A listener tries to stump the crew with a classic-car question—ignition timing on a “1955 Bel Air with a 327 and a four-barrel”—but it turns into a quick history lesson (and a reminder that the 327 came later). From there, the show shifts into the behind-the-scenes reality of doing radio: timing breaks, clean transitions, and why the “mechanical” part of hosting is harder than the talking.
Then it’s straight into real-world wrenching: why “routine” jobs so often become nightmares (hello, broken bolts), how to handle a dead-battery situation when the hood won’t open, and practical ways techs approach stuck latches
SPEAKER 15 :
Being an expert on general automotive knowledge, what would the correct ignition timing be on a 1955 Bel Air Chevrolet with a 327 cubic inch engine and a four-barrel carburetor?
SPEAKER 14 :
It is a trick question. Watch this. A Chevy didn’t make a 327 in 55. The 327 didn’t come out till 62. And it wasn’t offered in the Bel Air with a four-barrel carb till 64. However, in 1964, the correct ignition timing would be four degrees before top dead center.
SPEAKER 17 :
Get ready for another hour of Drive Radio, brought to you by Colorado Select Auto Care Centers. Got a question for the experts? Then give them a call, 303-477-5600. Now it’s time to pop the hood and get our hands dirty. Drive Radio on KLZ 560 The Source.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, hour number two. Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Myself, Steve Horvath. Geno’s Auto Service with us. Larry Ingram, of course, answering phones. Charlie Grimes, your engineer. Lines are open. 303-477-5600. Text line 307-282-22. A couple of text messages that came in. Charlie, I appreciate this first one. It says, does John have a timer clock? in front of him to know when to take a break, or does his producer wave and flail their arms at him? No, Charlie rarely, if ever, has to wave at me. Unfortunately, this is probably a negative, not a positive, for folks that know me very well, my good friends and my spouse and kids and so on, they all know this, I live and die by the clock. So… Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes that’s a bad thing. But no, I have several different clocks around me to the second where I know where I, you know, in our case, in all of my shows, I only have the top of the hour hard break that I have to be out for at a particular time. The rest of them, I gauge myself and do what I need to do accordingly. Yeah, like Charlie said, they’re atomic clocks, all synchronized, and my computer actually is the same, and it’s synchronized exactly the same as the clocks here in the studio. So I double-check all those just to make sure when we come on air everything is synced up and going. And, yeah, so in my case, no, I’ve done this maybe unfortunately long enough that I know when to take a break and how long they are and when we’re coming back and then at the top of the hour what I need to do to make sure we’re out on time and everything. And for those of you listening, those are the mechanics of the show that a lot of people think, hey, I could host a program. Talking is easy. I’ll be the first one to say that. The talking part is easy. It’s the mechanical part of the show and doing the things I just mentioned and making sure you’re coming in and out of breaks okay and that you’re doing that properly and that all of it is smooth and done professionally and so on. That’s where, honestly, it gets difficult even when I have folks that come in and guest host for me. That’s the hardest part of doing this job is that process. that transitions, we call them, getting the transitions done are always the hardest. So just a little housekeeping for somebody asking. And I appreciate those questions, by the way. Thank you very much. All right, one other one that came in. This is for Steve and I both. Have the car repair folks ever had a routine 20-minute job turn into an hour-long repair or project? Let’s say it this way. Has a 20-minute project ever turned into a day-long project? More often than not, unfortunately.
SPEAKER 06 :
Unfortunately, it happens. I don’t want to say it’s all the time.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, but it happens.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it still does to this day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, for whoever sent that in, we are not perfect. We do not have crystal balls. We cannot see little routine projects turning into that, or we would probably address that differently when that happens. But we have all, all of us, anybody that’s been in the industry at any length of time, has always had a situation whereby you think something’s going to be a really easy, quick fix, and all of a sudden it turns into some sort of a nightmare and you’re going to be there now for the duration.
