Empty ac system - suggestions

[Jsdirt]

Yeah black death is about as bad as it gets. Ends up easier to just trash everything and start over, which is pretty much what they did for you.

 

I still can't get over the costs of parts and labor these days. It's insanity. I'd better start investing in machine tools and start making my own parts!

[Doug_Scott]

Yeah black death is about as bad as it gets. Ends up easier to just trash everything and start over, which is pretty much what they did for you.

 

I still can't get over the costs of parts and labor these days. It's insanity. I'd better start investing in machine tools and start making my own parts!

 

When I started my apprenticeship back in late 70's, mechanics in general were earning about 33 1/3% of the door rate, and jobs were flat rate.(paid by book time, not real time). Apprentices got 50% of full mechanic's rate, that went up every year, and at the 5 year mark the apprentice would write for his license, and be at 100%. Door rate back then was $18/hr. First year apprentice got $3/hr straight time. After my first year I got the raise to 60% of mechanics rate, again straight time, but it moved me up to the next income tax bracket. I went to service manager after a month and asked him to take the raise back, I was taking home $2 week less due to the income tax increase.

 

Tools were not much cheaper then either. Snap-on dealer would always let you finance at 0% though. Only really bad part was both the Snap-on dealer and the coffee truck driver knew you were being let go well before you knew.

[Jsdirt]

Pay was damn good in those days. Much easier work for a newbie tech just starting out too. These days school is a must.

 

Yeah Snap-On is still big $$$. I bought $500 worth of tools from them at their student (MMI, Phoenix) discount of 50%, 15 years ago . Only got me about 6 tools ...

[Doug_Scott]

Pay was damn good in those days. Much easier work for a newbie tech just starting out too. These days school is a must.

 

Yeah Snap-On is still big $$$. I bought $500 worth of tools from them at their student (MMI, Phoenix) discount of 50%, 15 years ago . Only got me about 6 tools ...

 

Went to trade school three times during apprenticeship. 8 weeks in the second year, 8 weeks in the third year, and 8 weeks in the 4th year. If you did not have grade 12, apprenticeship was 9,000 hours. After I finished my second trade school session, my boss took me in his office and said that since the other apprentice (he was a year ahead of me) came back from trade school just as I left for it, started slacking off at work since he was not flat rate, taking three times longer than normal to complete jobs, all apprentices were being put on flat rate, and since that was not really fair, we would also be put on journeyman's wages. I came back and was put on transmissions because the old trans mechanic was retiring. After about 3 months of being on flat rate and getting full pay ($6.75/hr by then), I was booking between 48 to 55 hours a week. Was taking home about twice what I did before trade school. Chrysler make it good for me when they brought out the lock up convertors in 78. So many failures, so many hours pay.

[Jsdirt]

Leave it to Chrysler .. LOL.