Are we "The last of the Mohicans ?"

Everytime the media says we are turning into a service industry country , I get sick to my stomach.

 

Hasn't this been "run up the flag pole" a few times, Times change,It happens.Technology is exactly what it is.Alot is for the better( Not all!lol).
Not having to change points in my car every 12,000 miles is a relief for me, i don't know about you & having clean hands to function in society everyday isn't too bad either.
Somehow i have a feeling that there was some dudes out there in 1964 bitchin about " Lazy ass, no knowledge,GTO owners are going to kill Hot rodding".( which it did) Imagine going into a dealership & buying a car that would turn in the 13's!!My god what was the world coming too.!!lol
JimV
PS seems odd to be complaining about being the "last of the Mohicans" on a computer!

 

We're doing exactly what the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Alexander's Empire all did...fall underneath our own weight. Military empires are just too expensive to hold up.

Every time you use a credit card to pay for gas, an ATM, an online vendor, voicemail, etc, you're killing a job someone used to use to get a bootstrap up from.

On the flip side, Cubans repair their cars daily...how are they doing lately?

 

Times change as do skill sets and interests. As far as cars go, ricers are more affordable and available.

 

A guy gets up in the morning, turns on his computer, orders 10,000 small but needed parts for the auto industry from across the ocean. They charge him one dollar for the part and one dollar to ship it here, 2 dollar per part invested. Turns around and sell's said part for ten dollars and will make 60,000 dollars in one week. Turns the computer off and eats breakfest, then spends the rest of the day in his turn key hotrod that he bought for his before breakfest time investment. It's a whole new world out there.

 

Fewer people work with their hands now, industry taken overseas has taken care of that. Cars are not built to last or be worked on at home, they are a throw away item. Look how Japan treats their cars. Less and less folks are aware or involved with mechanical work.
Give it another 20/30 years and our sort of cars will be trailer queens or static displays. The Eco twats will take care of that and probably do their best to cut down on motor sport events. Bang goes my theory of building a drag car to replace a road going car

I'm a glass is half full type of person but also a realist. When i look how the laws have changed over the years and what is very likely to be coming to the Uk as being part of the EU, it worries me. It also means that to a degree, as the title suggests , we are "The last of the Gearheads", no doudt about that.

Discussing this with my friends we agreed there was only one thing to do and it doesn't just apply to our cars.

Make the most of life now, whilst you able to do the things you enjoy. We've seen so many folks pass on recently, true pioneers of our lifestyles and hobbies. I've also lost close friends, some similar ages to me (45) so it does make you think.

Someone here came up with a really strong quote and since reading it one night its really changed my thinking. It went.......

"So who promised you tomorrow"

Every time i think about that quote it motivates me to get off my ass and get shit done.

Right then on that happy note i'm off to max out my bank account and spend the lot on loose women, booze, ink and fine dining. Fuck it , i may not be here tomorrow

 

i work in manufacturing and we are in a specialized market of products that doesn't allow, what we produce, to be shipped over to China for safety reasons. It's a scary world; this type of business. In the 90's we were producing checkers and little toy dinosaurs to go in cereal boxes. Then everything went overseas to China and we needed to find a new market to survive in. Granted; the majority of all manufacturing in this country has gone overseas.

I personally think the problem starts with the schools and at young ages. You are no longer considered "something" unless you've gone to college and strived to make a high paycheck for yourself. If you don't go to college; youre now considered a low life....bound to make nothing of yourself. People are no longer willing to work any job to survive. School is stressed as the utmost importance; education comes first....common sense comes last. Everyone is striving for the pencil pushing day jobs that pay 3x better than the jobs that society actually depends on (like our food supply or mechanics!). Whats even worse is the guys making the millions wouldnt be able to make it in this world without the people willing to work for pennies...just barely getting by. Every young person is expected to make something of themselves; make their family proud. For most people; becomming a mechanic, a farmer, a laborer, a blue collar worker, etc; it's not what they want for their children and theyre taught from a young age to expect people to be there to do those jobs for them. that way; there is no reason to learn any "un-needed" skills when there are people out there to do the job for you.

with that being said; my boyfriends grandmother WAS one of the older generation and she was quite disappointed when he chose to work with his hands as a mechanic instead of going to college.

