FUN WITH JAPIE
It’s traditional to give apprentices a hard time. Japie tries hard to shrug off the occasional embarrassment, but doesn’t always manage to keep his composure.
During his first week with us he was asked to go and look in the tool store for a left-handed screwdriver, and it took quite some time for his brain to wake up.
One day a bakkie turned up with coil ignition and Hennie asked Japie to fit new distributor points. When the job was done and the ignition timing adjusted, Hennie sent Japie on an errand, removed the rotor in the distributor, and put it in full view on the workbench.
When Japie returned he was asked to drive the bakkie out of the workshop and we all enjoyed the look on his face when the engine wouldn’t start. Eventually Hennie asked Japie why he was trying to start an engine whose rotor was still lying on the workbench and this led to more mirth.
One day a two-stroke DKW turned up for a thorough going over, and Syd realised that this was a golden opportunity to educate Japie. He was first asked to search on the internet for the tappet clearance, and then to remove the water pump.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that it took Japie only a few minutes to discover that the engine was a two-stroke and that there were no valves to adjust.
The lack of a water pump on these engines was a huge surprise to him (More powerful models were fitted with a water pump). Eventually Syd told him that many cars built before WW2 did not have such items, because they relied on so-called thermo-siphon cooling.
The top of the radiator was mounted higher than the engine and large water hoses were employed to ensure that hot water would be able to rise to the top and so create circulation. We no longer tease Japie as much as before, because he is now a lot smarter.