Boy Scouts of America

Automotive Maintenance Merit Badge

Automotive Maintenance
Merit Badge

Boy Scouts of America Merit Badge Hub

Boy Scouts of America
Merit Badge Hub

AutomotiveMaintenance

Requirement Updates 2024

This Merit Badge’s Requirements have recently been updated in 2024 Scouts BSA Requirements (33216). Please read more about “Requirements” on the Merit Badge Hub homepage.

Automotive Maintenance Merit Badge Overview

Modern automobiles are important to many aspects of American life. Those who service automobiles must understand each principle, and how these principles interact to provide smooth, efficient performance. Owners of cars also benefit by understanding how their vehicles operate. This enables them to understand why certain periodic maintenance is required to keep their vehicles in tip-top shape.
Automotive-Maintenance_merit-badge-overview

Automotive Maintenance Merit Badge Requirements

The requirements will be fed dynamically using the scout book integration 14
1. Safety and Registration. Do the following:
  • (a) Explain to your counselor the hazards you are most likely to encounter during automotive maintenance activities, and what you should do to anticipate, help prevent, mitigate, or lessen these hazards.
  • (b) Discuss with your counselor the safety equipment, tools, and clothing used while checking or repairing a motor vehicle. Use this equipment, tools, and/or clothing (when needed or called for) in meeting the requirements for this merit badge.
  • (c) Explain the different types of motors you may encounter.
  • (d) Explain the safety considerations when performing maintenance on a vehicle equipped with a high-voltage electrical system.
  • (e) Review the maintenance chart in the vehicle owner's manual. Explain the requirements and time limits.
  • (f) Explain the purpose, importance, and limitations of safety belts and passive restraints.
  • (g) Find out the requirements for your state's emissions and safety inspections (as applicable), including how often a vehicle needs to be inspected.
  • (h) Explain the importance of registering a vehicle and find out the annual registration fee for renewing your family car's registration.
2. General Maintenance. Do the following:
  • (a) Demonstrate how to check the following:
    1. Brake fluid
    2. Engine oil
    3. Coolant
    4. Power steering fluid
    5. Windshield washer fluid
    6. Transmission fluid
    7. Battery fluid (if possible) and condition of the battery terminals
  • (b) Locate the fuse boxes; determine the type and size of fuses. Demonstrate the proper replacement of burned-out fuses.
  • (c) Demonstrate how to check the condition and tension of belts and hoses.
  • (d) Check the vehicle for proper operation of its lights, including the interior overhead lights, instrument lights, warning lights, and exterior bulbs.
  • (e) Locate and check the air filter(s).
3. Dashboard/Driver Information Center. Do the following:
  • (a) Explain the function of the fuel gauge, speedometer, tachometer, oil pressure, and engine temperature gauge. Point each one out on the instrument cluster.
  • (b) Explain the symbols that light up on the dashboard and the difference between the yellow and red symbols. Explain each of the indicators on the dashboard, using the owner's manual if necessary.
  • (c) Explain the messages and alerts that may be displayed on the dashboard/ driver information center including maintenance-related reminders.
4. Tires. Do the following:
  • (a) Explain the difference between tire manufacturer's and vehicle manufacturer's specifications and show where to find them.
  • (b) Demonstrate how to check tire pressure and properly inflate a tire. Check the spare tire and make sure it is ready for use.
  • (c) Explain why wheel alignment is important to the life of a tire. Explain caster, camber, and toe-in adjustments on wheel alignment.
  • (d) Explain the purpose of the lateral-wear bar indicator.
5. Engine. Do the following:
  • (a) Explain how an internal combustion engine operates. Tell the differences between gasoline and diesel engines. Explain how a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle is powered.
  • (b) Discuss the purpose of engine oil. Explain the API service code, the SAE number, and the viscosity rating.
  • (c) Explain where to find the recommended oil type and the amount of oil to be used in the vehicle engine.
  • (e) Explain how to dispose of old tires in accordance with local laws and regulations.
6. Cooling System. Do the following:
  • (a) Explain the need for coolant in the cooling system, and the importance of selecting the correct coolant type for a given vehicle.
  • (b) Explain how to flush and change the engine coolant in the vehicle, and how to properly dispose of the used coolant.
7. Fuel System. Do the following:
  • (a) Explain how the air and fuel systems work together and why it is necessary to have an air filter and fuel filter.
  • (b) Explain how a how a fuel injection system works and how an onboard computer works with the fuel injection system.
8. Ignition and Electrical Systems. Do the following:
  • (a) Diagram and explain the parts of one of the following electrical systems:
  • (1) Starting/charging system
  • (2) Hybrid or electric vehicle inverter
  • (3) Lighting system
  • (b) Explain the engine's firing order.
  • (c) Explain the purpose of the spark gap.
  • (d) Demonstrate how to safely connect jumper cables to your car battery.
  • (e) Discuss with your counselor what factors can affect range on an electrified vehicle. Explain the procedure for recharging an electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle.
  • (f) Explain what other vehicle systems are dependent on a reliable electrical system.
9. Drive Train. Do the following:
  • (a) Diagram the drive train and explain the different parts.
  • (b) Explain the difference between automatic and standard transmissions.
  • (c) Explain the types of automatic transmission fluid.
  • (d) Explain the types of lubricants used in a standard transmission, and in the differential and transfer case.
  • (e) Explain the difference between front-wheel, rear- wheel, and four-wheel drive.
10. Brake System. Do the following:
  • (a) Explain the brake system (including antilock systems) and how it operates.
  • (b) Explain the differences between disc and drum systems.
  • (c) Demonstrate how to check the condition of a vehicle's brake system. After checking, make recommendations for repairs (if necessary).
11. Do TWO of the following:
  • (a) Determine the value of three different vehicles you are interested in purchasing. One must be new and one must be used; the third vehicle can be new or used. For each vehicle, find out the requirements and cost of automobile insurance to include basic liability and options for collision, comprehensive, towing, and rental car. Using the three vehicles you chose and with your merit badge counselor's assistance, complete the operation/maintenance chart provided in the merit badge pamphlet. Use this information to determine the operating cost per mile for each vehicle, and discuss what you learn with your counselor.
  • (b) Choose a car cleaner and wax product for a vehicle you want to clean. Explain clear-coat paint and the precautions necessary for care. Clean the vehicle, both inside and out, and wax the exterior. Use a vinyl and rubber protectant (on vinyl tops, rubber door seals, sidewalls, etc.) and explain the importance of this protectant.
  • (c) Locate the manufacturer's jack. Use the jack to demonstrate how to engage the jack correctly on the vehicle, then change a tire correctly.
  • (d) Perform an oil filter and oil change on a vehicle. Explain how to properly dispose of the used oil and filter.
12. Find out about three career opportunities in the automotive industry. Pick one and find out the education, training, and experience required for this profession. Discuss this with your counselor, and explain why this profession might interest you.