The type of mentality of "you will go to college, you will have a large paycheck, you will have a fancy house"....started in the 50's and 60's; after the war. Times were good and parents wanted their kids to have the best of everything....the best opportunities. making food and fixing cars was not going to be an option for their children. College and a suit and tie job was in the cards

Im a bit out of the oridinary for my generation too. I came from a good family who made good money and were well-off. I lived in a nice house and I had the chance to induldge in great hobbies (which i am forever thankful for). My dad owns his own business; he wears dress clothes everyday. When he comes home from work...he works with his hands. all of the landscaping at their house was planted by him; he built his own stone walkways, built 2 barns with the help of my uncle, mows his own lawn, cleared 8 acres of woods for more pasture, maintains their property on his own,etc. he also did 2 full ground-up restorations on 2 vehicles...by himself. My dad is one hard worker despite his day job. Ive learned a lot from him and despite the money he makes and the lifestyle they are able to live; at the end of the day my dad busts his ass for all our family has and he takes pride in everything he has.

Most people who know me and have never been to my parent's property dont expect me to be raised the way I was. most friends ive met in my life get taken back when i bring them to my parents house...maybe because my personality and what i do everyday doesnt quite match up to the way they expected me to be because of the way i was raised. kind of disappointing actually, for me. I was never the type of dress-clothes wearing girl. I dont wear make up and I am who I am...a blue jeans an t-shirt kind of girl. I spend my days and nights in the barn at home when im not working. I dont drive luxury vehicles and prefer 4x4 but i take pride in what i drive and they are kept in very nice condition all of the time. My weekends are spent working on a dairy farm, prepping and showing cattle, moving hay, etc. I did go to college but not for what most wanted me to. I studied animal science and agriculture sciences. I graduated with both an associates and a bachelors and while my degree wont help me make millions...it provided me with great information, lifelong friends and memories, and the shot at a job in agriculture that I wont get rich off of, but a job i can take great pride in and love what i do.

technology has come so far and while it is good in many ways; technological advancements are replacing human workers...in every field of work. While the younger generation is disappointing you old timers; please know that many of us in the younger generation are disappointed by these idiots too . There are plenty of us who still work with our hands and enjoy getting dirty; despite what you may think

A friend went to a "car fire" call the other night and it was a nerdy looking guy and his girlfriend. turns out it wasnt a car fire when the fire fighters opened the hood; there was a piston lying there. They asked him if his car had been worked on recently. Guy says " actually....i checked my oil the other day and saw that the oil was to the "full" line and so i emptied it and figured i would check it again in a few weeks so i could empty it again"

.....words have been failing me since I heard this story. Society is sickening.

 

Farmergal, I know your parents are very proud of you not only for your accomplishments but also your outlook at life... You go girl

 

Yes things are not the same...they are not suppose to be. If things stayed the same none of us would have a car. We would still be moving around on clomp and stomp. The Keds express. Just ask the native Americans. They can tell ya all about change. If you are 60 the world is way different now than when you were born. If you are 25 things are way different than when you were born. the changes are happening faster too.
The absolute fact, if you take the time to study history is... things never stay the same.
Embrace the future. Find the good parts.(I am using one right now) Crawl, run, hang on, do whatever it takes to keep up. If you don't you will just be part of the past, just dinosaur bones in the sand. I want to part of the future....for as long as I can.