SPEAKER 06 :
Most of the time it’s a broken bolt or something, but we learned from each one, I’d have to say.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yep. Somebody said, answer question of the day. Both the main vehicles on the Rockford files, 82 Firebird Esprit, And an 80K10 short box with a push bar on the front and a rally bar, in other words, a roll bar behind the cab with all of the KC lights. And for those of you that don’t know how the roll bars work, because I sold those for years, the way those work is there’s either a single tube, there’s a double single, there’s a double double, there’s a triple double, there’s a triple triple. So back in the day when you sold roll bars to people, they were called show bars. We had to be really careful on insurance and never put on the invoice roll bar. Okay. They always had to say show bar, even if they were a solid one piece, which a lot of times Smittybilt and some of those companies made one. If they weren’t chrome, they were made in one piece and you could put those in. And even then, they were not, quote unquote, a roll bar. They were a show bar because you had to make sure you were good with the insurance sides of things. All of the chrome ones. were a piece together they had these crappy stupid aluminum junk rivets that you put the bars and everything together you try to get everything positioned and no nothing ever fit right because they were all junk i’m sorry to say but they were all crap there wasn’t a good one made and you’d then get everything all lined up best you could and you’d take these stupid aluminum rivets with a pin on top and you’d take a soft hammer and pound that in to get the bar then to stay together and i’ll just tell you straight up folks when those came in for sale i hated them they were garbage everybody wanted 15 gazillion lights on top you had to wire all that junk in and back before they made really good solid relays you’re doing your best to try to relay all that in because you couldn’t wire them up straight because they’d fry everything if you did because those KC highlights back in the day drew so much power that you couldn’t get those to stay on without a relay. Dick Sepec finally came along and came up with a really decent relay system long before anybody else came up with anything because otherwise you couldn’t get the lights to even stay on. And most of those back in the day were done in such a junk way. that anytime i saw one of those trucks driving by it was just like okay yeah there’s another gobbled up you know piece of junk truck when it’s all said and done because those roll bars were just absolutely a joke so man you’re bringing up some really bad memories now for me on that one because those things were absolutely junk and i and i’m sorry to say that and try to be as nice as i can but they were garbage gene and wellington go ahead thank you
SPEAKER 10 :
I love your program. I listen to it every weekend. But I’ve had many, many cars I’ve loved, I wish I had from the past. You can buy them back in the 70s, 80s. You can buy them for, you know, a 69 Supersport. You needed a motor, but you can buy it for $1,500 back then. And it’s stuff you wish you could have had today. Right. I finally landed, for years, my most favorite thing I’ve always wanted was a Corvette. Oh, yeah. I had an uncle that had three Corvettes, and I finally landed one about two years ago, a 67 Corvette. Okay. And it has a small block stroker in it, roller cam, roller everything. Yeah. Here’s the irony of it. I’m afraid to drive the thing, and somebody’s going to hit it. And that’s kind of crazy. You finally get something you want, and you’re worried about somebody’s going to damage it for you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah. Yeah, and here’s something else most people don’t know, Gene, and to your point, you’ll understand this because you own a vehicle like this. This is something that anybody that owns a fancy car, exotic car, something along those lines. People drive… where they’re looking. So when you’re driving these vehicles, you have to be extremely defensive because everybody’s trying to drive into you because as they’re looking at you, that’s exactly where the steering wheel’s going. And you have to be really careful driving those cars, Gene, because what I just said happens.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, yeah, I love the thing, but it’s, I keep it, I fire it up and keep the oil running. I go around the neighborhood and find parts of the streets in the neighborhood where I can get bumps where I can keep the shocks moving. I’m literally afraid to drive the thing through the gas station.
SPEAKER 05 :
Very nice.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s kind of ironic that you finally get your dream vehicle and you’re afraid to drive it.
SPEAKER 05 :
I hear you. Good one, Gene. Good example. Best of luck to you, man. That’s a good story. Thanks, Gene. I appreciate it very much. Jerry, you’re next. Go ahead, Jerry. Morning, gentlemen. Good morning, Jared.
SPEAKER 02 :
I was trying to help a neighbor recently. Her battery was dead on her 2019 Subaru Outback. And so I got my jump box, but I wasn’t able to help her because we couldn’t get the hood open. And I believe maybe the release cable was stretched or broken. But I tried everything I could think of, trying to jostle the hood right around the latch and just didn’t have any luck. And so I had to give up and go to work. And she got a tow truck driver out who, I don’t know, somehow he got it out of her garage and sent it off to the dealer. I never heard the final results. But what do you do in a case like that?
SPEAKER 05 :
As a technician, what most technicians will do is we’ve got tools, you know, long hook-type devices and so on to where you get up underneath there the best you can. And sometimes it’s really difficult because it’s really hidden, and you do your best to try to grab something and get that hood latch open. And once you kind of get it released, then you try to figure out, okay, is this thing stretched? Is it out of adjustment? Is something broken? Did the cable break? You name it. But, yeah, Jerry – Again, one of those things that, you know, sort of back to the last text or a minute ago, you know, when does a simple thing turn into a long project? You just explained one. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Check my oil and then next thing you know.
SPEAKER 05 :
Been there, done that.
SPEAKER 06 :
And most of the time you can get to it from underneath. Usually. There’s a bar or something you can use to get in there. It also helps to have an idea of what it looks like. you know, the actual part that you have. So if you can look online and say, okay, it’s shaped like this.
SPEAKER 05 :
The other trick to that sometimes too, Jerry, just in the future for you is if you’ve got two people, it’s always hard to do this with one person because nobody has long enough arms. But if somebody can be pulling on the latch while somebody is out there kind of tapping on the hood, hitting the hood a little bit, sometimes it’s just enough to get that latch to release enough to where then the hood will pop open. If that cable is stretched so much, sometimes just wrapping on the hood a little bit will get that to pop open. Or pushing down or pulling. That’s right. Doing something to try to help that mechanism.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. Yeah, and we tried that and it didn’t work and it was kind of, it was tight quarters in the garage. Yeah, that didn’t help either. Yeah, I thought about trying to remove the shielding underneath, and then like you were saying, reach up, but it wasn’t feasible.
