Ignition Switches

Hyundai Steering noise

New Sockets from Snap On Tools

Low oil pressure warning

Gotcha Gremlins

 

Tim never thought he would have a problem with fixing cars. He had a knack for finding the problem, usually within the first few moments and considered himself a very clever mechanic who took pride in his work. People brought their cars to him from every part of town and his boss admired his work.



Just about the time you think you've got it all figured out, along comes a problem car that refuses to be fixed. This happens to every mechanic who has been around the business for any length of time. It's as if the gremlin of car problems sends a tough one your way just to keep you on your toes and knock you down a peg or two if you are getting too cocky.



The time was right for Tim to get put in his place by that gremlin. The car was a late 80's Camry and it had a multitude of seemingly unrelated problems. The owner insisted that all the problems started after he tuned it up. All he had done was slap in a set of plugs, check the timing, change the oil and filters and sent it on its way.



Now it had a bad case of the hesitations. Once it got up to speed, it performed just fine. Also, it kept running down the battery and was hard to start. As soon as the car was back in his stall, he checked for stored codes in the computer.



There were no codes. One thing he did notice was the radiator cooling fan kept running, even though the temperature gauge was in the normal range.



He decided to check a wiring diagram to find out what would make the cooling fan run all the time. He kept asking himself, "Why me, what did I do to deserve this?" The wiring diagram wasn't much help. The cooling fan running all the time seemed to escape logic -- at least as far as he could tell from the wiring diagram.



For some reason Tim decided to start with the thermal sensing switch. As luck would have it, when he grounded the wire going to the switch, the fan stopped running. Closer inspection of the wiring connector turned up a clue. The connector had been wallowed out and was probably not even touching the switch.



Using needle-nose pliers, he tightened the connector and plugged it back onto the switch. To his relief, the fan quit running.



What about the car's new-found hesitation? Maybe a good 'ol injection cleaning was in order. An hour later, after hooking up the cleaner and giving the injectors a good dose of cleaning solvent, the problem remained unchanged.



"Maybe it has something to do with the timing?" he thought. He tried bumping the timing up and back a few degrees, both without any real effect.



"How about an exhaust restriction?" he thought. Minutes later he was under the car breaking loose the catalyst. A test drive revealed no change. "What would my vo-tech teacher say? What would he tell me to do? Probably say, 'back to basics boy'." Okay. Back to the basics. After checking the compression, he spent the rest of the day with the scope and exhaust analyzer.



Maybe it was a lazy oxygen sensor. He ordered a new one and decided to call it a day. On his way home, he was going to stop in and ask his friend, Sid, about the car. Sid was a Toyota specialist. Tim was glad he stopped and talked with Sid because he was given a whole laundry list of things to check. He could hardly wait until the next day to dig in again.



First he replaced the O2 sensor, but it only helped a little, but the sag was definitely still there. Going down the list, he removed and checked the air boot between the vane air flow meter and the throttle body. No cracks. Next he carefully removed and cleaned all the engine compartment wiring connectors, paying special attention to the one under the battery and on the airflow meter.



Still, the test drive proved nothing had changed.



"What about the vane airflow meter itself?" he thought. He took it off and inspected the action of the air door. Even though it didn't hang up or have any roughness in its movement, he decided it should be replaced.



Later that day with the new airflow meter secured in place, the problem persisted. "It must be the stupid computer after all," he reasoned. The following day he installed a new    computer and found out his hunches were still wrong, wrong, wrong.



The car owner was getting really mad about all the time he was taking with the car and was making nasty threats to his boss. The boss was getting very testy, especially since Tim had already sunk a small fortune in trying to capture the Camry's evasive gremlin. Tim decided to pay Sid another visit.



Sid said it sounded like a carbon problem. "Camry's are supposed to grow carbon in the combustion chamber, intake manifold and intake valves. Pull the manifold and clean all the carbon out.



It's probably full of carbon." Sid was right about the carbon. It had a good share of it, especially on the intake valves. Using spray carb cleaner and several small wire brushes he was able to clean the intake area pretty good without having to remove the cylinder heads. He figured he had it for sure this time.



"Wrong again honey!" he said out loud as he stepped on the gas and the car lost power.



"Man, this one has really got me down... time to pay Sid another visit, this time with the car!"



Sid's mouth dropped open when he saw him pull up in the car with a sour look on his face. As Tim got out of the car he held up a thumbs-down sign.



At first Sid was speechless. "Nothing has helped? You did everything I suggested?" Tim replied, "Nothing. Nada. Nix. Zip. Zilch."



Suddenly Sid's face brightened. "Let me look at the rotor." Tim said,



"Sid, this is not an ignition problem. The stinkin' car just hesitates -- and is a bear to get started when it is cold. Maybe the cold start injector, maybe the throttle position sensor. But why the rotor?"



Sid replied "Just a hunch..."



Sid unscrewed the distributor cap mounting bolts and grabbed a jumper lead from his box. He clipped one end of the jumper to the coil secondary terminal and held the other end just above the center of the distributor rotor.



"Crank it over!" he yelled. Tim twisted the ignition key while the starter motor cranked.



"Hold it!" shouted Sid. "Come check this out."



"Here, Tim, hold this lead just above the rotor. Now I'm going to crank the starter. You watch for a spark."



Tim said "Yep, got a spark. So what? I know the spark is good."



Sid countered, "Yeah, but the rotor isn't supposed to conduct like that. It's grounded right through to the distributor shaft.” “Look,” he said as he pulled the rotor from its place and examined the underside.



Sure enough there was the faintest trace of rust where it mounted on the shaft.



"But how can that cause hesitation?" Tim asked.



"Easy," Sid replied. "When you give it the gas, there is a need for more spark to fire the richer mixture. The extra resistance in the spark plug gap makes the secondary seek another path to ground. The rotor leaks just enough voltage to cause a slight misfire and hesitation."



"And when I hook it up to the scope, everything's normal because it isn't under load," said Tim.



Sid reached into a top drawer and pulled out a used rotor and gave it to Tim. "Here, lets put this back in the car and you take it for a spin and see if the problem is gone. If not, come right back." Tim didn't return.



The car owner was charged for the injector cleaning, carbon removal, distributor cap, rotor and oxygen sensor. His boss put the computer and airflow meter somewhere in the stock room, hopefully for some future need. Tim got paid two hours for his efforts and went home with a lesson he will never forget. Chalk one up to the car gremlin.

Shhht…Clunk!

Basically, there are two scenarios when it comes to car repairs. There’s the
successful, and the unsuccessful. And each of these categories has two sub
categories. The first and second categories are the knowing and unknowing.

First, the knowing are those repairs the owner knows all about, no surprises.
No hidden or unneeded parts added to the final bill, either. You know what
you’re gonna get, and that’s what it takes. Nothing more, nothing less.
Real predictable.

The second successful category is the unknowing successful. Your car breaks
without warning. You don’t know what it needs to fix it, and don’t care. You
just pay someone to make the problem go away. This category leaves the owner
uncertain if the repairs were actually needed, and he or she is not ever happy
about it. They don’t get involved in the repair enough to find out the root
cause of the breakdown in the first place.

Most people are this type of car owner. And because of this, most people
don’t have a good feeling about their car repairs. They never know what they
don’t know about the repair. And what’s worse, because they never know, they
don’t do anything to prevent it. If they did, most of their car problems would
never happen. These people are the ones who don’t believe in preventative
maintenance. They orchestrate their own car problems.

The third and forth categories are the knowing and unknowing unsuccessful.

Third, the knowing unsuccessful, is an easy one. These are the people who take
their car to be repaired and go away with the same problem, only their wallet
has been lightened in the process. They know they got screwed, but they don’t go
back anyway. They let their feet do the talking and bounce from shop to shop
until someone puts them out of their misery and fixes their car.

