Morgan Work Experience

[Speedtouch]

So my first day of work experience was great fun! I'm at my nearest Morgan garage, and damn I never thought I'd have such respect for them after one day. I was working today on a +4 for a bit, not entirely sure what was going on at that point, but then once we changed to a Roadster, I understood it much more, and it was much more interesting. And damn that thing is fast. Aluminium chassis, with a wooden frame, plus a V6 equals immense acceleration.

 

They are getting an Aero 8 in for work on Wednesday, which I will be working on, and having a ride in. Apparently it is 'something else', which considering the performance of the V6, I bet it is.

 

The cars in the garage are (see their brochure), plus a few not listed there as they are in for repairs, or are and because this is the Brands Hatch garage, quite a few racing cars (including this one).

 

They've also got a very rare (3 in the world apparently, this one has just been shipped over from the US) coupe racing type car, although it was completely stripped for a rebuild so hard to tell. Made of all aluminium, I can't find it on the internet...

 

Its a great place, very small company, and they are all friendly, and do everything themselves (invoices etc - no receptionist). Can't wait for the Aero 8 though... :eek_blue:

[DriftNismo]

VERY nice work experiance. Sounds quite fun there :D.

[Camel]

I can remember my work experience last year, I was left in charge of shutting down an restarting NHS servers remotely when something went wrong. I had to do that for a few hours. I had to do something new in a different part of the company everyday. Didn't get paid though

[Speedtouch]

^ No-one gets paid. Its up to the company whether they 'contribute towards your travel expenses', but you never get paid.

[Camel]

about 5 people in my year got paid minimum wage but it is upto the company whether they pay you or not

[Baldy]

Correct it is up to the company themselves as to whether they pay you or not.

[Nipper]

I got payed for my work experience :D

 

Then again, I did my work experience at the same garage I used to skip school to work at, so that doesn't count really :/

[Car Freak]

Wow Speedtouch! I really envy you! How'd u know so much about fixing cars anyway? That's probably what's restricting me most about doing work experience at a car garage :(

 

And how'd you approach them in the first place? In the name of the school? Or just "hi, my name is (whatever your real name is), and I'd like to work for you during the summer"?

[Who]

my mate did his work experience at a garage and got £50, andd then a job there when he finished school. git! :p

[Camel]

At my school we had to make a list of places we would like to go for the work experience. The school would then deal with it. That's what happens for most people but I did it the hard way and sorted it out myself and I'm glad I did. Most places let you do the work experience because they don't have to pay for the work done

[Car Freak]

For mine we had to go find our own job, and the school would only give you one if you couldn't get your own (really boring stuff though, that was the drawback)

 

My work experience seems to be a one time thing only though... :( Would like to do it again, this time with some other people... :/

[Camel]

my mate did his work experience at a garage and got £50, andd then a job there when he finished school. git! :p

Thats what I'm going to try and do, they did say they would give me a good reference and if I give them a call or go into the main office I should get a job easily. My brother works there now aswell so he is asking around to see if he can get me working on the same account as him. Wouldn't be bad for a first job, getting paid £7 an hour minimum as a temp and allowed to work upto 39 hours a week and being able to work anytime i want

[Pherelas]

I got boring office work but got paid £100 so not to bad :)

 

That Morgan dealership looks brilliant though, how did you get in on that?

[AdamFraser]

Are you actually doing mechanical work? Or just standing around and watching?

 

If neither, what would you like to be doing?

 

I've got a work experience person coming next week and I would just like to plan out what I can show him - Personally i'd love him to get stuck in to the mechanical work, and spend as much time as possible washing cars!

[Speedtouch]

Car Freak: I knew very little about fixing cars. I only knew basic stuff, and what stuff looks like, but nothing major. You don't need to know that much, just want to learn about it.

 

Everyone: The way we get work for us, is we fill out a sheet and the school find us companies etc. We can find our own stuff, for local companies or whatever, and quite a lot of us have (I'm going to my mum's work for the next 2 weeks - easy enough to get). Pherelas - The dealership is brilliant.

 

Adam: I don't stand around doing nothing! I actually get stuck in etc, helping out on stuff. I can't drive any of the cars (for obvious reasons), but just working on them is wonderful.

 

So then, today. Unfortunately, I didn't touch a Morgan today. I was on the MOTs, so doing basic stuff (I mean properly basic, as in sitting in the cars while they are put on the ramp, and the guy goes underneath shouting at me as to when to press the brakes) on random cars. We even had a 1968 VW Camper in! Lovely restoration job too!

 

I also learned a few other things today. The race cars I talked about, are +4s, one of which won (in its class) at Le Mans! This one to be precise. The unknown car is a Morgan SLR, and indeed very rare (3 of them in the world).