SPEAKER 05 :
So what did they end up having to do to fix it, or did you hear, or do you know?
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t know yet. But yeah, somehow it was gotten out of the garage and towed to the dealer. So yeah, I’ll check with her and see what the final disposition was. But I just wondered, you know, I’m sure it’s different from vehicle to vehicle. But, I mean, does it ever get to the point where you have to cut a hole in the hood and get a new hood?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I’ve never in my life had to do anything like that. You can typically, again, to Steve’s point, there’s usually access underneath. In that case, taking shields and things off to where you can normally get, you know, again, we’ve got long hook devices. And sometimes it’s even a, I’m not joking, sometimes just a coat hanger is all you need to really reach up in there and try to get some protection. extra length on you know because your arms aren’t long enough to do that but you know jerry in all the years of doing car repair i’ve never had to cut a hole in the hood to get it out and sometimes through the grill i but that was on the older cars that’s older on most of these you go you just go underneath yeah but it’s pretty rare we go through the grill right but
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Well, I appreciate the information. You’re very welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Nope, nope, don’t feel bad. Jerry, we’ve all, again, goes back to that question I had on the text line a moment ago, can a little 20-minute project turn into an all-day ordeal? Oh, yeah, more often than not. John at Centennial, hang tight. We’ll come right back to you. We’ve got a couple of lines open, 303-477-5600, Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Attention Fort Collins drivers.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
I have a question that came in a moment ago that I will answer after we do John here from Centennial on how to properly adjust trailer brakes. Great question, by the way. I will get into that here in just one moment. John and Centennial, though, you are next.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hey, good show, guys.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER 11 :
I always read these different websites like Autopeon and Jalopnik. And what I just read recently on Autopeon is that First Brands, which I think, aren’t they the parent company of Napa?
SPEAKER 06 :
No.
SPEAKER 11 :
They said that they filed for bankruptcy at the end of the year, and there was a problem with getting brake rotors.
SPEAKER 05 :
Have you heard anything about that? First Brands is not Napa. Okay. I’d have to look up. There’s a bunch of little stuff. Keep talking, and I’ll look it up really quick.
SPEAKER 06 :
Go ahead, Steve. Yeah, they own a bunch of stuff. I’m trying to say like Autolite or something like that. Some of those different kind of manufacturers.
SPEAKER 05 :
Trico, Fram, Raybestos, and Autolite. Those are their four main product lines. Oh, okay. Okay. So, no. Now, Autolite, NAPA doesn’t sell much FRAM. Trico, not even much. Even not much Ray Best. Autolite spark plugs, of course, NAPA would sell, and they would be a supplier to them. But, yeah, NAPA’s not having anything to do with that at all.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, so you haven’t heard anything about Napa having any problems getting brake rotors in or anything like that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, no, no, no. We do it daily. No, I have everything.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, John, with every line, every product line that everybody would sell, from Napa to every other parts house that’s out there, parts supplier that’s out there, can they have… Supply issues at times with certain parts throughout the year, they all can have that. But the key with NAPA is they have lots of vendors. So if they’ve got one particular line that might be struggling, you can just switch over to a different line and off you go. So rarely is that a problem on our side as repair shops.
SPEAKER 06 :
And that COVID taught them a lot. They actually changed how they do things. Instead of buying so much from one vendor, they spread it out a little bit more so if something happens to that vendor, they can – backfill with somebody else. That’s right.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, my favorite car that I had a crush on when I was young, growing up, was the 62 Corvette.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
I liked headlights on those before they went to hideaway headlights, and then I liked the rear end on those because those were the first ones that had the dual taillights that were incorporated in.