Forth, there’s the unknowing unsuccessful, the worst of all. That’s what this
Mechanic’s Nightmare is all about. These are the people who are screwed, and
never know it. Or, by the time they realize it, it’s too late to do anything
about it. This is the place where Mr. Rip U. Off works. This is the category
that gives the auto repair industry a black eye. This is the type of repair shop
reported on the 6 O-clock TV News sting operation advisory alert.

When the National Association of Attorneys General did a study to try and find
the root cause of why so many people get ripped off on their car repairs, the
results were not surprising. But they were disappointing to the scandal-seeking
news media. To their chagrin, it turned out that mechanics aren’t so dishonest
after all. In fact, the study didn’t find they were any more dishonest than any
other trade, such as doctors or lawyers. But here’s the big surprise. They found
that most of the time, greater than eight out of ten, the problem was a simple
communication breakdown.

But this isn’t the kind of fodder that makes it on the news. Ripoffs are something
everyone wants to hear about. Honesty doesn’t pull in TV audiences. So, the study
and its findings has sadly fallen on deaf ears. Or rather, it was a non-story. No
one ran it. People want to hear about unsuccessful repairs that happen to the
knowing. People want to commiserate with those who have suffered. They want to
wallow in their suffering, and seek out and consume their tales of woe.

In due course, and in keeping with that vein, I’m going to tell you stories,
too. These stories fit all four of the scenarios listed above. Both successful and
unsuccessful, knowing and unknowing.

To start with, let me say that my experience has born out the findings. I
personally know that auto mechanics are among the most honest and hardest-working
of all trades. My bros’ have gotten a bad rap, that’s for sure! Enough said, so let’s
get on with the story.

Lets begin by talking about noises. Noises are freaky. To some people a howl
is a moan. To some a moan is a creak. And so on. Some noises are even imaginary.
And some are made up. This first story falls in the category of successful for
the unknowing.

There was a service writer who was employed at a Mercedes dealership in a
major city where I worked. His name was Ralphie, and he liked to make up noises.
Especially ball joint noises. He’d take a customer’s car for a test drive and
come back claiming he heard the lower ball joint knocking. Kinda’ a Clunk
on Bumps noise. No matter how hard I tried, I never could hear it.

But let me tell you, that dude sold a whole bunch of lower ball joint
replacements! Man, he could really get rich folks by the ball joints! And little
did they care. They were unknowing. And their cars were important, so they would
just say, How long's it going to take? Or. When can I have my car back? They
didn’t give a hoot about the dollar amount. It was probably just a business
expense anyway. They’d have to use the Jaguar. What an inconvenience!

Ralphie wasn’t malicious or anything. In fact, he was a down-right nice guy.
He just wanted to fatten up his paycheck a bit when things were slow. The owner
didn’t know. He was from the unknowing group. The tech who did the replacement
didn’t know. He was just doing what he was told.

The whole process was seamless. No one was the wiser. That’s how it always is
with a successful repair and the unknowing owner. Kind of like a quiet bloodletting.

Then there’s the unsuccessful and knowing. The story goes like this: The guy
walks in to the local dealer with his car problem. The service writer greets him
as he drives up and begins to take down all the important information. Then he
gets around to asking the guy why he’s decided to pay a visit to this fine
establishment. And does he need a ride to work?

The guy says, "Yeah. You see, I’ve got this clunk-on-bumps problem. Sometimes,
when going over a bump, I hear this noise. Like a clunk or something. Maybe a knock.
Or is it tap? I dunno. But it’s freaky. And I don’t like it. Maybe you could check it
out, huh?"

The adviser, who’s already checked the odometer reading and knows the car is
no longer in warranty, figures this as a no-brainer. He thinks, Let’s see. Lots of
miles on the ticker. Don’t have to worry about the warranty. The most likely
suspect would be shocks! It’s gonna’ need a set of shocks.

