I Survived Electrical Class!

Our instructor Bobby Griffin is heating up some bolts that don't want to come off of a Ford Escape exhaust. We're dealing with this so that we can more easily get to the turbo on the back of the engine. PRO TIP: when a heated up bolt drops to the floor, DO NOT PICK IT UP. (It's going to be a little bit hot!)

Back in January I enrolled at York Technical College to study Automotive Technology. Since then I've learned a lot in classes like Brakes, Air Conditioning, Engine, Emissions, Ignition, and Fuel Systems. But then this semester consisted of 3 classes on Electrical Fundamentals, and Active Devices and Sensors. Talk about a subject I knew nothing about, electricity would be it!

One part of electrical training is the ATECH room, where we have actual car components like this power seat board. All the parts, motors, switches, and relays work, plus the instructor can introduce different faults to the system before the students have to diagnose what's wrong, using the handy Digital Multi Meter (DMM.) For these classes we have Snap-On DMMs to use, and we got certified in using them from Snap-On too. 

I learned a lot, passed all three courses, and after a break for the holidays will go back for Automatic Transmission and Automotive Diagnosis. After that semester, I'll still have to take Manual Transmission class and a few more, but I'm pretty sure the electrical classes were the toughest! If you're keeping score at home, I just barely managed to keep my straight-A streak going with these electrical classes. How close was "barely?" Well, apparently if your grade is 89.65, it rounds UP to a 90, and 90 is an A. You can look up the word "barely" in the dictionary and this is one of the examples!

Besides classroom learning, homework, tracing wire diagrams, doing math to calculate Volts, Amps, and Ohms, we spent some time working on cars too! This is a couple of oil changes in progress, with a Toyota Corolla up close and a Chevy Volt in the background. My oil changing group was the one that did NOT drop their oil pan bolt into the oil receptacle!

In the Active Devices and Sensors class we learned about airbags. In this photo we've blown up aa side curtain airbag in the shop. These were defective units that were donated from a local dealer. Airbags have to be set off before they can be disposed. We learned that front seat air bags quickly deflate so that you can get out of the way, but the bigger curtain airbags remain inflated, to protect you from any secondary side impacts. PRO TIP: When you set off an air bag in a big shop, it's LOUD!

Not strictly an electrical thing, but we assisted in replacing a turbo on a 2016 Ford Escape. 
A group from the morning class did most of the work, and my group in the afternoon class also did some of this job. Worth noting here, my group was NOT the group that installed the turbo and forgot the gasket, but we caught it and corrected the other guys mistake!