West Seattle High School Auto Shop

A few weeks back we went down to West Seattle High to hang out with their advanced auto shop class. West Seattle High uses a four period block system, so they have a whopping 1.5 uninterrupted hours to work on cars. Pretty cool.

Teacher Jonathan Knapp has been teaching auto shop for five years now. Before that he worked as a mechanic for over ten years. So he brings a lot of real world experience into the classroom.

The shop is very well equipped with six bays and three lifts, plus a bunch of room to work outside. Jonathan keeps the Snap On tools behind lock and key. They have a blast cabinet, brake lathe, tire changer, tire balancer, hydraulic press, parts washer and an engine diagnostic machine. Jonathan plans to purchase a full alignment setup next year.

The shop was filled with cars. At the time of our visit they had three donated cars—a 96 Winstar with a blown head gasket, a 93 Probe with a leak in the head, and an 89 Subaru wagon which had various issues that were being sorted out by the students.

Jonathan has a pretty sweet 66 Corvair, which he is preparing for autocross. The class is in the process of rebuilding the suspension after getting much of the undercarriage painted.

Out back was an 85 Saab 900 Turbo which had been purchased by Simon for $500. The only real issue was that it was leaking gas. Simon swapped out a hose and that seemed to fix the problem. Simon's not scared of these old Swedes—he works at a local Swedish repair shop.

Ryan and Jaciel were working on a friend's red 91 Integra, which was getting a new tranny. And Jason was putting a new radiator in his 91 Accord, which had seen some abuse off road.

Robert's 78 El Camino had the least cramped engine bay and the most HP of the bunch, with dyno verified 350 HP at the crank. Robert was tweaking the idle a bit. He'd just installed a new Cherry Bomb exhaust that he was quite pleased with—we heard it and it sounded great. Headers are next.

We were most impressed with the hidden nitrous install in Ryan's 91 Integra . The bottle is hidden in the trunk in a backpack! The switch is nicely disguised in the dash. More details on this install can be found here. If you like it, leave him a comment in his guestbook!

 

Jonathan is working toward NATEF certification for his coursework, which is the standard for credit transfer from high school auto tech programs to related college degree majors. Jonathan teaches three of these 1.5 hour periods per day—two beginner classes and one advanced. Three of the students in his advanced class are headed to UTI next year—Patrick, Simon and Michelle. Have fun guys, it's a great program!

So stay tuned for more auto shop features in the coming months. If there is a high school auto shop you'd like to see featured, let us know at editor@cardomain.com.