22 year olds need relocation advice for automotive career!!! HELP PLEASE!!!!!(wit cherries on top) (credit, transfer)

[Mac_Muz]

Originally Posted by Veyron

I have 9 months of experience....

I would say create a plan. In part, that for the next 5 years you will work as a tech and go to school working towards one of the phases of engineering.

There is plenty of never had a dob of grease under the fingermails engineers who design nightmares.

But after 5 years get out of being a tech no matter what else.

I have great deal many more years as a tech, than you do, and wished someone had told me to make a similar plan.

The good side is I can work on just about anything there is, even if I never saw it before. The experience lends to many other things like wiring, small engine repairs, plumbing, industrial tech and machine building, not as cars. Things like vacuum oven industry uses, that 6 full grown men could all stand inside of at the same time.

Science testing machines, and other contraptions

With 5 years at tech work for cars, trucks and motorcycles you will be able to deal with small engines and boats, maybe air planes.

But get past that, going into engineering knowing a few things you might not know now. Mainly the order of things.

A great deal of techs are weak in 12dcv systems. They have no idea how a generator works, How a start motor works, How an Alternator works and the different types of them work. They don't learn how to test in Ohms modes, or in ACV mode, and don't understand how ac current is converted to dc current.

Fixing a alternator is not just replacing it, and isn't even knowing why it would be replaced. A lot of techs will replace the regulator too as a matched set because they don't know squat. There is brushless alts and brush type alts each works in a different way. Another type has permanent magnets. Some have a coiled wires armatures, while others are fixed stators and fixed field coil with a plain iron rotor that spins bewteen these 2 components.

I can not compute how many wires must be in a field coil bundle field set myself, but again i don't need to, that is what a good engineer does, so i don't have to.

I can diagnoise any 12 dcv system though, and tell you where the most likely fault is if you tell me what components that system has if I don't already know.

Study Bosche injection from D jet to current systems, as the old 1970 D jet is still used in new machines today. MAF and MAP systems used around the world, are mostly all based on Boshce systems. Most techs that use the term O2 sensor, would not know the term I know that same device as, which i call Lamda Sond.

Knowing injection inside out and backwards, is directly in the path of where you want to go. You will need to know how they work, and why they work, which is more than just knowing how to find and repair a fault.

Bean counters and Engineers seldom make a good team. One good example is Volvo 240 series. it was bad enough that the change from the 140 series which had a blower motor a tech could access for the liftimg of the hood to remove 3 wires and 5 screws, became a twin squirrel cage system under the dash, where to access the motor a case made of plastic had to be split in 3, but it worked well.

Until some bean counter convinced the engineers they could save 1/2 cent if they switch out the brush holders for plastic, instead of metal.

The plastic brush holders simply melted, and seized the motors up hard. It iis a 10 hour ordeal to remove everything to replace that motor. A case of a bad engineering error. One that caused a big recall, and never needed to be in the first place.

Another was to use the Renault V-6 engine in Volvo, and installed backwards. The design was ok, but someone dropped the ball on twin camshaft hardening, and these cams were as soft as butter in July.

Because the engine was installed backwards it was impossible to remove the cam shafts from the ft of the engine as designed, because the fire wall was in the way. Techs had no choice but to cut big holes in the fire wall and pass these cam shafts right thru the dash area, with the dash removed of course. But it was messey work at best.

It isn't going to get you any 'Atta Boy' if you create any designs like these 2 mentioned.

I could sit here and list this stuff all day long... but I won't.

[f_m]

Originally Posted by johnfrisco

The type of work you aspire to do will require a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering. We are talking years of hard science and math.


I am not trying to discourage you, but for now maybe being just a regular mechanic will get you started and be your stepping stone.


Good luck!

I think that's a little bit much, given than most auto companies hire engineers with B.S. degrees. Most of the rest is based on experience and a few other courses (perhaps a M.S. degree). Honda HPD had engine development jobs only requiring B.S. and 5-7 years experience to work on the Indy race car engine development. Someone in aerodynamics might need a Ph.D.

That's why I suggested going to school and working on the SAE teams, so while going to school you work on building and competing a formula race car, baja off road vehicle, solar/battery vehicle, etc... Most auto companies would hire these people before someone with just a book degree.

You should really go to the SAE site and read everything. It's the Society of Automotive Engineers for a reason.

[Veyron]

Originally Posted by Mac_Muz

I would say create a plan. In part, that for the next 5 years you will work as a tech and go to school working towards one of the phases of engineering.

There is plenty of never had a dob of grease under the fingermails engineers who design nightmares.

But after 5 years get out of being a tech no matter what else.

I have great deal many more years as a tech, than you do, and wished someone had told me to make a similar plan.

The good side is I can work on just about anything there is, even if I never saw it before. The experience lends to many other things like wiring, small engine repairs, plumbing, industrial tech and machine building, not as cars. Things like vacuum oven industry uses, that 6 full grown men could all stand inside of at the same time.

Science testing machines, and other contraptions

With 5 years at tech work for cars, trucks and motorcycles you will be able to deal with small engines and boats, maybe air planes.

But get past that, going into engineering knowing a few things you might not know now. Mainly the order of things.

A great deal of techs are weak in 12dcv systems. They have no idea how a generator works, How a start motor works, How an Alternator works and the different types of them work. They don't learn how to test in Ohms modes, or in ACV mode, and don't understand how ac current is converted to dc current.

Fixing a alternator is not just replacing it, and isn't even knowing why it would be replaced. A lot of techs will replace the regulator too as a matched set because they don't know squat. There is brushless alts and brush type alts each works in a different way. Another type has permanent magnets. Some have a coiled wires armatures, while others are fixed stators and fixed field coil with a plain iron rotor that spins bewteen these 2 components.

I can not compute how many wires must be in a field coil bundle field set myself, but again i don't need to, that is what a good engineer does, so i don't have to.

I can diagnoise any 12 dcv system though, and tell you where the most likely fault is if you tell me what components that system has if I don't already know.

Study Bosche injection from D jet to current systems, as the old 1970 D jet is still used in new machines today. MAF and MAP systems used around the world, are mostly all based on Boshce systems. Most techs that use the term O2 sensor, would not know the term I know that same device as, which i call Lamda Sond.

Knowing injection inside out and backwards, is directly in the path of where you want to go. You will need to know how they work, and why they work, which is more than just knowing how to find and repair a fault.

Bean counters and Engineers seldom make a good team. One good example is Volvo 240 series. it was bad enough that the change from the 140 series which had a blower motor a tech could access for the liftimg of the hood to remove 3 wires and 5 screws, became a twin squirrel cage system under the dash, where to access the motor a case made of plastic had to be split in 3, but it worked well.

Until some bean counter convinced the engineers they could save 1/2 cent if they switch out the brush holders for plastic, instead of metal.

The plastic brush holders simply melted, and seized the motors up hard. It iis a 10 hour ordeal to remove everything to replace that motor. A case of a bad engineering error. One that caused a big recall, and never needed to be in the first place.

Another was to use the Renault V-6 engine in Volvo, and installed backwards. The design was ok, but someone dropped the ball on twin camshaft hardening, and these cams were as soft as butter in July.

Because the engine was installed backwards it was impossible to remove the cam shafts from the ft of the engine as designed, because the fire wall was in the way. Techs had no choice but to cut big holes in the fire wall and pass these cam shafts right thru the dash area, with the dash removed of course. But it was messey work at best.

It isn't going to get you any 'Atta Boy' if you create any designs like these 2 mentioned.

I could sit here and list this stuff all day long... but I won't.

Hey I appreciate the advice...I defiantly would be interested in the challenge of alternators...


I'm really not interested in anything but cars..but I see what your saying when it comes to being diverse and being able to make money from pretty much anything.

But I do want to repair, design, and engineer car parts. Mainly in the performance realm. So I geuss I should look into everything involves the engine..brakes..suspension... and...transmissions/transaxles.

Probably shape of the vehicle as aerodynamics and weight is playing a big factor with todays cars.

[Veyron]

Originally Posted by f_m

I think that's a little bit much, given than most auto companies hire engineers with B.S. degrees. Most of the rest is based on experience and a few other courses (perhaps a M.S. degree). Honda HPD had engine development jobs only requiring B.S. and 5-7 years experience to work on the Indy race car engine development. Someone in aerodynamics might need a Ph.D.

That's why I suggested going to school and working on the SAE teams, so while going to school you work on building and competing a formula race car, baja off road vehicle, solar/battery vehicle, etc... Most auto companies would hire these people before someone with just a book degree.

You should really go to the SAE site and read everything. It's the Society of Automotive Engineers for a reason.

Defiantly.

[Mac_Muz]

Well this isn't very exiting, but a reall good place to learn is with dead freebie lawn mowers.

Why? because it is a one lunger and so everything must be correct. Since they are free usually, with a small investment in parts you can over haul that engine and sell it for a good buck after you have your lessons.

The basics are all right there.

A magneto is a charging system with or with out a battery. It is dc current, and it won't run lights very well but it will run lights. It has a carb, does all 4 strokes, and contains all the real engine parts any internal combustion engine has. It all fits on a bench too.

There is 2 valves, these have a cam, there is valve over lap andthey must have back pressure in lower rpms.


Next might be a chain saw engine, for 2 stroke lessons. I have seen these used for skate boards, more fun A different theory. There is that magneto again, a different carb type, and different engine type sometimes with reed valves and sometimes with no valves at all.

Back pressure is a must have even for high rpm and chain saws are high rpm engines.

With one lunger engines there is no power to be shared with a weak clyinder getting help from more cylinders. It must be right, or it isn't going to preform.

Where you are wanting to go, means you must know many engine types. There are almost countless engine designs from the pretty much stagnat American V-8 nearly 100 years old to passing wankel rotary engines.

Check out some of these relics!
http://www.norwayheritage.com/articles/templates/ships.asp?articleid=87&zoneid=5

These are some strange contrapshuns But this is where ideas come from.

The thing there is you must already be familar.

You must be able to alter a given design as well. One time i used a round ball for a black powder gun to fix a porshe.

The car came in the shop on the hook, and was assinged to me. It was blowing all the engine oil out the instant the engine was started. This car had just had the engine rebuilt in some shop in Boston.

Some fool some how managed to pull the cam shaft gallery plugs, one was gone, the other was sealed in with blue ATV sealer. These lived behind the fly wheel.

The missing plug is factory installed to seal off oil from a drilling in the engine case, so oil will flow to the cam shaft #1 bearing, which is part of the engine case and there is no bearing. So you can't block off the oil flow.

The drilling has a recess for the plug to seat on, so nothing else can block the sharp 90 degree turn and cut off oil flow.

You can not buy that plug for love or money. You can not cut threads and install a pipe thread freeze plug either, as there is too much risk of letting a single chip get to the cam shaft and the engine case bearing.

My first try was to installa small freeze plug, which almost worked. But it leaked and i allowed the customer to take the car over night. My boss released it.

The next day I was supposed to go hunting. That day another guy was assinged to the job, and he begane to make a threaded fitting and i told him that's fine, but do not intall it and do not cut the threads in the engine case.

That got my boss off my back so I could think. I was thinking black powder guns and hunting and it struck mme to try a soft pure lead round ball over size, just like my six shooters use, which shear off a thin ring of lead being seated in the cylinder. Mine were to small, but I knew the gun shop dealer just down the road, so I went there and asked for a few in every size he had telling him I would bring back all but one.

I found one a little over sized, cleaned up the hole and it's seat, drove that ball in, staked the case to swell it so that ball could not back out under 80 psi cold oil pressure, drove a short sheet metal screw into the ball to swell it more, and backed up behind that ball with epoxie.

That did it, and is just an example of being able to adapt.

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by Why_Am_I_Here

Try Nashville area...Nissan headquarters is in Franklin, plant in Smyrna, good schools (Nashville Auto Diesel College..), contrary to popular belief it is not all country music. Lots of entertainment to found..NFL, NHL, college sports...

Or Chattanooga:

"Germany's Volkswagen has reached a key milestone in the hiring process for its new Chattanooga auto assembly plant. The current orientation class of new employees includes the 1,000th worker to be hired for the operation, which is set to begin production in the first quarter of 2011. The Volkswagen plant will employ more than 2,000 workers who will build a new mid-size sedan. Hiring will continue through 2011 as the plant reaches full production."

Volkswagen reaches 1,000th employee milestone for Chattanooga auto plant | al.com

CAREERS with Volkswagen Group of America

[Veyron]

Thankyou all for your responses. So mechanical engineering would be better of then automotive engineering?

[Mac_Muz]

I am not sure, or quailified even to say what is best for you. Electronical Engineering is on top right now, with cars. You need to look ahead no matter what, as the auto industry is forever changing.

Electric power cars, hybrids and hydrogen power is all new, and might not be what we get in several more years. It might be a magnetic drive for all I know, or something I haven't heard of at all.

Take the lambda sond O2 sensor for example. NASA developed that to get dc volts from waste O2, but didn't get the volts they were aiming for. They placed that device in the open market, and Bosch bought it up.

