Finals Week

Finals week has me like:

K.I.S.S.

This past week in our A/C class, our teacher decide that he was going to give my group the responsibility to figure out why the air conditioning on a "customers" truck wasn't working. So Kera and I discussed what could be the problem... We hooked up the manifold gauge set to verify that there was refrigerant in the system. I went to print off a wiring diagram, and she checked all of the fuses.. we checked the relays.. our next move was to apply power to the compressor to see if the clutch was engaging.. when we applied power, we found out that it was engaging.. so on to figure out what else was causing the problem.. Kera had to leave to go to work, so I stayed over to finish it up.. I rechecked the relays, and then on to the fuses.. Taking another look at the wiring diagram, fuse 23 is the A/C clutch relay fuse. My teacher printed off the CJB fuse and relay information. Come to find out, fuse 23 was nowhere to be found, So we got another 20 amp fuse and put it in the spot it should have been, and the air conditioning has worked properly ever since. All of that work just to find out it was a fuse! So remember K.I.S.S.

I’m a little late on posting.. work and school have started catching up with me.. I have two jobs and am a full time student. So I do apologize for not posting on time. But anyway that’s enogh about me.. I’m going to talk about attitude this week.. Attitude is an important part of any job, not just jobs in the field. I completely understand if you have had a rough day.. but that does not give you the right to treat others like crap. Attitude is so important, instead of having an I don’t want to or I can’t attiude; try having I can do it attitude.

Its been a busy week, here is a picture of the valves out of my 08 Jetta. I'm keeping it a short blog tonight. 

Where is that machine?

Where is that machine?

You know, that one that thing that tells you what's wrong with the vehicle!

Those "machines" are the men and women working on your vehicle; walking, talking, diagnostic machines. They use the tools and equipment they own to solve the problems with your vehicle. Scan tools and meters are machines that can only do so much in the way of formulating a diagnosis. These devices provide strategic direction for the repairs needed, allowing the trained technicians to know a general path at which to take. The technicians are the "real" machines who have the ability and training to pinpoint what is wrong with the vehicle. But for some odd reason, the public likes to believe that there is a "magical" machine that does all the work. 

It's beyond me where people get the idea that we can just hook up a scan tool and all of your car problems magically disappear. I have been told many times by irate customers that fixing a car is not rocket science, so it shouldn't cost that much, or take that long. Diagnosing vehicles isn't always a walk in the park, it's endless hours of trying to figure out electrical issues, bolts breaking, and just the every day stresses of life in the field. You will always have that question of "how much longer, how much longer." Sometimes the best we can do is show up, and never give up!

Practice makes perfect

We often say practice makes perfect, I have been working at Schafer’s for over a year now. One of the first things I was taught to do was alignments. Alignments pay for 45 minuets, that seems reasonable right?!! When I first started them, it took me every bit of an hour or more to do them. That includes checking tire pressure, ball joints, tie rods, and really any suspension components. I have gotten pretty good at alignments over the past year, of course there are still times where the tie rod nut won’t come loose and I have to heat it.. but that’s just part of everyday life in the field. I’m not saying that I’m perfect at them, but practice definitely helps. I can usually (assuming that nothing goes wrong) have an alignment done within or under a half an hour. I think one of the most important things to being successful at any job is practice. You can’t just expect to be perfect without putting forth any effort. When it comes to doing alignments, I’m all for it, yeah sometimes you don’t get it done as quickly as you like, but that’s okay. So, just remember practice makes “perfect.”

This is some of the things you see when customers tell you they work on their own vehicles...

I'm going to keep this blog short this week, I seem to have a bunch of work piling up. 

This week we finished testing our coolant temp sensors, and we started taking the radiator out of the dodge. At work we had a Subaru come in for a UVI (used vehicle inspection). I was told that it has an exhaust leak, and I needed to find it... I think I found the problem... 

I will never understand what goes through the minds of those engineering vehicles.. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put the oil filter in the middle of the exhaust obviously has never had to change the oil after a vehicle has been running for several hours.. 

We divided into our teams, and got our assigned vehicles. In my Electronic Diesel Engines class, we were assigned to the 09 Cascadia. Sometimes I think my teacher likes to give my team difficult tasks just to see how we react.. In this case, we are taking out the coolant temperature sensor.. That doesn't sound too hard right?... WRONG! While looking at this thing I'm thinking how in the hell are we supposed to get this thing out?!? We had to take a bracket off just to get to the plug.. then the amount of space you have to try and fit a wrench to crack the sensor loose is unbelievably small.. I have to get a wrench and shove my arm under the frame and try to get to the sensor. With a little bit of time, patience and a few busted knuckles I finally got it loose.. That was just the beginning, we then had to get a catch pan to drain the coolant out, and ended up with coolant all over the floor, but that's nothing floor dry cant fix! 

New semester

It's the beginning of a new semester.. Nothing has really changed. Just a few more rules and regulations to follow. The first couple weeks we just went over the rules and we divided into teams like always.