He thinks this is a safe bet, and the owner will go for it because it’s not
a big ticket item. An easy sell. And maybe we can find more things once we get it
in the shop. So he writes on the repair order, Replace shocks. Then he tells the guy
he’s gonna’ need a set of shocks, and to sign right here. So the guy thinks this is
the right thing to do, and he signs his life away.

Then, he gets the car back, pays the bill, and is driving home. He hears the clunk
on the first bump he comes across, and he realizes he was taken. Well, not that it
was done intentionally. He was taken because of the problem that the Attorneys
General study talked about. The actual problem was communication. If the mechanic
was told to diagnose a problem with clunk on bumps, instead of being told to replace
the shocks, he might have had a fighting chance that his problem would have been
corrected. Instead, the guy’s car repair was unsuccessful, and he certainly knows
about it.

Communication problems just like this are primarily responsible for the bad
image of the mechanic. In reality, there was no ill will, malice, or evil intent.
The repair was unsuccessful because of the system, not because of any one individual.
Sure, the service advisor didn’t have to sell the man a set of shocks. Sure. But
shocks are a common cause for that type of complaint at that mileage. What you’d
call a sure bet. And of course, the owner could have insisted that the tech be paid
some diagnostic time to drive the car and witness the problem before beginning any
repairs. And finally, sure, the tech could have insisted on being paid some
diagnostic time in order to verify the problem. But none of that happened. Why?
Get real. This is the real world out here, and everyone is too busy. That’s why.

Okay, OK. Maybe the man did need shocks. But the problem was the mechanic didn’t
make the diagnosis. The wise-ass service advisor did. Not. Maybe if the mechanic
was given a chance to check it out before the service advisor went and messed
things up by suggesting shocks. But, then I can see the service advisor’s point
of view, too. He wants to get the guy to commit to a dollar amount for something.
Maybe it’s not going to be a set of shocks that fixes this car. Maybe it’s upper
shock mounts, or even a ball joint. Whatever.

So he’s just trying to usher the guy on his way out the door as fast as possible
so he can get on to the next customer who’s been standing there next to his car
and patiently waiting in the service aisle. He assumes that the mechanic will
know what’s causing the clunk and will report back to him. He assumes. Now we all
know about assume. Right?

The mechanic is already up to his ass with alligators nipping at him. His
IN box is over brimming with work. And then there are the jobs he didn’t get to
yesterday. Parts have come in for jobs he opened up last week which he’s getting
grief for not having finished. And to make his day complete, he’s already got a
ten-o’clock headache!

So, he cranks the work out as fast as he can, and by early afternoon starts
looking for some gravy work so he can slide. He’s been saving the RO with Replace
front shocks, the one that started out as a clunk on bump complaint. The tech
pulls his copy of the RO, which has by now already had the parts listed and tallied
on it. He walks over and picks up the shocks that await him at the parts counter.

Once he’s finished installing the shocks, using his fancy pneumatic on-the-car
installer tool, he parks the car and knocks off for the day. He’s feeling good
because he beat the flat rate by more than half! Easy money, a quick in and out.

Now I ask you, did that mechanic rip off the customer? Did the guy's car
really need those shocks? Should the tech check the car for the complaint? Should he
have questioned the service advisor? It may seem odd, but the answer to all four
questions is no. First, and I’m sure you knew this was coming, the car certainly
didn’t need shocks. Second, the tech isn’t paid to check a problem. Unless he’s
instructed to do so, he ain’t gonna. Why should he? He’s not in the habit of
giving away his time free. Right?

When you go and see a doctor, he doesn’t just hand out pills free without
charging for his diagnosis. He may even decide to run some additional lab tests
on you. Not only do you pay the doctor to look at you, but you pay some other
doctor to look at your lab tests and to make a diagnosis based on those tests.
And you wind up getting billed from the first doctor who examined you, from the
lab for the tests, and from the doctor who looked at the test results. Have you
heard people complain about rising health care costs?

So, bringing this all back home to the mechanic here in this story, he didn’t
get paid to check the car first. The car owner trusted the advice of the service
advisor, as in this case, replace the shocks. This was assumed to be his problem. It
had a high likelihood.

So, the answer is most certainly NO. The tech shouldn’t be made to give
away his hard-earned time to freely check the car first. Not unless he’s told to
do so, and given some diagnostic time. But in this case, that didn’t happen. He
was given an RO that simply told him to replace the shocks.

Then, should the tech question the service writer? Not. Why should he? It’s
not in his job description. He doesn’t have time. If he just minds his P’s and Q’s,
he’s free and clear of any flack that might come his way if the customer bitches.
After all, he wasn’t paid to check out the car in the first place and to see if it
needed shocks. Hell, he’s not psychic enough to read the customer’s mind and to
figure out why he asked for shocks in the first place.

One of my favorite rip-off stories concerns a shop owner whose shop is
located in the Nation’s Capital. This shop owner keeps a customer black list. No
kidding. He actually has a list with the names of people who’s cars are banned. And
if the customer happens to come back, he or she is told to vacate the premises
immediately or the police will be called.

You see, there’s this greedy shop owner who’s waging his own personal war
against the knowing. You’d better look out if you wind up having an unsuccessful
repair at this shop. When you show up at his door with a clunk on bumps, and the
shop owner or his staff sell you shocks, you’d better not complain when the
shocks don’t fix your problem! Because if you do, you’re history. Really!

If The Boss says you need shocks, you need shocks. And when the shocks
don’t fix the problem, Mr. Authority comes back at you again saying that you most
certainly needed them, and you also need ball joints and upper strut mount
bushings. You’d better not question his diagnosis. You’d better not argue. Just
curtsy and hand him your money. And just so long as you remain the unknowing,
you’re business is welcome.

Customers who bitch and complain about the cost of the repair had better
watch out! The boss man angers easily, and he’ll quickly tell you to take your
business somewhere else and to never come back. And your name gets put on his
black list. After all, there’s plenty more customers in the D.C metropolitan
area. And even better, many of the customers are transient and will never come
back anyway. Diplomats, attaches, and their staff. Lots of money and lots more
where they came from. Mr. High and Mighty’s shop doesn’t need a good reputation,
just lots of advertising, like full page ads in the Sunday paper.

Speaking of advertising, one foreign car repair shop in Tampa bought
full-page advertising in the phone book. Hard to believe. No, it wasn’t a car
dealership. However, they did sell used cars. They did have a parts storefront
too. Thanks to tourist dollars, which are in abundance in Florida, and that big
ad in the phone book, our phone never stopped ringing.

The person who you spoke with was Ed. Most convincing of all people I’ve
ever met, Ed. He was the service writer and could talk a duck out of his feathers.
Ed came on ever so gentle and mild, drawing in his prey with sickening sweetness.
You’d never think he was capable of anything but your best interests. Then he
would pounce on you, turning into a pirate. Once he got a hold of your car, man
you were toast. He was so excellent at making up and creating so many wild
scenarios. Non-existent problems. Once he got your car in the shop, your wallet
would simply empty right out.

And of course you never came back after experiencing Ed turning from Mr.
Nice Guy to Jose Gaspar, the pirate! It was an amazing sight to see. After the
customer saw the bill, then had a moment to pick herself up off the floor, the
screaming would begin.

Ed’s mild mannered face would turn into a Jose Gaspar, and he’d go into
his scary routine. Systematically, he’d attack and belittle the customer for their
negligence. He’d blame them for the way they treated their car. He’d harp on and
on about how bad it was before we fixed it.

