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My nephew asked me what a timing light was for and I felt old
He's in trade school and they were doing a computer module on ignition timing. I pulled my old Sunpro light out of the bottom drawer, the one with the inductive pickup. He looked at it like it was a museum piece. He said, 'We just hook up the scan tool and the screen shows the graph.' I told him you used to have to read the marks on the damper and adjust the distributor by hand. The whole thing got me thinking about how much of the feel is gone from basic tune ups. You used to listen for pinging and watch the advance with your own eyes. Now it's all data streams and pending codes. For the guys who came up after OBD2, do you ever feel like you're missing a piece of the puzzle?
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felix_hayes645d ago
I read a piece about how that hands-on feel taught you to listen to the engine.
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carter.gavin5d ago
My grandpa could fix his tractor just by the sound it made.
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brian3283d ago
Remember my uncle's old truck, the one that backfired like a gunshot every time he shifted. He'd just grin and say "she's talkin' to me" and give the carburetor a tap with a wrench. It ran for another ten years on that kind of listening.
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