SPEAKER 06 :
Any of that 60s stuff on the Corvette was a pretty good decade for them. They looked really good.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes. Good show, guys. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you very much. No, I appreciate it. Now, anybody that knows me from the past would know this answer anyways. Somebody asked as far as the question that came in. So when something simple turns into a whole project, do you all ever lose your temper or get – Mad, even just for a little bit. And this was to my detriment, and I’ll be the first to admit this, and even folks that knew me way back in the day when I was a younger man, yeah, I had a short fuse, a very short fuse. And things like that would definitely upset me, not to where I threw things or threw wrenches or never did anything along those lines, but did those things upset me? Oh, absolutely they did. Again, I had a very short fuse. I think it’s become… And over time with, you know, the Lord’s intervention and time and maturity, have I overcome a lot of that to where I just don’t get as upset about those things as I once did? Yes. And, you know, life teaches you all sorts of things. And I’m a much more—I’m not a super patient man anyways. You all know that just from listening to me here. But I am much more patient in that regard than— I was when I was much younger. And anybody that knew me back in the day when I was younger could attest to my short fuse. And I owe a lot of people apologies for having short fuses over the years because I probably said things and did things that I shouldn’t have done out of really just being dumb and immature and having a short fuse, which there’s no excuse for because that’s never a good thing to have. But yeah, I’ll be the first to admit that I had times like that to where those things would become very, very upsetting. And today… oh i think i just chalk it up more to just okay it’s it is what it is now i will say this i think i’ve gotten a little wiser and trying to even look at things and say okay is is this gonna go as quickly as i think and i take maybe sometimes even like five minutes or ten minutes and look at something a lot more closely and say okay is this gonna be a quick easy thing like i think Or am I going to be into something that I’m going to need all day for? And if I need all day for it, fine, I can just set that time aside. But if I don’t have all day now, maybe now is not the best time to start said project. So I get it. Some things come up at times where you’re knee deep and you don’t have any choice and it just sort of evolves into something larger and you just deal with it as it comes. But I’ve gotten a lot wiser and I do my best to try to determine on the front side how quickly is this going to go or not quickly is this going to go and then adjust accordingly, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
Uh, preparation. I think we’ve gotten better at that kind of thing. I had, I had a similar, I probably still have a similar, it goes pretty quick. And, uh, but I did not have people, but at a cars, you know, it’s a car. It’s not such a situation with piece of junk. You say something along those lines. I mean, yeah, I talked to the car. Have I spat on a few cars? Yes. Yeah. That was a good way of getting it out of me a little bit.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ve had cars back in the day for just side note for those of you asking when these things happen. I’ve had cars back in the day where literally you’d work on something until you were just bone tired. It’s 6.30, 7.30 even o’clock at night and you stayed late and you’re just like, okay, I’m done. And you go home, you come back the next morning, and lo and behold, after sleeping on it and even thinking about it a little bit, the next morning, guess what? You come in and everything zips together, and you should have just gone home the night before and not worried about it. It’s tenacity that we have. You know, we don’t want to give up. It was good and bad. My whole attitude was and is, a man built this, a man can fix it, and I’m going to be that man to fix it. Now, sometimes that man, myself, needs to sleep on it and Come back at it from a different angle to get a better job on it and probably do it faster than I was originally. And sometimes it takes that just stepping away from things for a little bit to get your mind in a better place. Because a lot of repairs, and this is for a lot of you listening that are plumbers, electricians, carpenters, technicians, and so on. Sometimes stepping away from things and coming back at it with a different perspective is what it takes to get that thing solved, get that problem solved.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think that’s why we like working, you know, not too many solo mechanics. Sometimes when you called that other guy over and kind of looked at him and went, why are you doing it this way, dummy? Right. Don’t do that. And sometimes somebody who is a mentor to you.
SPEAKER 05 :
And back when I was doing things and I was the only guy in the shop, you did have that. Yeah. You’d sometimes call somebody that wouldn’t. You didn’t have YouTube, by the way, back then. So you’d call a friend that maybe would come over and take a peek at it. And that’s how you became good friends in the auto world was by doing some of those things. Now you’ve got other sources and you don’t have to do that. And there’s not too many one-man bands left automotive-wise, even liability-wise. You need to have somebody else around when you’re working on things just in case something happens. You’ve got somebody there to help you. Yeah, and I have met a few owners that are just one-man bands. It’s hard. Been there, done that. I started that way, so for those of you listening, oh, yeah, started that way and know exactly what that’s like. And, yeah, those were fun times and not-so-fun times. All right, we’ll take a break. We’ll come right back. Lines are open, 303-477-5600. I will talk about, as soon as we come back, how to adjust trailer brakes. I’ll do that as soon as I’m back. Don’t go anywhere. