What have you learned in your old age that you feel should be taught to high school students?

I agree that cars haven't changed mechanically all that much over time. However it's an interesting question to ask what _has_ changed over time.

What's new now in a car of the 2000's that didn't exist in the 1950s?

My Karmann Ghia was like that to. Theoretically, it is a good idea but in practice, never was a problem having both sides the same.

Primarily Computers! Tons of computerized systems. Started with electronic ignition in the mid 70's and they kept adding more electronic systems.

I own 11 cars now, from the 60s/70's on up, and the only one that still has points would be my '68 Ford Galaxie. I can work on all of them, but the newest is right at the end of being too modern. Up until I bought the 2005 Hyundai Elantra, the newest was a '94 Geo Metro. You can't get more simple than the Geo for a 90's car that's easy to wrench on.

Here is the issue that I have. There are too many things that have changed. Look how tightly everything is packed into the engine compartment. Nothing is easy to get to. My mother's newer Buick has electronic power steering. How the heck does that work?

Many car makes are using the computerized systems to their advantage to prevent backyard mechanics. Some newer cars like BMW's have to be reprogrammed at a dealer when the battery is taken out. They just don't work when connected back up. I was told that service can cost $400, and it forces you to visit a dealer to buy a battery.

What a wash! OBD2 can help with diagnosing some things, but all you find now are more and more sensors. Sorry, in whole, I firmly disagree that cars are getting easier to work on. It used to be straightforward, but cars are designed to NOT be straightforward now.

I've never broken an open end but I approach Harbor Freight stuff with caution. I stocked the tool tube on my V-Strom. They're a step up from the Suzuki tools but if someone rips off the tube I'm only out about $40. They are not the tools I use for working on the bike at home.

The Toyota manual is pretty boring. Change the oil every 5000 miles and rotate the tires. The 2007 version said to change the antifreeze at

50000 iirc but even that is missing in the 2018 manual. I run studs in the winter so I count that as rotating the tires.

I bought the car in March of 01, CE (Covid Era) on the day this county locked down. I even called the dealer to make sure they would be open that Saturday. I noticed the odometer yesterday and it was up to 11000 something. The car will last forever at this rate.

The basic method of making power and getting it to the wheel for motion is still the same but so much more sophisticated. So, you can get a lesson in physics and mechanics but what else is of much value?

Is more than one out of 1000 ever going to change a fuel pump in the tank? Those that have serious interest in the mechanics, like in the past, will learn how to do it. I used to do 100% of my car repair and maintenance. In the past 15 years or so, most I've done is add windshield wiper fluid.

Is it really all that "much more sophisticated" such that you can no longer understand it or fix it the way you used to understand and fix it before?

Take the basic method of "making power" for example.

It's a four-stroke engine (in most cases), just like it was before, isn't it? It still has a spark plug (at least one per cylinder usually). It still has a spark that ignites the fuel doesn't it? It still has a stoichoimetric ratio of fuel to air doesn't it? Even the fuel is the same fuel essentially (more detergents, less lead perhaps, but it's essentially the same stuff as before isn't it)? It still has valves (maybe more than before, but they do the same things). It still has rings, doesn't it? It still has a crankshaft, doesn't it?

As for getting that power to the wheels, it's true that many cars today have the engine turned sideways, but even then it's still the same method of driving the wheels as before only with one fewer change in direction for most cars and with a couple added differentials for the more robust vehicles.

If you learned how the cooling system works in the fifties, how is it different today?

If you learned how the engine worked in the fifties, how is it different today?

If you learned how the starting & charging systems worked in the fifties, how is it different today?

I'm not advocating kids learn how to repair fuel systems in high school so much as they learn how the fuel storage & delivery & vapor recovery system works.

Same with the cooling system, the starting and charging system, the suspension system, the drive train, and even the instrumentation (for example, don't you think they should know the temperature gauge is buffered?).

Everything they will ever need to do on a car follows from that understanding.

Luckily with fuel injected cars and with electronic spark control, and with cleaner gasolines, and with radial tires, and with corrosion resistant oils and coolants, and with the almost universal advent of disc brakes, etc., the maintenance on a car is easier now than ever before, isn't it?

On principle I've never been inside a harbor freight store (or Walmart) but I do lately lament the loss of easy access to the Sears stores because all my old tools are Craftsman tools.

What has replaced Craftsman for decent quality for the homeowner nowadays?

Famous last words... Unless there's a specific scan code, is it the MAP, the TPS, or the IAP all of which test out as barely within acceptable limits. A friend was driven to drink, not that it was a long drive, by an atmospheric pressure sensor VW saw fit to conceal in the door pillar for reasons unknown.

As my generation dies, their children sell nice vintage USA made SnapOn for pennies.

While I mostly agree

More or less. I certainly didn't grow up with transverse engine FWD vehicles, CVT's and so forth.

With the exception of temperature controlled electric fans that's true. I still have moments of surprise when the car decides to turn its fan on after I've parked it.

At the 30.000' view. The heater isn't regulated by a push-pull cable attached to a valve between the heater hose and the core. A friend was lamenting that the climate control system in his new Jeep was integrated into the infotainment module, aka radio.

Again in the large view. The Toyota still has drum brakes in the rear which is sort of retro otherwise disk brakes have taken over. One of my bicycles even has disk brakes. I've got to say that's a step forward compared to rim calipers.

