How Many Of You Have Been Forced To Become Amateur Mechanics? | Page 10 | GTAMotorcycle.com

How Many Of You Have Been Forced To Become Amateur Mechanics?

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bitzz said:
Sorry Peggy.
You picked the wrong example.
The guy didn't rebuild a starter, he rebuilt an armature out of a (IIRC) old GM starter... BADLY.
He skipped a bunch of steps and that armature won't last long.
He didn't flush the copper windings after he annealed them.
He didn't "physically" connect the copper windings to the commutator, he only soldered them
He didn't undercut the USED commutator after soldering it, he turned it on a lathe... which would smear the solder all over the place, which shorts the commutator, which you can test with a "growler"... that thing that he sets the armature in the thing that looks like a "V" block, that's a GROWLER... and it growled. It's not suppose to growl.
He just painted some dielectric (I hope it was dielectric) paint on the ends. You should SOAK them in heated dielectric paint, so it gets in everywhere.

BUT if you want, I can get you a nice Canadian guy to rebuild you an old GM armature. He'll do a better job AND offer a warranty... but it'll costya.
Or I can buy that armature NEW, with a warranty, from some asian factory for $45-65.

And if it IS Stevie Lewis we are talking about, sorry: Canadian trained.
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The Pakistani old man has done this for 20 years, and nobody is coming back to complain to him or to lynch him for badly built starters. They work! Your analogy is the same as when the city of Toronto didn't want to build wooden stairs for a community on a hill years back because they said it would cost $100,000. A local carpenter built it for $4,000 out of his own pocket. The city then claimed no inspector and engineer oversaw it, and they tore it down. They are full of it, the carpenter had worked on government and city projects before, so now he is no good?

You said that you can buy the armature for $65 from an Asian factory with warranty. Pakistanis folks don't have $65 when their wages are $4 a day. They rather pay this old man $7 dollars and get it rebuilt in his shop. If it breaks down 2 years down the road they will pay another $7.

Your expectation of the Pakistani shop owner in having all those fancy tools and being ISO 9001 approved is preposterous and unfair.
 
Pegassus said:
The Pakistani old man has done this for 20 years, and nobody is coming back to complain to him or to lynch him for badly built starters. They work! Your analogy is the same as when the city of Toronto didn't want to build wooden stairs for a community on a hill years back because they said it would cost $100,000. A local carpenter built it for $4,000 out of his own pocket. The city then claimed no inspector and engineer oversaw it, and they tore it down. They are full of it, the carpenter had worked on government and city projects before, so now he is no good?

You said that you can buy the armature for $65 from an Asian factory with warranty. Pakistanis folks don't have $65 when their wages are $4 a day. They rather pay this old man $7 dollars and get it rebuilt in his shop. If it breaks down 2 years down the road they will pay another $7.

Your expectation of the Pakistani shop owner in having all those fancy tools and being ISO 9001 approved is preposterous and unfair.
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He could have staked the copper in, he could have dipped in paint. Just because he has been doing it as he was taught doesnt mean the system couldnt be improved for little cost.

As for part swappers vs repair, in canada, labour is expensive and parts are cheap, it doesnt work. You would pay a lot more and have worse longevity. In other countries where labour is cheap and parts expensive/unobtainable, the situation flips. Windows in kenya are all small glass panes leaded together as parts are expensive and labour is cheap. If you could find someone to do that here, you would be paying an order of magnitude more for that leaky but cool looking window than you would pay for a conventional igp.
 
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Pegassus said:
The reason he is good is because he is old school and foreign trained. Here in North America a "mechanic" is usually a guy that swaps parts on a vehicle. In other countries mechanics not only take off the part but fix it or rebuild it right on the spot, and not using a 3rd party either.

Look at this video, a genuine mechanic rebuilding a 20-year-old truck starter;
Click to expand...

Guessing by the pile of armatures this guy has lying around, I'm gonna say he's a starter/alternator rebuilder and not a typical mechanic. We have shops in the GTA that do exactly this (well, not exactly this way), and I've used a couple of them. Besides, when your mechanic replaces your starter, do you think they just throw it out, or do you think they sell it to these guys as cores?
 
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