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, we are back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for tuning in. We appreciate it. Okay, how to properly adjust trailer brakes. And yeah, I mean, is it the time of the year that people are getting their trailers and such out? Some of you use trailers all of the time. You know, we as a company, ours, you know, ours are going out constantly. We’ve got, you know, trucks and trailers out daily, even this time of the year. So yeah, it’s something that some use all the time. Some will do that seasonally, and that’ll, you know, kick up into gear here in, you know, about April or so. So Not as far away as we think, by the way. But how do you properly adjust trailer brakes? Now, here’s the caveat to this. They need to be adjusted depending upon its load. Okay, now before somebody sends me a text message, I get it. Some of the newer trucks are so sophisticated, they even know by the weight of the back end as to what the weight of the trailer is doing and so on, and they can even do some adjustment smartly. Maybe that’s the best way to say it. But for most people, you do have to do some manual adjusting when it comes to trailer brakes. So here’s how I do it. And everybody can do it their own way, but here’s how I do it. When I first get into the vehicle and trailer’s hooked up, and in my case, because I tow so many different types of trailers at times, and the truck may have been set to the last trailer versus this trailer, and I get it. In some vehicles, they’re smart enough to you can even program in, this is the trailer that I have now, and here’s your presets and so on. In most cases, though, you guys are doing this manually. So what I do is if the trailer is empty, it’s going to need one setting versus if the trailer is full. So if you’re going to pick up a load, let’s say, and the trailer is empty, what I do is I let the truck roll forward on its own while manually applying the brake. And if I can’t feel that trailer tugging at me, it doesn’t have enough gain, quote-unquote. So then you up the gain to where I can now feel the trailer tugging at me. I don’t want it so tight that the trailer brakes are locking up on an empty trailer because now they’re going to skid and mess up tires and so on, and I don’t want that. But I do want some resistance with me just coasting forward. I want to be able to feel that trailer tugging at me. Now, when I get a full load… same thing applies remember now with a full load you’ll need more gain to have that same tugging that you had with an empty trailer so as you start loading it up and for some of you you kind of start realizing that okay i need you know i need six for this load and i need eight when i’m fully loaded or i need four for a light trailer, and I need six when it’s fully loaded. You kind of start learning with the different trailers you may have where that gain needs to be, and now it becomes pretty simple. And this is including even some of the old trailer brakes that don’t have quite the knowledge, the smartness, I should say, that the new ones have. But all of the vehicles that have the controllers built in, They’re really easy. In fact, in that case, even if it’s not something you can preprogram in, just keep a little notebook and a log where you know, okay, if I’m hauling, you know, this dump trailer and it’s empty, I need this gain empty and I need this gain when it’s full. Or I’m putting my RV behind it and when I’m, you know, light and we’re, you know, we’re on our way up. Sorry, let me back that up. We’re heavy, load it up. I’ve got full of water, propane and so on. I need my gain at X, but maybe coming back I can back that down a Just keep a little journal on that. You know exactly where your gain needs to be and off you go. But the rule of thumb is for me, and I think I’ve towed trailers most of my driving career, you want to feel those trailer brakes tugging against you slightly when you’re just coasting along on its own. I mean, I’m not saying 35, 40 miles an hour. I’m talking you’re in the driveway or you’re in the street and you’re just sort of coasting. uh you know you’re doing one two miles an hour and you manually hit the brake the trailer brake you want to feel it tugging back at you if you’re not feeling it tug back at you you don’t have enough gain you don’t want so much gain that you’re locking up the brakes or you’re slamming yourself you know you can feel it really jerk in the truck you just want to just like if you were slowly applying the brakes on the truck you want the trailer doing the same thing so You want enough gain to where that trailer is doing its own braking and the truck isn’t. That’s why we have trailer brakes on an axle here in most state law. In most cases, depending upon the weight of the trailer, it has to be there, and that’s how they do that. Make sense?
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah. I was thinking the most towing I’ve ever done on a trailer, they have not had brakes, but that’s a smaller trailer. So if you’re going to tow something that has brakes, you would probably be more than a quarter to half ton. You’d have to be a three quarter or one ton.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. And again, those of you that are, you know. As a rule of thumb. As a rule of thumb, yeah. And those of you that, you know, do some towing and hauling and so on, you know a lot about what I’m talking about here. And it becomes pretty easy to know depending upon, you know, what you’re towing and hauling, where you need to be. Now, I’ll give you a rule of thumb. And this is pretty much with the trucks that I own and the controllers that are from the factory now. Start at a five. You can pretty much always start at a 5 and know you’re fairly close because you may go up or down depending upon the weight of the trailer. I’ve rarely ever ran up to the full 10. It’s like 1 to 10 is where the settings are. I’ve rarely ever ran all the way up to 10. If you get a really, really heavy load, you might run up into the 8 range, but typically you’re going to be in that 5 to 7 range depending upon the load and what you’re doing and so on, and that’s kind of how that works. But that’s my… way of doing it and brake controllers have become way more sophisticated than they ever were uh back in the day even when i was putting them on i mean back in the day when i was first selling them all the way back in the 80s you tapped into the brake line they had a brake line then that went into the cab of the truck the pressure of what you were doing on the brake system itself, you know, that pressure of the fluid itself would go to the controller and there was a knob on the controller you could turn in and out for the gain of the electricity going back to the trailer brakes themselves. And that’s how you adjusted those back in the day. But they literally had a T you’d put into the brake line. Really? And it went into the controller itself, and that’s how that thing operated. It sensed the pressure, obviously. It sensed the pressure according to how much pressure you were putting on. Now, they’ve gotten much more sophisticated. They either use a pendulum or a wheel. There’s a lot of older brake controllers, by the way, that are nothing more than a timer. And most people don’t know this, but they’re a timer, meaning that when you hit the pedal— and it senses that the trailer brake needs to come on, it’s timed. In other words, it’s not working off of a pendulum. It knows through a timer what it should be doing with the electricity going to the trailer brake itself. Those are what I call dumb