hey guys im about to sign up for college to take basics and head down the long road of going to school to become a mechanical engineer any advice or tips im in the autobody field right now and i want to make a better future for my life.

 

Do me a favor. If you go this route, hone your mechanical skills. An engineer that cant build what they design should return their BS to the barn yard. What I use to do was correct their mistakes. Looks good on paper, but that don't work.

 

I agree 100%! Every Mechanical Engineer should HAVE to be a certified mechanic FIRST. Some of the **** that is designed, wow, wtf were they thinking!

 

I have to agree.

I have a buddy of mine that is a CAD designer and he would have to correct errors done by the engineers, some of them serious flaws ..... like a road with a banked curve with the bank going the wrong direction (to the outside of the curve, not to the inside where is was supposed to be).




Kris

 

You're doing exactly what I did. I wasn't a mechanic, but I loved turning wrenches on everything. Always tore my own motors down and always figured out how stuff worked that way. I realized I wasn't going to make enough money being an auto mechanic (at least not in this area) so off to college I went. I got my BS in Mechanical Engineering and I'm glad I went that way. If you have a good background wrenching on stuff chances are you'll have a good "real world" sense of how things are made/work so you should be a good applicant for mechanical engineering. Stay on top of your school work. You start falling behind in one class and you'll soon realize you need what you learned in that class for another class and it just compounds. If you don't get something, go to the learning centers or stay for tutoring until you do get it.

It's been my experience that grades don't really matter anymore, just go to class, assert yourself, try hard and you will pass. I haven't once been asked about my grades on any of the interviews I've been on and have had two different, really good jobs since I graduated in 2006, and been on numerous interviews. Obviously, good grades wont hurt though!

Where are you planning on going, or applying to? Try and do some extra curricular activities too. I'm not saying join the band, but find something related to your field. At my college we started up the baja SAE club again, and it was an AWESOME experience and really put what you learn in class to a real world application.

 

Or how do you get a gear on a shaft that has flanges on both ends?

 

A two-piece gear that bolts together?

The make clutch brakes that work that way; you can replace them without pulling the transmission.

 

Unfortunately, the gear sat against a seal in a vacuum chamber. The solution was to split the shaft, then and spline and socket it. The gear was then interference fit onto the shaft with a crushed aluminum seal between the gear and shaft. Took us 3 tries to get the gear within .005" in place on the shaft with it in the bulkhead.