 

most of the guys i hang out with have a project. house, garage,car what ever! but they ALWAYS have a project! when i talk to other guys i get a strange fealing nothing in common

 

I'm 65 and see both examples in my granddaughters.
One is studying to be a DNA research doctor and the other one has taken metal fabrication and foundry in Jr. High. She wants a 67 Chevy Impala. Total opposites, same parents, it must be genetic.

 

This is 2012 ans that stuff only matter IF there world is still here after December. Part of me hopes not because it's really sad how pathetic kids are now days. I think it should be against the law for kids to use computers.

 

It's somewhat amazing that I just had to take three online classes on Critical thinking. Being just younger than Don (at 65 I have to be younger than at least one person) I grew up doing critical thinking but now we have to take classes on it.

It may not all be lost yet though. My 28 year old and youngest son works as a lead mechanic in a slaughter house (yep I know that isn't so wonderful) and constantly has to figure out how to solve problems with equipment and build and repair equipment. This is a kid who never welded in school or his teen age years and was taught the basics in a few afternoons of burning up a box of rods and turning my scrap pile into art forms. He now tig welds stainless daily along with running a crew of several men who perform the maintenance on a large plant. In the past 8 or so years he has gone from a kid who was handy with a wrench to a man who can build just about anything out of metal and can figure out and repair extremely complicated equipment.

I blame a lot of things to day on a leadership and educational system that preaches that working with your hands is somehow beneath the dignity of the average "American".

 

I dont have much hope for the future of the human race...however I dont think it's all doom and gloom. If you're afraid of skills becoming extinct, find a young kid and teach them. Complaining about it isn't going to help a damn bit. Especially complaining about kids on their computers, from a computer. Don't preach, teach.

 

When I joined a new local car club in 1988, I was about the youngest guy there. The club is still going strong, but I'm still about the youngest guy there. Maybe we are a dying breed.

A few of you mentioned how everything now is being built by robots. That got my attention, because about the only thing I do now that involves kids and tools, is mentoring a high school robotics team. I just love teaching teenagers to use a hacksaw and a file.

 

I agree.

I imagine in 1899 there were old timers sitting on the porch of an old country store complaining about those new contraptions called "Horseless Carriages" and how people won't be needing blacksmiths anymore. Or how kids now days ride these new contraptions "Bi-cycles" instead of horses.

 

Im young(23) and the internet and technology has given me the opportunity to do things I could have never done.

nobody in my area builds hotrods from scratch. Everyone(including my family) builds boyds or ratrods, so its hard to find someone to talk to that knows anything.

The internet along with all technology is a tool. Its how you use it.

 

I think everything will turn out all right!
don't forget a Computer is a Tool, learn how to use it
for your Benifit, just like the CB when it came out
everybody had to have one shit I had 3 off them
1 base & 1 in each car and you could pull it out
and put it in another Car
I am 77 & will be 78 this year

I have seen things change over the Years some Good
and some Bad but were still Here

My Motto in life is "live Learn and Die a Fool "

just my 3.5 cents!
and I still work on my cars & like Dons hot rods
I had my Speed Shop back in the Day & Raced & built my own
Race Car

 

Don,
I think by nature man is an inventor/tinkerer.

There will always be people that screw with stuff. Maybe not the same stuff that we screw with but stuff.

There is actually a kind of a movement to get back to the basics among the generations younger than ours. I seem to meet a lot of young folks that are trying to build houses and plant gardens and such. I don't think that you see it in the cities as much.

Look at the green movement, that is pretty much the way that our grand parents did things. My grandad always had a rain bucket or a cystren for the garden. No one had to teach us how to compost because we already knew. but that is a lot of what the "green movement" is going towards today.

The thing is that the younger or youngest generation has a different take on it. Some of them seem to go about things in a way that I would not for damned sure. For example look at the way the fellas form sheet metal any more, none of us had an english wheel or a pull max or even knew what one was. We knew how to beat panels and forge steel and modify bits that were shaped about right. No one owned a TIG welder or a plasma cutter, but we had a torch and a stick welder or knew where to borrow one. Hell I had a forge when I was in highschool, it wasn;t very big or modern but I had one. I got it when an old blacksmith shop went out of business. My little brother still had it when he died.