brake controllers. They’re not very smart. I didn’t like putting those in back in the day, but they were less expensive. The good ones in Tocantins and others made these back in the day. They had a pendulum, and what I mean by that is they knew that if you were stopping harder, the pendulum would go forward more, applying more electricity to the trailer brake, helping you then stop faster. And that’s how those early pendulum-style brake controllers worked. And if you ever took one apart, you’d actually see a little pendulum inside that was weighted, and it knew whether you were accelerating or decelerating and how much you were decelerating, and it would adjust the electricity going to the trailer brake circuit itself accordingly and then the gain you did in a lot of those early trailer brake controllers even had to be adjusted with the pendulum because you had to make sure the pendulum was starting in the right on the right point so you had to level that pendulum up back in the day all the new controllers now that are built into the trucks and such are so smart that yeah you don’t need to do anything of what i just said a moment ago just you just need to learn the gain and then off you go and a good again on on factory trailer brakes that are coming on the trucks A good starting place for all of you listening is that five to six range. And if you start there, you typically figure out whether you need to go up or down from there. But that’s usually a pretty good starting point. Again, rarely do you need to run up into that, you know, seven, eight or nine range. And I hope I know what this is hard when you’re not in the truck and you’re not, you know, telling somebody what you’re not showing somebody what to do physically, you know. But anyways.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hmm.
SPEAKER 05 :
I never thought of that. That’s actually a really good tip. So that’s how you do that, and that’s how you adjust a trailer brake. And thank you, by the way, for the question because we don’t talk about that much other than springtime when people start getting their vehicles out, their trailers out. And somebody just told me, just sent me this, and this is something I’ll have to do some looking on this because this is new to me. And I’m sorry, I try to stay up on as much stuff as I can. This is a new fifth-wheel trailer that somebody just sent me that comes with 7,000-pound axles with anti-lock braking system. How are they doing that, guys? I will have to do some research on that. That is above my pay grade. I am not in the trailer business. I own a lot, tow a lot, do a lot. I don’t have any trailers personally that I own that have anti-lock brakes, so I don’t know exactly how that works. But I can do some research and figure that out because I don’t know how they’re doing that.
SPEAKER 06 :
I would say they would probably just have a reluctor in a sensor and they’re cutting the electricity to it or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s an interesting idea. Yeah, thank you. And again, thank you for sending me that because I did not know that. I’ll do some research on that to determine exactly how they’re doing the anti-lock braking. But there’s got to be something that they’re doing or they wouldn’t be advertising that. And is that a cool feature on a trailer? Would it be that helpful? That’s what I’m just trying to think of. I mean, I guess probably. I mean, anytime you can keep a tire from skidding. I think you end up with better control when it’s all said and done. How critical is it on a trailer? I mean, I guess on a fifth wheel where you’re really braking hard, somebody pulls out in front of you and trying to get everything stopped as quickly as you can, or you’re on some sort of a slippery surface, maybe it’s a little bit icy out or you’re on gravel. I think in those circumstances where there may be some sand, dirt, gravel, ice, snow, yeah, I think analog braking in that case would help a bunch. I don’t know. Personally, though, would I buy a trailer just because it has it or it doesn’t? No. I don’t think I would.
SPEAKER 06 :
I suppose if you’re making an emergency stop, does a trailer tend to fish out?
SPEAKER 05 :
If the trailer brakes are set correctly, no.
SPEAKER 06 :
No. So it wouldn’t lock one wheel more than the other.
SPEAKER 05 :
No. I was thinking if it… goes back to what i just gave as a setting if you get everything set correctly that trailer should be tugging on you slightly and when you break hard everything should be fairly equal and the trailer should be doing its own job and shouldn’t be again to me the anti-lock braking on a trailer the advantage would be on any kind of a slippery surface that’s where it might come in more handy but i this is above my pay grade i’ll do some research on that and get back to all of you All right, lines are open, 303-477-5600. If any of you own a trailer with anti-lock brakes and you want to give some feedback on that, please do so. Because, again, this is something I don’t know much about at all, and I always admit when I don’t know. So I don’t know. Let me know if you do, and I’ll do a little bit of research on my end as well. We’ll be right back, though. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 18 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, did a little bit of studying during that. Yeah, there’s two companies now offering anti-lock brakes on trailers with electric brakes. Now, I knew somebody said that semis have been doing it for years. I did know that. I knew on the semi end of things they’ve been doing that for quite some time because I had some listeners even tell me that for many years. Lippert and Dexter now are using… And they lock brakes and they monitor wheel speed, of course, to regulate braking pressure and ensuring the trailer stops efficiently on slick, uneven or gravel roads. Back to what I was saying a moment ago about where some of the advantages to that would be. So it gives you enhanced stability, of course, improved control, automated action and so on. So so there you go. So would it be worth it? I mean, to me personally, it depends on when you’re driving and hauling that particular trailer. If you’re going to be out and about where it might be slick or snowy or something like that, yeah, you may have an advantage there. For those of you that are pretty much just doing RVing in the summer and it’s nice out and so on, would I buy one with or without? I would be looking more at the overall design, construction, how the trailer is made. Is it a good brand? Does it have the right layout? I would personally be looking at all of that more so than does it have analog brakes on the trailer or not. That’s just me. Jerry in Denver, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, hi, John. How are you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Good. How are you?
