Maya McFadden Photo
Under the hood at Gateway’s car lab.
They lost one week, but aspiring mechanics got back in the shop and closer to the semester finish line after a Covid-19 scare.
The aspiring mechanics are students in the General Motors (GM)-affiliated program at Gateway Community College. Remote learning doesn’t do the trick for their program, as was discovered in the spring. So Gateway has worked hard to adjust to safety concerns to enable them to continue having their in-person workshops during the pandemic.
The most recent brief scare showed how they’re keeping it going.
During week six of the 12-week semester a student notified Professor and Automotive Department Chair Daniel Fuller that a parent tested positive for Covid-19. He said he had minimal contact with that parent. The student tested negative but shifted to remote learning for 14 days.
The class splits into smaller groups for the workshops. During week seven, the quarantining student’s two groupmates agreed to get tested and sit out for to wait for their results.
All members of the group got tested, and tested negative.
Jailene Paez, 20 who was apart of the group of the quarantining student, said she thought the school’s process for the situation made sense. It kept the class safe enough to continue.
“I didn’t want to stay home, but I knew I had to,” she said as she returned to the shop last week. “It’s good to be back.”
The GM lab and lecture room on Gateway’s North Haven campus is sanitized at the start and end of each day. Because of the student’s parent’s test, the room was also deep-cleaned before the students returned to class.
The day everyone returned, the class continued a lesson on car sensors. Fuller started with a brief lecture about sensor resistance and faulty car sensors. The lab required the students to work with a repair order written up by a classmate.
During week seven, each group installed a fault that affected the car’s two and three wire sensors. They then wrote up repair orders for each issue.
The following session, the groups switched cars and worked with the repair orders to locate and fix the car fault.
Paez worked in a group of four on a repair order from a customer who described the car as riding rough. The order suggested the issue could be a misfire.
The group started by verifying the customer’s concern. When they started up the car, Paez agreed it sounded rough.
The group then began doing a visual inspection. Under the hood the students checked on the engine and the battery.
While working the students used an Engine Control Module (ECM) and an OBD II unit to connect a computer to the car to scan the diagnostic codes.
“Could it be the fuses?” a group member asked. The group then began taking apart the fuse box under the hood. After an inspection the students agreed it wasn’t the fuses.
The students then paused their work to talk as a group about the undiscovered fault.
Fuller joined the students in their discussion, urging them to start their repair process over.
“Is the check engine light on?” he asked.
The students nodded.
“Don’t just jump to a high-tech issue. Check the basics first.”
As with public health, the same with auto mechanics.
The students then began another visual inspection. This time around a groupmate discovered a detached plug between the engine and the A/C compressor. The students wondered if this was the fault they were in search of, or a part they forgot to reattach during the last inspection.
The unplugged part was the throttle position sensor, which monitors the air intake of the engine. That students learned that, when disconnected, the piece can limit the car’s throttle power .
After discovering the issue with her group, Paez recalled the homework lesson to “K.I.S.S”: “Keep it simple, stupid.”
“It really was such a stupid little thing. I wasn’t expecting that,” she said.
Alex Boothroyd and Jeff Mayo.
Even with a light misting, a group of students decided to work outside to get fresh air.
Alex Boothroyd worked with his group to find a cut wire under the hood that was affecting the accelerator pedal position sensor of his group’s Chevy Colorado.
The group’s repair order described the car’s issue as going into limp mode.
Boothroyd and his group used the car’s schematic diagram to find where the electricity wasn’t flowing correctly. After finding the wire, the group decided they would finish the repair next class.
In person. Together. Safely.
This story was produced with financial support from Solutions Journalism Network.
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