If you interpreted my mentioning a come-along as something you'd combine with a torque wrench, I'm afraid this is kind of pointless.

Any mechanic worth anything would use a longer torque wrench or reach for the trusty pipe in such a situation.

This reminds me of some of the shitty amateur shops I've had the displeasure of working in where toxic masculinity runs the place and people would be embarrassed to need increased leverage on something they should be able to do with brawn. That's a different problem altogether, and unfortunately it's very common among automotive workers.

This is a feeling and I can’t prove it. Because I dont have a decent sized sample set, but when it comes to women..I think it’s not just brawn, but also our slightly different center of gravity.

Many many years ago..when I was young and stupid, I decided that I was going to hike the Appalachian trail..end to end. And then I figured that I was smarter and that I will do it in parts. And then I gave myself yet another break to do the trail stops in any random order.

That began my crash course in acceptance towards gender differences. Starting with backpacks to shoes to equipment to tents..to climbing technique and speed..everything was different! Because of our waist-hip ratios, breasts and lower center of gravity.

Recently when I was struggling with some tractor stuff, a lot of it came back ..and I could go to harbour freight and found the equivalent for hoisting machines. It wasn’t ideal but if I hadn’t been familiar with climbing equipment, I wouldn’t have known how to use most of it. If you know how to hoist your own body weight, you can project it to do it to any 100-500 lb machine. Same principles.

On a slightly different note, I have seen women who were into fly fishing have a special set of hidden skills that they probably aren’t even aware of...I am not a fishing person myself and so I can’t put my finger on it. They are just different! Right from their way of surveying a surrounding area to problem solving to attitude. Is it sharpened by their hobby or did they pick that hobby due to their aptitude?

I am torn because I am a big believer of adopting hobbies..and many of them..as a way to unearth hidden skills and talents. But a lot of what’s picked up as hobbies translates to real life survival skills. So a blanket ‘everyone should learn __fill in the blank__ as a survival hack’ is not always possible.

I grew up mopping floors, fixing things, bending over a lot, and hanging from high branches etc because I am from a different time and place. The first time I saw a kid pulling a weed at the farm, I knew he was going to throw his back. It’s the same thing at the gym. Most adults don’t know how to lift their own body weight without hurting themselves. It must come naturally. Balancing onself on a motorcycle or kickstarting it(do bikers do that anymore?)..making sure we don’t fall flat on our face or trip over are such fundamental things that are essentially physics principles.

Most machines designed should have been intuitively based on the mechanics of the human body or bio inspired by animals around us. If they are not, the learning curve is steep. I feel like this why there are gender/generational differences when it comes to why some people are mechanically inclined and others are not..

Which brings me to my personal bias. Italian design/engineering vs German design/engineering. I prefer the latter. Italian designs make me think that a stubborn male with no friends who lives in a basement made it. German designs make me feel like a group of people brainstormed to come up with it. German designs are more intuitive.

Of course, we will all end up with Japanese designs because it doesn’t matter who made it..it was made FOR everyone.

A recent example is the gear box with the tractor spader I got shipped from Italy recently. I just couldn’t find it! And after I did, I couldn’t get to it. Hours wasted because figuring it out is a free game by itself that the Italians threw in for shits and giggles.

I would like to hear from mechanics and motor cyclists who have known the innards of cars and bikes re Italian vs German engines and designs. Philosophy/attitude.

I'm a hobbyist but in my experience the Germans and Japanese have a clue about automotive design while American stuff is just a crapshoot. American engines are really not at all bad but the cars they are in were definitely not designed around the drivetrain. GM has some absolutely incredibad ideas on how to make a car serviceable that floors me everytime I pull one apart. Same thing with Ford if we are talking about vans with a transversely mounted engine. Even something as simple as changing plugs is an involved job. Let me put it this way... you might as well just drop the engine a bit in order to get some clearance. Why should you need to do this? I don't know fuck it just buy a new van. Rants aside, this thing just doesn't happen very often with imports. VW does a halfway decent job making sure you can repair your car in a driveway with hand tools. They always make sure you have clearance and doing swaps is really not awful, you just have to be careful because newer German cars have a fetish for plastic on parts that honestly have no business being plastic. Also make sure to get triple squares and hex sockets because they get a kick out of throwing them in for good measure. In addition, a lot of interior trim is overdesigned for no reason. I have no idea who they pay to do that. Modern BMWs and mercs are a shitfest and should be avoided if possible. Older BMWs and mercs were very nicely built though. I especially loved the W124s. Beautiful cars that ran forever and weren't overly complex. I've never actually worked on korean cars so I don't have an opinion on em. Toyotas are fucking excellent to work on. I think out of all the manufacturers they care the most about designing reliable and serviceable machines. Brand new models are unfortunately doing some silly shit, but that's mostly body work related. Honda's a close second followed by Nissan. For closing remarks if I had to pick cars to work on it'd be toyotas, mercedes and hondas but hey sometimes I can't pick what a friend of a friend brings to me you know what I mean?

Agree so much about the newer German innards and the use of plastic!!!!

(Altho I have never worked on them, but I paid an ungodly amount of money to get some of my 10 y/o mini’s insides replaced/repaired..post cooper’s sale to BMW...it’s just unacceptable! Some of the stuff just gets eaten away or corroded? How is this possible..it’s like a detective novel inside to figure out what’s what)