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m good. Let me turn you up. I can’t hear you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Go ahead. You’re fine, Gary. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, I’ve always been interested in business models. And you said something a couple of months ago. I don’t know if it was on this show or another show. You were talking about how you, in an automotive business, how you charge customers for your services. And you had mentioned that different mechanics have different skill sets, so you charge them at different bill rates. Correct. And that surprised me because I frequently go into automotive repair shops and they’ll have a sign on the wall that says our hourly rate is $100. But do most repair shops, do you think they do it the way you do it? Different mechanics get charged out at different rates?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, that’s something that I did way back in the day. I had 10 different labor rates according to the different technicians that may be doing things and even the different types of services we might have been providing Jerry at the time. And remember, I did all sorts of things that regular repair shops didn’t do. We did fabrication, welding, a lot of off-road type work. We did a lot of diagnostic stuff, trailer repairs, even like we’re talking about now with the you know, trailer systems and so on. So I did all sorts of things that the average repair shop didn’t do. And so I set my prices according to the types of jobs that we were doing, more of a menu price, if you would. There are some shops now that are being more progressive that are starting to do some of what I’m doing in the shops that I coach, by the way, I try to get to do what I’m doing or what I did, because I feel like it’s a better way of running the business and a more fair way of charging the customer based upon the knowledge level of the tech that is needed and that skill set, because now you’re being fair to the customer.
SPEAKER 06 :
In my shop, we generally, it’s by the kind of job. Similar. Yeah. You know, if you’re doing a tire rotation, you know, you’re going to charge for that skill level, which may be a C level. Right. But if you’re doing something where you’re doing a timing chain or timing, you know, that should be billed at an A level technician. And the hope is that all your technicians can do both. Well, you really don’t want it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Some can’t.
SPEAKER 06 :
But you really don’t want an A-level doing a C-level job because you’re not making money.
SPEAKER 05 :
And you want a C-level doing the timing belt.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so you’re not making any money if you’re doing that. That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
So in general, Jerry, I think the higher-end shops do exactly what I was doing in some form or another. I hate to say this, but the lower-end, even some of the franchise shops that are out there, no, they’re not doing what I did.
SPEAKER 09 :
And, John, are the cost of parts a straight pass through, or is there a profit percentage attitude?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, and there’s no secret here. The shops that I coach and consult, I want them. My goal for them is to have 50% gross profit on parts. So if they paid $25 for a part, they need to charge $50 to make 25%. so you mark it up 100 to make 50 percent and you need a 50 gross margin otherwise or gross profit i should say you’re not going to stay in business so you need in an auto repair business for anybody listening and those of you that have auto repair businesses if you’re not doing this you’re going to go broke you need 70 on labor like any business does jerry labor should never be more than 30 of your cost i don’t care what business you’re running same is true with a repair shop and you need to make 50 on parts now everybody listening thinks that that’s extravagant but everybody forgets you have a lot of expenses in running a repair shop, not only from rent, but gas and lights and insurance and workman’s comp and all of the other things that it takes to run the business and all the ancillary things. And I can go down the list, Jerry, and it adds up. And when it’s all said and done, most repair shops are probably running on about a 5% net profit when it’s all said and done.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, John, and for any of your friends that have shops, you know, one of the big pluses in the big beautiful bill is 100% right off of capital equipment.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right, that’s right. Yep, I train my folk, Jerry, to utilize that as much as possible because that’s a big gain for them when it comes to the tax sides of things and can help their business grow at the same time.
SPEAKER 06 :
I want to interject something here on the big box chains. Right, the franchises. The difference between us, between myself and them, is that we take a quality part and we market up and sell it to you. They take an in-quality, lower-line part, market up just as, As high or higher as I would be selling you the good part for. Right. So their margins are much, much higher, especially on the part. That’s right. And I kind of have the feeling that I want to put the best quality part I can on your car. Correct. I don’t want to put an inferior part. I don’t want to see you again for the same problem.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and really, Jerry, you would understand this. The reason why a lot of those franchises and some of the big box folk do that is because, A, their costs are higher. And remember, for all of you listening, anybody that has a franchise, anybody that has a franchise knows this. You’re paying a portion of your sales, not even profits, but sales back to somebody that owns the franchise. So, yes, they have to do a higher markup because you have to do the things I just said to stay in business.
