By David N. Krough, TJJD Communications —
The Agricultural Mechanics students at Mart State Juvenile Correctional Facility recently refurbished a tractor as one of their class projects, but not without a few bumps along the way.
Lone Star High School East teacher Lance Dietrich said his students tackled the John Deere 4010 project this past semester. Dietrich teaches
horticulture, agriculture and ag mechanics at Mart. In past classes, they have repaired cars, trucks, farm implements, trailers and a lot of small gas engines.Sometimes the students will work on TJJD facility equipment to make sure it’s operational, along with changing oil, fluids, tires and maintenance of staff vehicles.
“We do mostly small engines, but it’s nice to get something big where the kids could actually see big progress,” he says.
The tractor, a 1960s model that had about 7,000 hours on it before it came into their shop, is owned by Dietrich. By working on staff or facility equipment or projects, the students get real experiences that fit within the budget, Principal Craig Taylor said. All parts and materials are paid for by the person that owns the project.
“Staff know that when their equipment comes in … it might take them a little while to get it out, so it can’t be a rush job,” Dietrich says. “It might not be as professional as it needs to be, but they’re providing the opportunity to work on it.”
The kids like to take ownership of the project because the equipment belongs to staff, Dietrich said The youth also most importantly get the reward of knowing they did a good job.
The students were able to replace all electrical wiring, the starter, hydraulics and the steering mechanism on the tractor during the class. They also put on new tires and lights, then changed out all fluids, cleaned the fuel tank and gave it a new paint job.
“When we build or rebuild items for staff at Mart it tends to take a long time, so most people do not want a tractor tied up without a good timeline to completion,” he said. “Repairs take a long time. I am afforded the opportunity to teach other lessons during the time it takes for the new part (to arrive).”
The work the youth perform can be intricate. One of the teens rebuilt all the seals underneath the steering column because it was turning to the right and wouldn’t turn to the left. Students from the welding class built the new battery and tool boxes and added a new step support.
Dietrich said they had to redo most of the repairs multiple times in order to get it all correct, but thinks it turned out well in the end.
“Whatever we can find to do is what we work on,” he says. “We’ll do a little teaching and then we’ll do little projects or a little bit of lab work (which) is a lot more fun than sitting on the dorm.”
Dietrich said the boys go through a standard mechanics class with their book, learning about how the whole systems work. In some cases, students are only at Mart as little as four or five months and others may stay a couple of years. Dietrich does his best to catch them up with as many aspects of repairs as possible, whether its tires and steering, fuel and hydraulic systems and electronics. This latest crew has put the tractor back together and then some.
“(We) made sure it was okay and then they had to take off another part,” Dietrich said. “Every time we’ve done (a repair) something else has happened to it. I had a kid that put a wrench through the radiator, so then we had to take off the radiator and fix it. We had a kid who … he probably took off the water pump about 10 different times before he got the pulley right. We had to pull the whole front end off probably about six times in order to get the linkages right and then all the stuff underneath.”
When the crew thought they were finally all done and ready to roll out with it, they noticed a new hydraulic leak caused by a pin-sized hole in the hose.
“It’s frustrating when you think you’re finished and all of a sudden there’s one more little thing, but they did a good job,” he said of his crew. “They took it off and I went and got the new part and we just put it on. Hopefully we’ll be taking it out of here on Monday or Tuesday and then maybe bringing another one in next week and just kind of doing the same thing.”
After that final leak repair, the tractor started up and Dietrich gave the boys their first ride-along.
For the students, Dietrich’s class is as much a lesson in economics and overcoming unforeseen challenges as it is just mechanics.
“We like to fix things instead of going to buy new parts,” student T.G. said. “The radiator had a leak in it, we fixed the leak, things like that. We don’t really like to buy new parts when they can be fixed. Just the basic things that we learned about this tractor is what helps like just being able to know how to change a tire, fix the temperature, know the difference between something that runs on gas and something that don’t run on gas. It’s just a good experience to learn the basics so you can use those basics whenever you go home, know how to change filters and all those things.”
T.G. got his welding certification at Mart. He made a custom cup holder for the dashboard and said he planned to continue into a similar career once he returns home.
“I just wanted to know the basic things, so that way I can use (them) in the free world,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a full-blown mechanic, but our welding shop, that’s what I’m more interested in. That’s my future job. It’s still good to know the basics in case something happens to you in the free world, you can spend less money. When I go home, I’m going to go back to school to get more advanced.”
For their next project, Dietrich says they are bringing in another tractor, this one with a blown head gasket. That along with a broken clutch will require some heavy lifting by the new crew, as three of the four present students are scheduled for release soon.
TJJD staff sometimes hear back from students after they’ve returned to their communities and Dietrich has heard from a few who have gone on to be successful mechanics.
“There’s been one or two of them that have called or written … and said what they were doing and (they were) success stories,” Dietrich said. “I like to hear that.”
“(Mechanics) is a good, skill to use,” student A.O. said. “I’ll make money. I don’t know if I see a profession in this, but it’ll be nice to know all this stuff.”
Just like the many activities youth take part in at Mart, CTE classes foster building relationship and teamwork skills.
T.G. said he likes his classmates. “We all work hard. Sometimes we get frustrated about little things on the tractor, but we keep going. We all work hard with each other, we’ve got that bond.”
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