 

Also, after talking to a customer (great bloke, lives in the south of France, but comes all the way here once a year (on holiday as well) to have the car serviced by this garage), I found out that specifying a Morgan isn't a quick process. Apparently they will ask you 'what colour do you want?'. Not 'These are your choices, which do you want?', but just 'what do you want?'. The same goes for the leather. And be careful what you ask for. Apparently he asked for 'British Racing Green', then got given a list of all the different shades of BRG there are, because they are all slightly different.

 

And then they ask you what you want on the dashboard and where (dials). See image for reference. You can chose where the dials go, and even what they do. Hell, you could even have 3 clocks if you wanted! And what the switches do! And that isn't the only design of dashboard - there are many of them! Don't order a Morgan expecting anything to be easy and quick. It will take ages to spec, it took his 4 years to arrive, and then it will fall to bits if treated badly, or well. They aren't well built like German cars, but that is the whole point of them. They are the only still uniquely British cars.

 

Tomorrow I'll be back on the Morgans, with a black Aero 8 coming in. Tasty! And I get a ride in it...:woot:

[MCW]

I pay people who are on work experience.....as long as they work their fingers to the bone!

[YeOldeTDUMan]

Speed - sounds like a great work experience

 

You can't not love Morgans ... well apart from the Aero 8 which is a 'Marmite' car ... I hate the cross eyed headlights

 

As to me I did my stint in the CAD department at the tractor plant where my dad worked ... spent the 2 weeks designing my own F1 cars! Oh and 'when I was a lad' you didn't get paid for work experience ... but then a lot of kids bunked theirs so I guess they've come up with this notion of paying you to get you to go.

[Asgardeh]

i did mine in a bicycle shop :/ was a bit boring but was ok. i spent a couple of hours looking for a long weight! :(

 

would have loved to be into cars and mechanics back then but i got into it eventually! had my first job as a mechanic when i was 18 and a half so it wasnt that late but would have been so good to learn earlier. so if u do wanna get into the trade id advise u to try and land an apprentiship or something like that. no better way to learn about stuff than working on it! first day at the garage took a gearbox out of a beemer ^_^ but i allready knew how to do them cause of college..

 

work experience in morgan tho thats awesome man!

 

and my mate got 50 quid for his work experience and now he works full time for them on about 15k a year starting i think?

[CarMadMike]

Its ok Hybrid, they have made a new Revised version on the Aero 8 without the cross eyes, well at least i think so anyway

[Pherelas]

You get the silly choice's on most british sports cars. I know TVR's used to do a simular thing though there was an options list and you had to ask to go beyond in, Morgans is probably better.

 

Can you get different engines in them and o chose your suspenstion parts and things?

[Speedtouch]

Hybrid: Yeah, paying to keep people going. Its all like that nowadays isn't it. /sarcasm But I like the Aero 8. As I've always found, cars look better in the flash than on pictures. And the new facelift ones look much better.

 

Pherelas: I don't think you can choose the suspension, but believe it or not, Morgan actually do many models (although they don't make them all, due to the engines not being made anymore. They all look the same though. The engines you can get in them are: 1.8l, 2l Ford 4 pots (+4, 4/4), 3l V6 (Roadster), 4l Rover V8 (+8 - discontinued), 4.2l BMW V8 (Aero 8).

 

Right, bad news I'm afraid. The Aero 8 didn't come in, because the owner was busy, so I wasn't working/had a ride in that. Instead we had an old +8, which wasn't in good nick. It had been sitting in a barn for the past 3 years, and needed more than a service. Well possibly be doing more work on it tomorrow. Other than that, not much to report. The test drive wasn't that quick due to roadworks and lots of traffic, plus the fact that the main problem was with the brakes - the front right ones don't work...

 

I'm going to hopefully be taking in a camera on Friday, and will be uploading them to the internets. Its a real shame that the Aero 8 didn't come in today, I was really looking forward to that.

[AdamFraser]

Sounds like you are having good fun! :)

[Speedtouch]

Yeah but its a bit tiring working 8:30 to 5:30. And today was just a repeat of Monday. The fact that the cars are all technically the same, except for the engines makes it less interesting the second time around. The Aero 8 would be different though, but shame the guy couldn't come.

[Camel]

awww 8 hours. I didn't have to be in till ten and could go anytime after 3

[AdamFraser]

Pah those hours are easy!

 

I'm 7:30am - 6/whenever we finish. I've seen me go in at 4am to finish off cars that had to go out that morning (but the transporter broke down, and it was quite a big order for one company so we had to do it!)