One cool thing about being a student at York Tech is the annual car show. This year's event was a pretty big deal, a big open house, with all the departments of the school having instructors available, games and activities going on, displays of school equipment, and plenty more. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the school, and while I haven't been a student for ALL those 60 years, I've been around! Other than the car show I stopped by the auto shop and talked to the instructors a little bit, because you can always learn from their experience.
CDL training at York Tech too! I'm sticking with the Cayman.
Let's take a look at the car show.
You can't have a car show without a Camaro!
You can't have a car show without a classic Mustang!
You can't have a car show without a classic Corvette!
Way back in 1957-1959, Ford built the hard top convertible Skyliner! The roof folded into the trunk like a lot of modern cars!
1977 Pinto Cruising Wagon, complete with graphics and port window. The basic Pinto lasted from 1970-1980, and 77 marked the first year of these options on the wagon. I'm thinking these stripes inspired the new 2025 Bronco with stripes all over it too.
There were 2 of these VW Karmann Ghias, you can have this color...
or a green one.
Nash Metropolitan. Here's something you don't see every day! The owner said he bought two of them and restored a lot of rusted parts.
A couple of FIAT 500 electric cars spotted at the dealer in Fort Mill.
Sometimes you have to go to a dealer for a real reason, and sometimes it's fun to go just for the heck of it. Let's put this pair of dealership visits under the just for the heck of it category.
Electric FIAT 500 lease only $199 a month. Italian electricity not required!
I knew that our closest FIAT dealership had some of the new FIAT 500 E electric models, so I headed up to Fort Mill SC to check them out. This is the place where I bought a 500 Abarth back in 2013, so it was kind of fun to go back. Also, it's just a small part of a big Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram etc, and now includes the Vietnamese built Vinfast cars too! While I didn't check out the Vinfast models, they had a couple of the electric FIATS on the lot, a good number of the Dodge Hornets, and a lot of Maseratis and Alfa Romeos too.
Dodge Hornet SUVs. They list from $30K-$50K plus.
Down here in Rock Hill, I was at our local Ford dealer for a Maverick recall, and took the time to walk around and see what was new there. One thing that still seems odd to me is that their indoor showroom doesn't have any cars, it's just more cubicles. I really don't know if they have that many sales people working, but it just seems odd to me. At a Honda recall not long ago, the Honda dealer had two or three new vehicles indoors, so I'm giving Honda a little gold star for that small achievement. Maybe someone at the Ford place lost the key to the doors for driving cars in, who knows?
A shiny new Ford Mustang GT. I'd say yes to this one.
I saw two Broncos with whatever this is. The stripes are also on the seats. To me it was a throwback to the 70s Pinto wagon or something like that with these colors. Pass.
Even a Ford SUV with the ST badging earns you a free track day! I believe they do this program at a track in Utah, so if you can get out there, have fun!
F150 Tremor I believe, but wait...
Extra LED lighting! For when you're doing serious off roading and looking for Sasquatch.
This coming Sunday the NMS-North squad will jump into Autocross competition again with the Porsche Club of America up at the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds. After competing at this location twice last year, driver Robert Nixon stated that "Well, at least I know how to get there now. We'll see how all our pre-season testing pays off once we get out there and push the loud pedal down!"
This reporter predicts that Nixon won't be very good at autocrossing if all he does is push the gas pedal down, because my sources tell me that autocross drivers also need to do some braking, turn the steering wheel sometimes, and try to avoid all the cones to complete the course in the quickest time. In fact, the autocross rule of thumb is to "make the car go faster," so how hard can that be?
You might remember that Nixon took the win in his class last year over the six events, so he hopes to repeat again in 2025. So far there are 40 drivers entered in this event, with four of them in Nixon's class. When asked how he adjusts to the competition, the NMS driver stated that "I can't control what those other drivers do or how fast they go, so my goal is to maximize my own performance. As long as I do that, I'll be happy." When questioned further though, he did admit that he aimed to "totally dominate" and "blow their doors in" in a "friendly and fun way." This guy sounds dangerous to me!
Somehow I got enrolled in medical school and started Advanced Diagnosis class. This should be good, since I don't know my pancreas from my intestines! Nah, it's still the automotive technician program at York Technical College in Rock Hill SC. After finishing Automatic Transmission class, this class is a big review of engine and other systems, and how the OBD II system monitors everything, and how we can use scan tools and other technology to diagnose car problems.
Oil change time. Like some other cars, this one does NOT have a dipstick, so you have to run the engine and read the oil level on the dash. If elected President, I will bring dipstick equality to all!
Along with learning material from our digital text book, we've been working in the shop a pretty good amount of the time, so here's a look at some of the projects my group has been doing. Our class has five different groups, and they're working on other cars and trucks too.
Here's one of our shops at school, five bays and four lifts. There are also two other shops of similar size.
Last Friday was a good day, as my group knocked out two jobs and started a third. First we did an alignment on a Chevrolet SUV using the school's computer alignment rack. This device almost does everything for you, because it shows you each wheel's status regarding toe, camber, and caster, and updates in real time as you wrench on it to make your adjustments. Heck, before that it even will show you what size wrenches you'll need for that model of car!
Today we replaced a fuel injector on a 2015 Hyundai. The fuse box is open because we took out the high pressure fuel pump fuse before running the engine briefly to get fuel out of the system, and then we disconnected the battery. PRO TIP: Electricity, sparks, and GASOLINE do not mix well.
The four largest openings towards the top of the diagram are the air intakes, with four smaller holes directly below them where the Gas Direct Injectors (GDI engine) go. Towards the bottom of the photo is the disconnected fuel rail with the four injectors sticking up, we replaced the one on the far right that is silvery new on the tip and not dark from use. The largest open tube sticking up below that is the dipstick tube. Yaay for dipsticks!
And then we put the fuel rail and injectors back in place. Still have to connect everything and put the air intakes on top of this.
Earlier the black plastic air intake section also got a new green gasket for this job. Easy to do on the table.
Very custom hot rod. The owner said the metallic blue is a GM color: Blue Me Away.
By "local" car show, I mean LOCAL. This annual car show is about a quarter mile from my house, and sponsored by a Baptist church. They attract a big crowd for this one, with mostly American cars and trucks. Since it was a Saturday and I had yard work to do, I didn't stay long, so here's some highlights. One fun part of this show is that they ask all the veterans to come up at the start, they play the National Anthem, and they have a lot of food and drinks too.
We all need a green car with wooden spoked wheels!
When you live in NASCAR country!
Army jeep. Been there, drove that (in basic training.)
We just kicked off our Fantasy League for F1, thanks to the official Formula 1 website, but it's such a long season there is still plenty of time for YOU to join too! THIS weekend is the 2nd race, and there's a lot of points up for grabs because in addition to the regular race on Sunday, there's the Sprint Race on Saturday too.
The first race was a real mix-up, with tons of rain, some dry running, different pit stop and tire changes as the track dried and then got wet again, so the scoring is hard to tell if this is how the rest of the season will go. The second race is coming up immediately in China, so we're well on our way to all 24 races that will end in December.
Each player can create up to 3 teams, so this is a great way to try some different strategies on how you build your team. You have to stay under your 100 million dollar budget (oh man that sounds like fun in real life!) One way to do this is what I did, with one team my real serious picks, one team with the cheapest drivers and best teams, and my final team with the cheapest teams and more expensive drivers. Hey, it doesn't cost anything to play, so I'll try to stick with this 3 way format and see how it goes.
