breaking into a steering gear

had fun today tearing into a steering gear off of an international truck which is the same gear on the freightliner in the shop as well.

its pretty simple, a piston moves inside a sleep with a worm screw going through it. the piston has teeth notched out of it and the pitman arm has a cog on it that meshes with the teeth on the piston, as the steering wheel turns it turns the worm gear and moves the piston back and forth thus moving the pitman arm and turning the truck.

Steering suspension

Wrapping up alignments today, did two lazar alinements on the yellow international and in the beginning was half a degree toed out, when you want about a quarter of a degree toe in.

then with the string and tape measurements i did on the freightliner. the toe on the front axle was under a quarter inch toed in, which is good. and before fixing the rear drive axels it was about three inches off normal so we fixed that and got it running straight again, before messing it up for the next person.

Steering and suspension

Today me and a few others where able to hoist up the front end of a kenworth truck, pull the axel out from under it. and before we go putting it back Jeff has asked me and another student to make up some support columns  for the underside of the truck to put two 10 ton jack stands under it so it will leave the front end hanging out with nothing under it in the way. 

So i got a very detailed crash course in welding from jeff. just need to now is practice practice practice.

Brakes cont... videos

I finished all the assigned brakes for the class. 14 of them. 

Plus took apart an end on a forklift axel. Got to see the planetary gear train inside the hub as well as the brakes for it. even getting to use my tools for a while! 

a dirty tool is a happy tool in my book.

attached are my videos for the brake change and wheel hub adjustment on the white kenworth truck

please excuse the back ground noise.

pt 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1FWZYhldyg

pt 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EYHu2IGaLg&feature=relmfu

pt 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoRmf-9d1oc&feature=relmfu

pt 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb4VyWyPzVA&feature=relmfu

pt 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTNky7p8ZPM&feature=relmfu

pt 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skgqqVb-Y5A&feature=relmfu

pt 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tXcirsdxBM&feature=relmfu

pt 8

pt 9

pt 10

pt 11

pt 12

Brakes

over the last week or so working on brakes on a Frightliner, Kenworth, and International truck that are in the shop. inspecting wheel bearings, wheel seals, and slack adjusters making sure they are in specifications. 

Getting to use my tools i got having lots of fun with them.

Still trying to post my video i made for this and its giving me a hard time

end to electrical for the quarter

Just a little something to wrap up the Electrical part of the quarter.

If the military is using this then it will be on the roads soon enoughhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ovDFIJvUI

april 18th

sorry its been a bit since i updated last. On the 14th of april me and a buddy from class went to the PACCAR center in MT Vernon. Had a great time, saw lots of diffrent trucks and tests that they do to them. 

Still having "fun" on the test boards we are doing. its a lot nicer to not have everyone trying to grab for them so thats a plus. 

april 9th

Learning lots in school. Right now going over Electrical stuff, finding breaks, shorts, and opens in test circuit boards with multi meters. 

School

Wonderful feeling getting back to school at BTC, the first three days we have started working on basic electrical stuff, working on circuit boards to find faults in them. Asked if i could work on my nitro truck during open fridays and Jeff asked how it related to Diesel. I replied "they both have glow plugs" and he chuckled saying it would be a stretch to convince the front office. oh well got a good chuckle out of it and have to work on my truck on my own time then. All and all learning lots.

quarter ending and hours

I did the math for this quarter and have made the 300 Hour goal set by the school, i surpassed it by about 32 hours actually for a total of 332 hours. went in this morning after having put the 1957 Jeep FC 170 trans back together and up in the truck, and was told we have to pull it out so we can replace the throw out bearing completely. 

updated times

over the last couple weeks, i tallied up my hours, and i only have 25 more hours to go to reach my 300 mark. during that time, we have half way put the 57 Jeep FC back together. had a couple days where it was getting vans ready to go out to the oil refineries, and today was spent mostly locating a knock in the engine of a Ford 429 flatbed. by pulling spark plug wires one at a time, then locating the knock and pulling the oil pan off and looking at the bottom end of the engine. turns out the piston has a crack in it and is scratching the heck out of the cylinder walls 

upcoming month

I just got done adding up my last time car and it was 114 hours, add that to my 104 hours before and i have 218 hours and only 82 hours left to do this month before school starts again. i know i can get those in because i was told in a couple days we will be putting the 57 Jeep FC's clutch back together. ontop of other LOF's and other random services to pro-form i know i will get my needed hours then some. 

Catching up

from the 17th of Febuary, i have done a few big jobs, one was replacing the sway bar bushings on a ford mustang, then on the 20th replaced the pitmen arm on the chevy fuel and service truck they had, 

then last friday we replaced sparkplugs on a kia.

The week through the 6th and the 10th.

Mostly LOF's for the week, but on the 10th was the ball joints for the Arc truck. We where able to quickly get the ball joints out and new ones in between Noon and Two Thirty. 

Then the 13th, was not much to do so we washed lots of cars, and on the 14th was told to stay home because of the lack of work. 

Feb 4th and 6th

On the forth of February they "Arc" trucks came in for their bi monthly servicing. they are UPS style trucks. so we did three LOF's that day, found out one truck needs its ball joints replaced badly. so its comeing back this friday. then today we took the water pump off of a GMC moving truck and replaced it.

febuary 2nd

Tallied up my hours for my first month and it turns out to be 104 hours. no work on the third and going in on saterday the 4th to work on UPS style trucks for their service.

Jan 20th and 23rd

The 20th was spent fixing a gmc sierra's intake, turns out we where able to fix the previous problem we had and that we broke, then the afternoon of the 19th it came back steam pouring from it again turns out the head gasket failed. So on the 20th we spent the whole day taking the top of the engine intake off so we could replace the gaskets. that went easier than i expected and learned good things from it. the 23rd we changed the spark plugs on a ford f-450E. that was interesting because i don't like working on vans because they are always cramped and this was no exception. 

many things learned today. Jan 19

Many things learned today. The first thing is that in some of the larger trucks like the ford f-650 when you put it in park, it uses power strearing fluid to engage the emergancy brake. Then through getting too ahead of ourselves, myself and Tommy tried to take the coolent nut off the intake of a gmc 2500 and it sheared off. We didn't use any pennetrating fluid to loosen it up. Great lesson learned is to listen to what the boss says because he knows what he is doing.

Jan 16th

Snowing like crazy, not alot of mechanic stuff to do, washed 4 passenger vans and was told to go home for the rest of the day, and if it keeps snowing like it is on tuseday and wednesday to not come in because they wont have anything for me to do.

Starting my internship January 4th

Since starting I have helped replace a fuel pump on a Chevy flat bed truck. Done a brake job on a ford ranger and dodge 3500 flat bed. Wire a switch to the lift gate on a moving truck. Did an LOF on a ford 24 ft moving truck, and replace the bed on an 18 ft flat bed.