Senior Memoir

Tanner Marquette

One of the best things about taking a non-functional car and

repairing it to working order, is learning the inner workings of
automobiles and the pride in returning something to a useful state so
that it can now be used for my personal transportation. It also gives me
an understanding of what it takes to diagnose and repair an automobile in
case of a future breakdown. The worst part is, when the car refuses to
function properly after many hours of work and hundreds of dollars of new
parts. Of course, going through this project, I have learned a lot.

Sometimes it is very difficult to access the malifuncting part, you have

to remove multiple parts to gain access to it, just to find out it is not the
only issue. A good life lesson is, it will not always work the way you
expect and you must adapt, sometimes it will take multiple attempts.

Trying to get all the parts I need in order to get the motor running was
difficult as some parts tested out fine but when put back together turned
out to be nonfunctional. This project definitely helped me learn about
cars and the necessary repairs. It also taught me to go slow and to think
about what needs to be done so that the bigger projects like engine
replacement is more efficient. Case in point, we replaced the motor and
filled all the fluids to just find out that a sensor was nonfunctional and
the motor needed to be removed to replace. This project has taught me a lot
and gave me the skills that I can adapt to other projects in life.

In retrospect, the next time I contemplate a project like this, I would

choose a vehicle that has fewer issues to start with and research common
complaints regarding the vehicle. My advice for juniors thinking about
their senior projects, pick a project you can complete within 15+ hours
and is not too expensive. I would grade my own project a B- as I could have
done better during some repairs. Overall, I went out of my comfort zone to
learn new skills and even though we could not get it running I feel I did
pretty well.