Get the Automotive Maintenance Merit Badge Pamphlet

On their quest to earning the Automotive merit badge, Scouts will gain practical, hands-on knowledge about car care and the nuts and bolts of what it takes to make an engine run.

Discover more about "Automotive Maintenance"

You walk out to the parking lot after school and realize you left your car’s headlights on all day. Now the battery is dead. Luckily, a nearby friend is willing to use his car to jump-start your car. Here’s how to do it. 1. With the two cars parked close together, turned off and in park, clamp one end of the red cable to the positive terminal of the dead battery. Clamp the other end of that same cable to the positive terminal of the good battery. battery-1 2. Clamp one end of the black cable to the negative terminal of the good battery. Clamp the other end of that same cable to an unpainted metal surface of the dead engine, such as a bolt or bracket. Use a surface as far away from the battery as possible. 3. Start the car with the good battery and allow it to run for a few minutes. battery-2 4. Start the car with the dead battery and let both cars run while connected for a few more minutes. 5. Remove the cables in the reverse order in which they were connected. Don’t let them touch each other or any other surfaces.
How some time spent tinkering gives Scouts the drive they need to succeed. One Saturday in May, veteran Scouter Bob Lahmers of Alliance, Ohio, and 14 counselors transformed a large part of Camp Tuscazoar near the town of Dover into a cross between a repair shop, a junkyard, and a mad scientist’s laboratory. The adult volunteers set up stations at the camp where Scouts could get their hands dirty working on the Automotive Maintenance merit badge. At one station, Scouts encountered a freestanding engine they could operate by hand, turning the crankshaft to watch the pistons move up and down. At another, a representative from Matco Tools, an Ohio-based manufacturing firm, showed off a truck that was loaded with, well, a truckload of automotive gadgets. “Everything we had was great,” Lahmers said. “It went off like a bang.” As did a bunch of airbags. A salvage yard had donated six airbags from totaled cars, and Lahmers’ team deployed them to show the Scouts how they work. “We put a bucket on top of one and blew it about 65 or 70 feet up,” Lahmers said, laughing. The team’s counseling that day, part of an annual event featuring fun and educational activities for area Scouts called Dover Dam Weekend, might seem over the top. But it demonstrated an effective approach to teaching the skills required to earn the Automotive Maintenance merit badge: Get the Scouts’ attention, let them work with the equipment, and finally get around to signing off their requirements. Jack Auld took a similar approach when he taught Scouts last spring at a merit badge day sponsored by his unit, Troop 772 in Laguna Niguel, Calif. While Auld didn’t use disembodied engines or inflating airbags, he had a modern alternative: videos from the Internet. Using those resources, Auld put together a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation to explain a car’s various systems, from air intake to exhaust. Dividing his class into two sessions, one in a classroom and the other hands-on, Auld was able to let the Scouts put theory into practice—though the lines between them often blurred. When Auld talked about tires, for example, he showed a cutaway illustration of a tire. But he also had an actual tire so the boys could learn to decipher the specifications on the sidewall. “The more you can get them out of their seats and looking at something,” Auld said, “the better.” Automotive Maintenance, like many merit badge skills, was at least partially designed to introduce Scouts to potential careers. But Auld, who worked his way through college as a mechanic and then spent years in the motorsports business, recognizes that nearly all the boys he counsels plan on choosing another line of work. Still, most all of them will drive to their jobs in cars or trucks. In fact, Troop 772 meets just a few miles from Interstate 5, where 265,000 vehicles travel every day. So Auld focuses on teaching Scouts to become knowledgeable consumers, rather than pushing them to become mechanics or mechanical engineers. “It’s a good opportunity to help them understand something that’s a vital part of their lives and not be intimidated by it,” he said. “In my mind, that should be one of the primary goals—to take away the fear of the unknown.” Add a little grease under the fingernails, and you’ve got the makings of a great merit-badge experience.

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Bray Barnes

Director, Global Security Innovative
Strategies

Bray Barnes is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, Silver
Beaver, Silver Antelope, Silver Buffalo, and Learning for Life Distinguished
Service Award. He received the Messengers of Peace Hero award from
the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and he’s a life member of
the 101st Airborne Association and Vietnam Veterans Association. Barnes
serves as a senior fellow for the Global Federation of Competitiveness
Councils, a nonpartisan network of corporate CEOs, university presidents, and
national laboratory directors. He has also served as a senior executive for the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, leading the first-responder program
and has two U.S. presidential appointments

David Alexander

Managing Member Calje

David Alexander is a Baden-Powell Fellow, Summit Bechtel Reserve philanthropist, and recipient of the Silver Buffalo and Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He is the founder of Caljet, one of the largest independent motor fuels terminals in the U.S. He has served the Arizona Petroleum Marketers Association, Teen Lifeline, and American Heart Association. A triathlete who has completed hundreds of races, Alexander has also mentored the women’s triathlon team at Arizona State University.

Glenn Adams

President, CEO & Managing Director
Stonetex Oil Corp.

Glenn Adams is a recipient of the Silver Beaver, Silver Antelope, Silver Buffalo, and Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He is the former president of the National Eagle Scout Association and established the Glenn A. and Melinda W. Adams National Eagle Scout Service Project of the Year Award. He has more than 40 years of experience in the oil, gas, and energy fields, including serving as a president, owner, and CEO. Adams has also received multiple service awards from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers.