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I helped a student at a college I occasionally work with (as IT/cybersecurity) by bump-starting their old VW beetle. Their mind was blown, and it got me thinking about how many old-school skills we've used over the years that could be considered "lost". Here are a few off the top of my head
1. Bump-starting a car. Dead battery? If you have a manual trans, no big deal! Get the car rolling with the ignition on, put 'er in gear and drop the clutch, it should fire right up! On some cars, like the VW beetle I mention above, you can use reverse and usually just pushing yourself backwards out of a parking spot is enough speed/distance for it to start.
2. Changing a fan belt on a VW beetle, while it's running, with a stick. Anyone else ever done it? Had lots of fast VW's back in the day at Carlsbad raceway's drag strip in Carlsbad CA. My fast aircooled beetles (low 10's) had no batteries most of the time, and shredded fan belts, so being able to swap the belt while it was running was handy.
3. Pepper in the radiator as a short-term fix for a small leak. Yep. I've done it, and it totally got me out of the middle of the 215 on the way back from vegas. I had a little packet of fast-food pepper in my glove compartment, no cell service, and some water... so I remembered hearing it, tried it, and it worked!
4. Clutchless shifting in a manual when the clutch went out. Yep, it's possible. Nope, it's not fun. Yep, it'll get you out of a scape if you absolutely value getting where you need to go more than the health of your whole transmission.
5. Doing maintenance.
Whatchu got?
1. Bump-starting a car. Dead battery? If you have a manual trans, no big deal! Get the car rolling with the ignition on, put 'er in gear and drop the clutch, it should fire right up! On some cars, like the VW beetle I mention above, you can use reverse and usually just pushing yourself backwards out of a parking spot is enough speed/distance for it to start.
2. Changing a fan belt on a VW beetle, while it's running, with a stick. Anyone else ever done it? Had lots of fast VW's back in the day at Carlsbad raceway's drag strip in Carlsbad CA. My fast aircooled beetles (low 10's) had no batteries most of the time, and shredded fan belts, so being able to swap the belt while it was running was handy.
3. Pepper in the radiator as a short-term fix for a small leak. Yep. I've done it, and it totally got me out of the middle of the 215 on the way back from vegas. I had a little packet of fast-food pepper in my glove compartment, no cell service, and some water... so I remembered hearing it, tried it, and it worked!
4. Clutchless shifting in a manual when the clutch went out. Yep, it's possible. Nope, it's not fun. Yep, it'll get you out of a scape if you absolutely value getting where you need to go more than the health of your whole transmission.
5. Doing maintenance.
Whatchu got?