But then you get into ABS, traction control, stability control, collision avoidance, and all the other systems between your foot and the brake pads. Luckily in my latest Yaris I can turn the traction control off. Some genius finally realized that automatically braking a spinning wheel when both are spinning means you're not going to rock your way out of anything. I can also turn off stability control. They also realized people who drive on dirt roads don't stay within the 'stable' envelope.

Then there is TPMS. My studs are mounted on rims without sensors so I spend the winter ignoring the little lighted icon. Another icons was flashing on acceleration and it took me a while to realize what it was. Low washer fluid. I suppose I might have figured that out sooner or later.

The general idea seems to be to turn cars into sort of a terrestrial AirCoupe (ErCoupe). The AirCoupe was a light plane that was designed so you couldn't stall or spin it. The control surfaces didn't have enough authority to get you into trouble. Except maybe on takeoff. Since you couldn't get the nose up enough to stall, takeoffs tended to be very leisurely.

You should read a book! The electronic power steering is very cool and it is in fact pretty much like the hydraulic steering system except there's a sensor and a servomotor instead of hoses.

Because there's a computer mediating between the sensor and the motor you need to understand how to watch the data going through the computer controls, but you CAN watch that, and much more easily than watching pressures at the steering rack on that old Galaxie.

Everything being packed more tightly IS a problem, but by the same token we also have better tools for getting into places than we ever had before.

For the first couple of years until the people who make the scanning tools for BMWs catch on and figure out how to emulate the factory tools, and then it's just a matter of visiting your local independent shop with BMW tools.

The same thing was the case back in the sixties with special tools. At first the dealer only had the tools, then a couple years later everyone had them.

--scott

Try telling that to the simple (spin off oil filter) new way Toyota has for the oil filter change.

Again it comes down to essentials and accidentals. An internal combustion engine needs a fuel delivery system. In that sense nothing has changed between carburetors and fuel injection.

You could argue that the Ram-Air FI on the '57 Corvette shows not much has changed. While innovative, it was also finicky and a lot of them wound up collecting dust when the owner went back to carburetors. FI itself goes back to WWII. Carburetted planes don't do well flying upside down as the Brits learned when going up against Messerschmidts with the early Spitfires.

I think Chevy dropped FI after six years or so before revisiting it sometime later. In any case I never played with FI. The Toyota and V-Strom both are injected and they just work.

Ignition systems are similar. When I bought my first Toyota in 2007 I assumed the plug wires were hidden under the plastic shroud on the engine. Not so. There are individual coils on each plug fired by the computer. I assume the plugs bear a resemblance to those used by my '51 Chevy but I've had no reason to snoop.

Like you I have a timing light and dwell meter in my museum. The timing light is still applicable to the '86 F-150 but even it had a Hall sensor driven electronic ignition. True, I did have CD ignition in my '60 Plymouth but I built it myself.

So essentially nothing has changed. However the technology has changed considerably and is much more reliable but when things don't work it gets interesting. On my '55 Harley the ignition system was simple, points, manual spark advance, coil, wires, and plugs. Harleys traditionally were wasted spark systems, so no rotor. It worked or it didn't.

On my '98 Sportster, it was more like sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. After going through the usual troubleshooting steps I went for a novel approach, a can of freeze spray from Radio Shack. The culprit was the Hall sensor on the end of the crankshaft. It would get hot at times and fail open. When it cooled it worked again. That skill came from debugging circuit boards, not working on cars.

The onboard computer can also help. I bought a used car in 2005 that was seriously underpriced and at first I didn't know why. I initially chalked it up to being a used Toyota on a Ford dealer's lot but I soon discovered that the automatic climate control didn't work. All of the manual controls worked, but who wants that.

Toy dealer quoted me $3400 plus labor to r&r the control unit, so I passed. Internet to the rescue - there's a diag feature in all or most of the computer-controlled vehicles that tells you what's wrong.* In my case, it said the cabin temp sensor was not responding. I reached up under the dash to disconnect the sensor so I could remove it for testing, but I found that it was simply disconnected. That was all it needed.

*For that vehicle, start with the ignition off. Press and hold 3 buttons on the climate control panel, then turn on the ignition. The system does a complete self-test and ends with a flashing numeric display. Cross reference the number(s) being displayed and you have your fault(s). The dealer wanted $240 to do that procedure, which could then be applied to the final repair cost, but in the end it cost me nothing.

In my humble opinion, almost nothing has changed in our lifetimes. Nothing fundamental anyway.

For example what generates the electrical power on those bikes?

I've seen friends rebuild a rice-burner "alternator" whose field (B) current was simply a ring of magnets connected to the engine crankshaft.

The magnets spun at engine speed inside a three-wire set of static coils.

Two coils were connected when the handlebar light switch was off (in the days when there was a handlebar light switch anyway), three coils otherwise.

A voltage regulator hung on the three-wire output.

In essence, that's the same concept today (although with coils replacing the [B] magnet) on most of our gasoline powered vehicles even today, is it not?

Those rice burners were only missing the battery charge "sense" logic.

Actually the permanent magnets may have spun _outside_ the static coils. I forget which - but the concept is the same either way - is it not?

That's an interesting take on the biggest change being the loss of leaded fuel. But didn't valve seats have to change in order to compensate for it?