The device created upwards of 0.5 dcv which was all Bosch was after. With that device in injected car exhausts, it could send the signal to the ecu and lean out the fuel the engine recieved, which it does to this day.

For around 70 years cars pretty much stayed the same, and then changes occured in the early 70's that forever changed how engines run. In the USA carbed cars are no longer made.

No cars run off a points type ignition anymore, while you can still find old cars and some small engines that still use points type ignitions and have carbs.

I am not even sure you would need to know how these old systems worked.

More or less the Hall Effect ignition is going out, and to what seems a update of what the model T Ford had, just different. A sort of magneto coil per spark plug system.

Ducatti has a variable valve system that runs of 12 dcv and no cam shafts.

IMO motorcycles are the state of the art right now, where production units are up for sale to the general public. They get the latest state of the art everything it seems. Lighter is better, so long as it is strong enough. The weight to power ratio is King right now. You can buy a bike with over 150 horse power on the ground that weighs near 400 pounds. And thats with a under 750 cc's apx 45 cubic inch engines.

Gasoline as we know it is doomed.

Where you want to go, and how to get there is out of my league.

[Veyron]

Originally Posted by Mac_Muz

Gasoline as we know it is doomed.

.

That is true. I may have to really look into focusing on hybrid systems.

[Mac_Muz]

As i said there is no way I can point you in a correct direction. Everything has changed.

Lots of parts are bought up by auto makers as well. They do not make all sub systems and these other parts related, but buy them from vendors.

My 86 3/4 ton Dodge conversion van has Bosch window motors, as an example.

IMO the engineers who designed the rubber boot at the drive shaft for my 06 kawi Nomad mc failed to get the chemical compostion right in the rubber which as of last spring was sun cracking baddly and I will need a new rubber boot this spring before I can ride. A rubber part should last 10 to 20 years with out cracking IMO. It used to be that way, so I see no reason it still shouldn't be.

The foot peg rubbers on my 81 yammi 850 failed at 23 years old which was above the std.

Perhaps the chemical engineering could be another idea.

No cars are built by one designer engineer anymore. The systems are too vast for one engineer.

It takes a crew of engineers to just make a wiring harness these days.

It takes more to work out the metals used, which varry widely depending on what the part will be.

Each of these areas are created by people with a high understanding of the properties in each material, more understanding is needed to organize it all into a machine that moves.

The hybrid systems are just coming into their own now, but I feel as f it will be a stepping stone to something better.

I feel that gasoline hybrid are a waste of time, and that diesel is a better way to go, but that too is not the way it will end up.

It may be there is a time to come where there will be diesel electric, where the diesel is just running alternators, but i don't know that.

All I know is it takes energy to get a stationary object to become a moving object. I know all energy has a cost. There no self propelled system made that creates as much energy as it uses, and I am willing to bet there will never be one. Lots of people a lot smarter than me have tried to create a perpetual motion machine and so far all have failed.

Friction can not be over come, and if it were we would all go exactly no where anyway.

The only ones who don't seem to have a clue IS the EPA. They make the most ridiculous demands as to just how much energy 1 gallon of gasoline can make.

It is one thing to make such demands on paper, but quite another to get any results in the real world.

The days of the internal combustion engine are nearing the end too. That counts diesel.

Maybe the next step passing hybrids is a hydrogen engine that splits molecules of water. The hydrogen is the fuel, mixed with pure oxygen, all more or less self contained, and recyled to be water again, but the steam is the new power drive. or maybe the steam would drive alternators.

I would assume a steam engine won't be fit for auto transport, because it has a long lag time. But if it drove alternators and this ran electric motors the power demand would be instant.

The problem is power to weight ratios.

Another future engine may run at a constant RPM, and have hydrostatic drive as the varriable transmission.

You could look at trasmission drives now as there are several types. One that is fasinating to me is the type used on simple lawn tractors. The powered disc or drive wheel run across the face of a tranny gear mounted plate, and depending on where the driving disc is determines how fast the tractor will go. This can varry with engine rpm.

For all I know gear drive, belt drive, cog belt drive, chain drive is all dead, and hydrostatic drive will be the new law of the land. But that is something for your generation, not mine.

A system that would create engery under braking would be nice too. Use that power, get it everywhere.

There is no reason that once a vehical at speed can't use it's own weight to create more power. All you need is alternators at each wheel. As the wheels spin power is created, and as braking occures more power can be created. But so far there is always that standard of more power and energy are used than is created....

Having all the basics and then thinking out of the box is critical.