Things change but they are still the same, just different.

I do believe that eventually someone will get enough legislation through to outlaw out old relics from the road. I don't know that it will be in my lifetime but even if it is I can probably figure out a way around it.

 

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Telling someone to use the search function on here (which doesn't really work good at all) rather than explaining how to do something once more is a real tough thing for some people to do on here. One Old School HAMBER told a newer member to search for "project" or "build" if the user wanted to see more people's builds. I tried that, it didn't work for shit. Meaning that OS Hamber doesn't actually use the search function either!

Teachers repeat themselves NON STOP.

The HAMB does not cater to younger people AT ALL and many of the "Old School HAMBERS" don't seem to really want to either. They expect youth to do all the research and learning BEFORE they come to this forum. Where does that leave us (youth)? We have to go to ratrodsrule, killbillet, etc. for information without getting our nuts twisted for asking a stupid question.

People are very quick to point out OT things on this site. Very rarely offering options. Instead, they offer opinions and drive a lot of people away.

If you're really worried about youth learning more, help them. Otherwise you're just stroking your ego saying that it's dieing.

 

I'm not too young anymore, but I still am younger than the average Hamber I guess at 34. I have always liked doing things with my hands and never could afford to pay anyone for anything. I built my '46 Studebaker truck with the help of my Dad in high school. 19 years later it's still going strong. I built a six pack of AMC cars in college on a non existant budget and junk yard parts. When I wanted a Model A truck, but couldn't afford to buy a whole body a scratch built 85% of my truck with hand tools in the kitchen of the dump I used to rent. 15000 miles later and I drove it to work today. I am helping my buddy build a '65 Pontiac wagon. The frame was rusted so we built a jig and fixed it. He put the body on last week and will have the car done this summer. Just get out there and do something.

I bought a house 4 years ago. Since then I added on to my garage twice, by myself. I had to figure out how to build gabrel trusses in place because I couldn't get them up by myself. I figured out how to strip a roof and install metal roofing by with the help of one buddy. I didn't like the romex wiring so I got a bender and scrap conduit from work and proceded to run EMT circuits in the whole garage off a new 200 amp panel. I needed to add new garage doors when I put my addition on. I never installed them before, but did it anyway and they work fine torsion springs and all. Don't be afraid to do something on your own. I never did concrete work before, but watched contractors do it at work so I hired a buddy with a float to help me and we poured 4 yards worth of sidewalk and stoop. Came out great and hasn't cracked.

Kids today just need to get out there and do stuff. Sure there will be the useless ones that can't do anything just like their parents. Hopefully they will have some kind of desk job that can pay the handy ones to do their work for them.

I'd rather talk in person or on the phone than text. I don't have cable or DVR, but loved my 3 PBS channels that I get with the digital over the air antenna.

I go to cruises 2-3 times a week and hang with the older folks. I like their stories and experiences. I'd say my average car friend is 66 years old. In another 10 years I'm going to be by myself and I think most of the cruising will be gone. I know I'm not going to stand around and look at a bunch of '05 Hondas. I think that will be the true last of the Mohicans, when all the guys 55-75 are gone in 10-20 years. Unless something big happens that's when I predict the serious crash in the hobby. Better sell all your stuff at Hershey now while you have the chance!

 

So did someone crap in your cornflakes today or what? The search function works just fine and I do believe that the "young" people get catered to well enough. Hell I stopped coddling my own kid when she went off to kiddy garter.

Teachers get paid to repeat themselves over and over. A good teacher will suggest study material. In our case that happens to be the thousands if bits of bandwidth that are already here.

That said even when someone is in the midst of calling one or the other of us a hater nine out of ten times a thorough reading of the thread will net the answer in 3 part harmony. Maybe there is a little nut twisting, it is just words. Try serving a good old fashioned apprentiship in a real good old fashioned garage.

