather than resurface.
Engines lasting so much longer = fewer overhauls and valve jobs.
I remember, from the 60s, hearing Dad (and others) saying “Well, it’s time for a valve job” as though it was the most common, ordinary thing in the world. When I started in the car business in the late 70s doing a valve job was still fairly common. Much less so by the 90s. Virtually unheard of after that.
Cheers
DD
That cannot be overstated.
Earlier, it was, “Time for a decoking!”
Better, more consistent fuels are also part of that equation. Then we move into the modern era of proper fuel injection, electronic ignition, and better manufacturing tolerances and that just equaled engines that last even longer.
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It may have been an MG manual I read years ago talking about a decoking service interval. Also interesting was the advice to not clean the crud out of piston rings as it helped to alleviate blowby.
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JC Whitney, wayback when, sold small pieces of very soft chain: Model Ts and other cars of that era, would coke up very easily, because of the lousy fuel, and very low compression ratio: you would pull a spark plug, drop in the little piece of chain, then start the engine on three cylinders.
The chain would beat around and shit would fly out the spark plug hole, and then you’d fish the chain out, and repeat with the other three cylinders Oddly enough, it kind of worked!
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Never had coking issues with my T fords. Pulling a head was easy as pie!
I do recal an event involving aa school mate’s Dad. His Dad was a Brit and worked as a boiler maker at the local Southern pacific maintence syards. he took the entire exhast system of the family n37 Plymouth apart to decoke it!!!
Another school mate’s dad jsut let hi mdrive the new 48 Pontiac. billy drove fast . good enough to decoke.
decades l;ater, my 88 Tbird developed a rattle. Son and mechanic friend diagnosed, 'coke"!!! Me!! Chemical additive/ fixed. Yes, i drove fast. but, in Od, the engoine loafed!
I recall ?Casit:. Pur it into the carb of a running engine. clouds of smoke. Supposedly carbon.
Water was used for that purpose as well. dribble in to a runnig engone. slow;y beware of hydraulic lock.
CHJ
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There are still people willing to spin wrenches for a living, the trouble is no small number of them are doing it because it’s easier to get into and the standards have been lowered because as you all noticed, folks that can do better are doing so. Certainly there are still good and bright people out there fixing cars, but it’s a lot fewer. I’m 44 years old and after a brief stint as an electricians apprentice and working at a shop or two after going to trade school as a kid, I found the same money sitting behind a nice clean parts counter selling the stuff instead of installing it. Can’t say I regret the choice.
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