I certainly agree rebuilding and machining are two different animals. And I don't think as a regular auto tech you would be doing much of either. But you don't think understanding the process allows one to better understand everything else?
I think by knowing a bit more you gain a better understanding of how everything works and is supposed to fit together. Plus when you get something back from a Machine shop you would know how to double check critical measurements and make sure the part is correct before installing it (and avoiding the customer having to bring the car back later if it wasn't).
We rebuilt a number of cylinder heads in our class, actually spent a lot of time learning all the different critical measurements and how properly machine guides, valves and seats. When I bought my new Brodix heads, and another student got some new Dart heads, we measured both heads and were really surprised just how bad these brand new heads were.
One of the most nail biting things I have done so far in my project was put my brand new Brodix heads on the cylinder head machine and cut the seats and redo the guides and valves. The run out was horrible (up to 0.009" when you want under 0.001") on the valve seat. The Dart heads were no different. I guess that is why they charge so much for "race prep" jobbers. But if we didn't know what to check, we would have just ended up slapping them on, not even knowing how poor the tolerances were.
I think it goes with any field you education should give you a solid base even if you might not use that knowledge on a daily basis. Also having given some exposure some people will move into that specialty after a few years in the field. A new auto tech is liable to only be doing the very simple repairs at first but would you only train them to do those few simple things? Or would a well rounded education be better so that one can quickly move on to more complicated repairs?
|