Hugh Haskel suggests that complexity and cost have discouraged tinkering
with cars, toys, etc. I will grant there may be some truth in this, but
I think it is really more of a state of mind and a reflection of cultural
changes. I remember in the early 50's hearing the father of a friend of
mine complain that he used to work on cars, but they had become too complicated
I wondered about this because I'd never heard my father make this complaint
and we always fixed everything. It still hasn't stopped me either, although
my wife is really getting on my case about the 5 cars behind our house that
all need to be fixed (actually I think it is 6). This weekend I fixed a
parking brake warning light that didn't go off when the brake was off.
The problem was simply a corroded connection on the switch at the base of
the brake lever. However,I'm still trying to figure out how the circuit works.
When you take the brake off it closes the switch and turns the light off.
When you open the swith it breaks the circuit and turns the light on. With
both leads disconnected from the switch the light is on.
I tell my physics students that if you really understand physics you can fix
anything and I encourage students to bring in their broken stuff to lab.
Usually, it is just fuses, as Leigh mentioned, but that seems like a good
lesson. They get to measure voltages, resistances etc. and see some real
circuits. We fixed a VGA moniter that computer services said had a bad
power supply and wasn't work fixing. It had a loose wire! We just kept
checking voltage until we didn't get any.
Even stuff you can't fix can be lots of fun to take appart. Have you taken
appart a hard drive. I found the first one absolutely breathtaking. When
I got it back together it worked for about a month and died again so I guess
it wasn't overly productive but I've had better luck with floppies. This week
I should start on a diesel injector pump. I figure anything that can squirt
over a billion pulses of fuel at over 1000 psi before it dies has to be worth
seeing. My wife figures that we got our money's worth out of the car and we
should just get a new one. Economically, she is certainly right, but she'll
never know how the pump works. My son and I bought an RX7 just so we could
see how a rotary engine works (or in this case doesn't work). They are
pretty neat, it is just that this one had swallowed an apex seal and is
beyond repair. Anybody have and extra engine or want a body cheap? We also
dragged home a car with a bad transmission just so we could try our hand
at this job. We're 0 for 2 on this. Rebuild #2 ran all last winter so
it wasn't a total loss.