Those who have taken or are taking auto class'...

[human5]

Which class did you find the easiest and which class did you find the hardest? For some reason I understood heating and a/c but I can't get electrical or brakes. Brakes are relativly simple but at the same time there's all this crap about master cylinder's and shit like that. Then electrical is just like a martian language to me.

 

[Original_Ranger84]

I suggest taking principles of technology or something similar because they explain all you need to know about electronics and how stuff works. They even taught me how to wire up lights and stereos which are simply easy to do if you know what youre doing. Master cylinders are pretty simple i think, most of them run off of vacuume from the engine and then they have differnt sizes blah blah blah... and then (horrer music) ABS ... Systems (High pitched screams) brakes and electronics combined. but yeah i know what you mean.

 

[baddis]

Master cylinders are pretty simple i think, most of them run off of vacuume from the engine .

not true the booster is what runs off vaccum .or in larger trucks they can be air over hydraulic or electric over hydraulic aor just air or just hydraulic.

 

[Todd]

I took two year of auto tech in high school. One year was steering suspension and front end, then engine performance the second half. Engine performance was not trying to squeeze every little bit of HP out of every cube but the engine management systems.
The second year was electrical and brakes. I didn’t really find that much hard about any of the classes, I have always been a mechanical minded person. Was a great asset to take those classes as I got lots of info out of them and after taking them you just pick up a lot more. I never took any classes on rebuilding and engine or setting up gears but over the past years of seeing it done and doing it I can do just about anything. One thing I don’t want to do is auto trannys

Now im a 4th year Mechanical Engineering student at Michigan Technological University and have way more hands on experience and real world experience on how mechanical things work then many here.

 

[PARKINGLOT]

I took auto thru highschool, and I took a year of "Motive Power Tech" at college. I think the "worse" class I ever had was probably....well, If I had to pick one, electrical. Not that I don't understand electrical, I did great in like, rebuilding alternators and starters, troubleshooting problems and what not, but stuff like, say, sensors and trying to figure out if one is faulty, or if it's that circuit, or what not....

 

[94STXRanger]

Haha im takin electrical AND brakes right now. PM me if you want some help or anything.

 

[MAKG]

Having hung around a college-level auto tech program, the #1 problem I saw in electrical classes was trying to memorize everything. Learning any complex set of principles requires reduction and synthesis. Memorization can only get you so far.

Ohm's Law is the key to automotive electrical systems. With it, nearly everything makes sense. Without it, it's quite a lot of uncoordinated memorization. There are only a few kinds of sensors, but all of them are considerably easier to understand once Ohm's Law is.

That and voltage drop tests (in other contexts, Kirchoff's Loop Rule).

 

[Ranger5.0]

Hey Parkinglot, where did you do the motive power program? Im in my last few months and then off to work. MAKG is right, ohms law is the word of god when it comes to electrical diagnoses. E orver I X R saves my butt every test and exam. Its not just memorizing things, is the basic understanding if how things work. There ARE only a few types of sensors, even tho they have different names, they principal is the same, its just the application that changes. Breaks arent so bad once you get a good undrstanding of hydraulics, which i dont think they teach at a high school level. Fluids (for the most part) will not compress. I think my most difficult class was either EEMS or Advanced diesel fuel systems. At this point in the game, when trouble shooting gas engine problems i keep having to remind myself that both the air and fuel is metered haha. Hang in there, there will be a point in your education where that light will finaly come on, and you will understand things, dont get bummed out, all this stuff takes time.

 

[Hahnsb2]

I took Diesel Tech my last 2 years of high school. I found electrical to be the area that I lacked in but I do pretty well everywhere else, I can tear down and engine, bleed injectors, mig/tig welding and fabrication, change brakes (a truck brake drum weight like 100 lbs!), change engines/transmissions (remember these are trucks, an engine weighs 3500 lbs!), we even took an old truck and scrapped it except the frame which we shortened like 10 feet and welded it back together. I really enjoy fabbing things, its really cool to build something from nothing. We also installed a small dyno in a truck frame that freightliner donated, instead of running a normal drive shaft we had a custom shaft made to run to the dyno, which I promply managed to blow up (the dyno not the shaft) behind that 525hp Cat C15 lol. Its really something to to see the frame twist up under the load and hear the turbo at 30lbs of boost!

 

[thegoat4]

...the dyno, which I promply managed to blow up (the dyno not the shaft) behind that 525hp Cat C15 lol. Its really something to to see the frame twist up under the load and hear the turbo at 30lbs of boost!

The later Acert C15 engines with the series turbochargers stop just shy of 60 pounds boost. It's pretty impressive to have one on a dyno when a turbo decides to grenade and blow shrapnel through the other turbo, which also grenades, then the two of them pump just about every last drop of oil out of the engine and onto the ceiling in ten or so seconds before anyone has the sense to shut it down.

At least it was the exhaust side that went.

 

[Ranger5.0]

awe, the fun of dyno'in a diesel...gas engines just arnt the same after workin on a real engine lol

 

[Bill]

I've taken several courses at a community college out of interest. Engines is probably going to be everyone's favourite. I took brakes/suspension. It was an ok class, but it really only covers how things SHOULD work in the real world. You learn the rest from real world experience. I took an auto electrical class. With the exception of the ignition system, which you should learn enough about in an engine class, the rest of the auto electronics class wasn't what I would consider quality education. I took a heavy-duty two-semester long electronics class (real electronics in the electronics department) at the same college, and I would suggest doing the same if you want to actually learn something about electronics, and you can apply that knowledge to an automotive electrical system.

 

[human5]

Haha im takin electrical AND brakes right now. PM me if you want some help or anything.

Thanks for the offer. One of the guys that's in my electrical class was in the Air Force doing something electrical. He's got tons of in depth books about electrical and is gonna bring in a copy of some of the important stuff for us. Also Electrical at my school is divided into 3 courses.

Brakes, after re-reading the last 2 chapters some of it's making sense. At points I just don't see any sense in reading about the cup seals and hydrolic pressure and what not. But I guess it's important to know so that you can make the brakes work correctly.

Thanks to everyone for thier imput on these 2 subjects.

 

[MAKG]

Bill, auto tech electrical teaching quality is VERY spotty. At the community college level, it's all over the map.

De Anza has an EXTREMELY nice two year series in electrical (at one class per quarter), but that's a bit far for you (it's in Cupertino). The first class in the series is on Ohm's Law and little else. It may be worth a trip there just to buy the course notes, from the very helpful tool lady. They go as far as the details of fuel management, cut every sensor and actuator in existence (including some very old VAF sensors) in half, teach a whole course on no-start diagnosis, and so on.

A real electronics class wouldn't hurt, but it may be overkill. Especially, transistor and op-amp circuits are hidden from view. Though op-amps are a VERY nice way to teach feedback. Digital electronics is becoming more important, but it's important to understand that the common automotive PWM signals are not common in traditional analog or digital circuits.

 

[Bill]

MAKG:

This was at Fresno City College way back in 1986. I'm sure auto electrical classes are completely different now. Back then it was very much basic electronics, and boring if you had a prior electronics background.