 

I took a 3 year project in the first terror cruise last Sunday. When I got home the fender mounts had broken and the rear main put a puddle on the driveway. The kids
were aghast when I claimed success. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

LMFAO
Thanks for bringing my mood back up.

I remember the first time the grandaughter and I fired the Willys after its 29 year nap. It was about 15 degrees out, and when it fired I was grinning from ear to ear. She managed a smile and said, "But grandpa the carburator is leaking." Then it occured to her that the carb was simple and that old bitch was churning. She dialed up her dad on the phone and shouted, "listen to this" and held her phone out.

Good times.

 

Nobody shit in my cereal, but I speak the truth!

Most of the youth on here have friends and parents that are already in the 'scene'. That's not true for a lot of us. (youth not only in age but also in fabrication/build skills).

If you think the search function works fine, you don't use it enough. Maybe if there were an indexing set-up it would be better, but it's takes a lot of time to find anything using the search on here (compared to other forums I'm on). Google actually works better.

I have been apprenticing with a bicycle frame builder for about a year when time permits. Plenty of boring work before I get to do just one fun, little thing.

 

So, in this big bell curve we as seniors are falling over and dissappearing from.........I wonder what happens to all our cars once we are done with them?

Does the crusher finally get them?

I guess a few museums will be interested in the rare "one" offs and specialty cars but what about all the rest?

Anybody got an idea?

 

I tend to agree with Beau. Some people on this site are very quick to jump on those who do not "know". When I joined back a long time ago, I did so without refering to my age, experience, habits, etc. What happened? POUNCED on by the "OLD FARTS" on here that "KNOW ALL". After thos same OLD FARTS realized that I too was an Old Fart and knew a thing or two, all was OK.

I for one am willing to teach any youngster all I know If he is willing to learn. The problem is, there are few of them out there.

 

i knew this thread was going to take a down turn at one point or another. this thread has nothing to do with people on the HAMB jumping on others because "they do not know." Just an FYI

 

The best way to empty is is to use a hammer and nail to poke an overflow hole in the crankcase...

I worked with a woman who had gotten a divorce from her husband... Part of the divorce was that the soon to be ex-husband had to buy her a new car to haul their 3 kids around in. She chose a Chrysler minivan... So one day she came to work in a taxi... I thought it was strange that somebody with a 3 year old minivan needed to take a taxi to her $7/hr job. Turns out, she didn't know that oil needed to be checked OR changed, and she blew up the engine... Since could could not provide any maintenance records, no warranty. All she did was put gas in it for 3 years.

 

Mechanics and rodders in general have always been alittle rough around the edges. Example, when I was about 6 or 7 years old I saw Mr Roth (whom I dearly loved) knock a young guy on his ass in the parking lot of the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The next year at the same show I saw him eating a hot dog with the same young guy, he had taken him under his wing.

I use the search function all the time, as a matter of fact I have even used it recently when I suggested that a newer fella use it and went back and posted several links to the information he was after as well as a link to the search that came up with about 60 pages of information along the same lines. Now you have to remember I am older and did not grow up in the electronic age. If I can do it anyone can.

Sometimes we are not a patient bunch, it goes with the territory, we learned from a bunch that was not a patient bunch.

There is a reason that we direct people to culture sites and Rat Rod sites or even street rod sites when they ask questions. They are asking culture, rat rod or street rod questions. It could be that when we do offer more traditional solutions to their questions we hear things like we are haters, or that is not what they asked or they didn't ask your opinion. Face it for all intents and purposes this is a traditional rod and custom site. I has been that way since its inception, it is the desire of the author of the site that it be a traditional rod and custom site. When someone askes a question on how do build something that is not remotely traditional we have no real reason or right to answer said question. There are sites better suited for some of the questions asked.