4 ms·

It's different world now but my dad with grandpa (his dad) were taking our car apart including engine, unscrewing every single piece of engine, cleaning it and

It's different world now but my dad with grandpa (his dad) were taking our car apart including engine, unscrewing every single piece of engine, cleaning it and putting the whole thing back together. They were laughing there were always some "redundant screws" left at the end. Everything was like that, TV broke, we took it to dad's friend garage where he had tons of shit and was fixing stuff, taking things out, resoldering etc; you had a hole in your clothes? granny would fix it, your shoes were broken? you'd try to fix them first, not get new ones etc.

richardfey 5y ago
Were they doing it for regular maintenance or to fix some problem?
- mirekrusin 5y ago
  It wasn't regular, I think more for fun than anything else, rationalized as maintenance. Smaller fixes/replacements were happening all the time though.
tzs 5y ago
For TVs even people who didn't normally fix things around the house could usually fix them. That's because 99% of the time your TV broke it was because a vacuum tube failed. You took off the back cover with the TV on, looked at all the tubes, and found the one whose filament was not glowing. You then turned the TV off, pulled that tube out of its socket, went and bought a replacement, put that in, and that almost always fixed the TV. You get could the replacement tube at many supermarkets. They would have a self-service kiosk that had a tube tester built in. It had a bunch of sockets covering all the tubes you were likely to find in a home TV or radio. You'd plug yours into the right socket and hit the test button, and the tester would verify that the tube was indeed dead (or tell you were wrong in which case maybe it was something other than a tube that failed so time to call the TV repairman). There would be a book attached to the kiosk that listed all the tubes likely to be in home TVs or radios. You'd look your tube up in that and it would tell you what equivalent tube available at the kiosk could replace your tube. You'd grab that tube and go pay the cashier.
silisili 5y ago
I've torn down a few myself always had leftover parts. I usually find out what it was months later, if at all. Most of the time it's just some extraneous retaining bolt. One time it was a vacuum hose(those are the worst). Plugged it with a bolt and it ran fine til I sold it. Last time though, I used tape and labeled every single hose, wire, screw, etc. Unsurprisingly, there were no extra parts afterall :).

richardfey 5y ago

Were they doing it for regular maintenance or to fix some problem?

mirekrusin 5y ago
It wasn't regular, I think more for fun than anything else, rationalized as maintenance. Smaller fixes/replacements were happening all the time though.

tzs 5y ago

For TVs even people who didn't normally fix things around the house could usually fix them. That's because 99% of the time your TV broke it was because a vacuum tube failed. You took off the back cover with the TV on, looked at all the tubes, and found the one whose filament was not glowing. You then turned the TV off, pulled that tube out of its socket, went and bought a replacement, put that in, and that almost always fixed the TV. You get could the replacement tube at many supermarkets. They would have a self-service kiosk that had a tube tester built in. It had a bunch of sockets covering all the tubes you were likely to find in a home TV or radio. You'd plug yours into the right socket and hit the test button, and the tester would verify that the tube was indeed dead (or tell you were wrong in which case maybe it was something other than a tube that failed so time to call the TV repairman). There would be a book attached to the kiosk that listed all the tubes likely to be in home TVs or radios. You'd look your tube up in that and it would tell you what equivalent tube available at the kiosk could replace your tube. You'd grab that tube and go pay the cashier.

silisili 5y ago

I've torn down a few myself always had leftover parts. I usually find out what it was months later, if at all. Most of the time it's just some extraneous retaining bolt. One time it was a vacuum hose(those are the worst). Plugged it with a bolt and it ran fine til I sold it. Last time though, I used tape and labeled every single hose, wire, screw, etc. Unsurprisingly, there were no extra parts afterall :).