SPEAKER 06 :
As much as 20%.
SPEAKER 05 :
In some cases, yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I’ve heard as high as 20%, 20, 25%. That’s a lot.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s hard to stay in business that way. Thanks for indulging me and for all of your shopkeepers out there, pay close attention when you’re doing your taxes. There’s a lot of… There is.
SPEAKER 05 :
And, Jerry, thank you for saying that, by the way, because I say this all the time, even to my clients. There’s a difference between a tax preparer and a tax planner. And you want a tax planner, Gary, not a tax preparer.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yep. Thank you, Gary. Appreciate you very much, as always. You’re a great listener, and I enjoy Gary very much, and I know Gary’s background, and yes, he’s very in tune with what goes on on the tax sides of things, and won’t give that away as to what he does, but he knows that end very well. But yeah, really quick, we’ve got a couple of minutes here left. Yeah, I don’t think that most… shop owners especially get credit for what they do and when i said a moment ago that most shops make about five percent i try to get my shops to be much higher than that now that’s not always easy to do because there’s other factors that can come into play uh you know seasonal things that happen in the business things that might happen according to the labor end of things and so on all shops steve can attest to this are paying more money for their labor now than we were even a couple of years ago because the labor shortage that is out there. So for those of you that are out there that don’t think that your young person in your life can make any money in the auto industry, let me tell you what, they can.
SPEAKER 06 :
They can.
SPEAKER 05 :
They can, especially as a technician. They can make money as a technician in today’s world rather easily, actually. Now, you have to have the skill set and the knack and the bandwidth, the brain, I guess you could say, to be able to critically think and fix things. But if you have that, can you make money in the automotive world or any other trade for that matter? You guys hear me talk about that a lot, even during the week. Absolutely, you can make money in the trades. But yeah, I want to make sure that I go back and even talk about the parts sides of things a moment ago. And a lot of people think, well, geez, you mean they’re taking a $25 part and marking it up to $50, meaning I can buy that same $25 part? Well, you might be able to buy it for not $25, but maybe $35. So yeah, you could probably buy it close to the same as what the shop is, not exactly the same as the shop is. But then you have to ask the question, okay, who’s putting that on? Are you going to put that on yourself? Are you going to warranty that part? Do you have the ability to handle all of that? Do you have the expertise to do all of that? In some cases, the part might need some reprogramming of the computer system itself for the part that you just put on. Do you have all that technical ability and skill set to actually make that happen? And if not, now you’re paying somebody to do so. And I tell all of my shops, don’t put on a part you don’t sell. Your liability and the hassle factor and everything else that comes into play, do not ever put on a part that you do not sell because you have no control over where it came from and how it’s going to work moving forward.
SPEAKER 06 :
Even simple as a battery. Now we have to tell the car… that we put a new battery in. In a lot of cases. Because otherwise it overcharges.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. The alternator needs to know what the charge rate needs to be.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it’s even that simple. So you think you’re just slapping a battery in.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s not that way anymore. Not anymore. There are a lot of things now on a vehicle that have become a lot more technical than… it used to be and again i just gave out some rules of thumb for the auto industry and as a business coach folks this doesn’t change much when it comes to even folks that are doing plumbing or electrical or hvac or whatever you have to make a certain amount of money as a business or you don’t stay in business you go broke And when you go broke, it’s not fun for anyone, for you as an owner, for your employees, for your customers, for your vendors. It’s never fun when a business goes broke. And the best way for a business to stay in business is to make profit. Profit is not a dirty word. It’s not a sin to be profitable. And I try to encourage, again, for me as a coach, I want all of my businesses to be profitable because when they’re profitable and they make money, they service their customers better. They take better care of things. They have a better warranty. I mean, everything’s better all around. At the end of the day, does the customer pay a little more money for that? Maybe not. It depends. Again, as I just mentioned a moment ago, there’s a lot of franchises out there that have to have a higher price because the guy at the top of the pyramid of a franchise has to make money. Sorry to call it a pyramid, but in a lot of cases, franchises aren’t much different than that. It’s the guy at the top that’s making all the money, not the guys down below that are doing all the work.
SPEAKER 06 :
It is a pyramid in many, many ways.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I’m not a huge franchise fan, so those of you that are listening to me, I coach even some franchises, and I know how franchises work because I coach some businesses that are, and some are good. I’ll give credit where credit’s due. There’s some really good franchises that are out there. There’s a lot of not-so-good franchises that are out there as well. All right, hour number three is next. Lines are open, 303-477-5600. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 13 :
Still haven’t had enough? Go to drive-radio.com, email your questions and comments, download previous programs, and find lots of useful information, including your nearest Colorado Select Auto Care Center. That’s drive-radio.com. Thanks for listening to Drive Radio, sponsored by the member shops of Colorado Select Auto Care Centers. On KLZ 560.
