The problem is, if you dont know how things work and how to do things properly, youll never be able to judge the quality of work worth a damn.

A friend swears by paying people to do simple jobs for him. We live in a low labor cost area, and on a cost basis, he could be excused. But he’s always waiting on other people to fix things that he could have done himself in half an hour. Not only that, he’s never done the jobs himself and doesnt know what a fair price is or what a good job looks like. It should come as no surprise that he has to chase down issues multiple times since the original “fix” didnt work in the long run.

Growing up under an Engineer father, I was forced to help him with repair and improvement jobs around the house, garage, and yard since I could walk. At the time I thought he was a hardass who wanted free labor to help out with his personal projects. Now that Im older and dont need to rely on anyone to identify a problem and fix it RIGHT, I can see it was one of the bests gifts he ever left me.

The world around us may crumble, but at least our toys will still be running, har har.

These same faceplates have a locking lug below the accessory port (for lapel speaker-mics and such) that is notorious for breaking. See the right side of the pic in the link below:

The steel rod in that recess is what shears off after a user repeatedly removes and replaces the connector. That steel part that the pin sits in (I’m not sure of the proper term, I’m not actually an engineer lol) is held captive by a U shaped piece of stamped metal on the inside of the case. It even has a folded edge to aid in gripping it with pliers for removal. Once removed, the steel part the pin is encased in falls right out. You would think that from the way it was made whoever engineered it intended that part to be easily replaceable, since it takes a lot of abuse.

So I contacted Harris asking for a part number for this locking lug so I could fix the radio.

I was told by them that that is not a replaceable part, and that to fix it I would need to replace the front cover, and BTW that will be 300 FUCKING DOLLARS! ***Ka-CHING!***

FUCK EM! We were tired of paying those cunts hundreds of dollars for parts to fix these fucking radios, so we (I) would find another way. Turns out that you can buy #56 or #59 (I forget which I bought) hardened steel rod can be bought from a certain hobbyist watch repair website for 25 cents a piece, each piece being about an inch long, from which I can cut about three pieces to fix those damned locking lugs myself. FUCK PAYING HARRIS FOR OVERPRICED SHIT PARTS!

I’m not an engineer or a metallurgist, but even I knew better than to try using a paperclip. The metal is soft and will break easily under repeated mechanical stress. I don’t know if the steel I chose is of the right hardness, but I do know it will hold out better than a paperclip, is almost as cheap, and if it breaks again I will just replace it again, at least until the shitty faceplate cracks again and I end up replacing the whole thing anyways. Who knows, maybe it will rust out instead. I was pretty sure it was stainless but I’ve seen even stainless steel corrode under the right conditions. But at least it won’t cost $300 to fix.