It was absolutely amazing how a clunk on bumps complaint could turn that
money crank! By the time he finished with you, you got all four shocks, both motor
and transmission mounts, a couple of ball joints, maybe both upper and lower ball
joints if he figured he could get away with it, and some custom exhaust work to
boot. Oh, including a complete set of exhaust hangers. Whew! He was brutal. And
if you came in with a starting problem, you always got a starter. Maybe injectors
or a carburetor, too. Not to mention the usual cap rotor, plugs, wires, and ignition
coil. And maybe throw in a sensor or two.

But, the Ed story is unusual. Interesting, but unusual. As I have said
again and again, almost all mechanics and repair shops are honest. The National
Attorneys General study showed that the whole problem of rip-off auto repairs
really stems from problems with communication. No Duh.

I just saw a statistic that said something about how mechanics spend
eighty percent of their time trying to figure out what’s wrong. The rest of
it is easy, with only 20% of the time needed doing the fix. Wow. Four-fifths
guesswork. One-fifth fixing. Pretty scary, huh? Roger that. I mean, it’s gotten
so complicated that even a genius can’t figure it out anymore.

They’ve got dealer service bulletins, independent service bulletins,
dealer tech hotlines, independent tech hotlines, and of course, call-in radio
shows. And still, people can’t get their cars fixed right the first time! And
why not? Well, according to that Attorneys General study, the whole problem is
communication. Right. Like the guy knows the service advisor is telling him the
straight story when he says he needs shocks?

So, does the mechanic mean to rip off the customer most of the time? No.
Usually the customer rips himself off by not communicating his problem. The rest
of the unsuccessful and knowing people with problem repairs can be chalked up to
a bad diagnosis. And the bad diagnosis resulted in an unnecessary repair. The
unsuccessful as in unsuccessful repair and the knowing. The owner clearly sees
that the problem is still there.

Then there’s poor preventative maintenance habits. And since lack of
maintenance doesn’t fall into one of the four categories, we’re not gonna’ go
there. To put a wrap on my lecturing, I want to share with you one of my favorite
rip-off tales. A story that falls in the category of the unsuccessful and
knowing. Over the years I’ve been told this story by many different techs, as
well as shop owners and other auto industry personnel. Here’s it is, with a few
embellishments of my own:

I hate my job. I am an assembly line worker at an automotive plant in
Michigan. I build cars. Boring. Same thing hour after hour, day after day. Yeah,
sure the pay is great. Yeah, sure the Union benefits are terrific. Yeah, sure.
Dull. Yawn. Snore. ZZZzzzzzz. Someone wake me up when it’s quitting time. I’ll do
ANYTHING to fight this boredom!

Hey, I know what. I’ll play a practical joke on someone. I’ll think of a
real good one to pull. A real whopper. A real wing-dinger. One that will drive you
nuts-o, daddy-o. It’ll be a real zinger. Not an easy one. No. A hum-dinger. A
mind blower. Now lets see.

Okay, I’ve got it. I’ll make a time capsule. Put a message inside and seal
it up r-e-a-l good. Seal it up in a nice piece of metal pipe, a nice little pipe
with my note inside. And I’ll leave it behind for someone to find. Someone far away,
far, far from today. Someone in the future. A message for someone to find real
far off in the future.

I’ll just drop this nice time capsule in side of this body panel, and
leave it for someone to find way off in the future. And it’ll rattle around in
all its glory, clanking and clunking its way through the day, until finally
someone discovers it’s there. Until someone cuts open this welded shut body
panel and finds my capsule inside. He he, he he!

Noise? What noise? has been the routine for so many years. Dozens of
techs have been assigned the job of finding the evasive Ssshhhh clunk noise.
Hundreds of dollars spent, with nothing but the same old sad report, No problem
found. Of course, the owners had to pay the diagnostic fee, along with environmental
surcharges and shop fees. And the noise persisted.

Eventually, someone does find it. But not until the first owner of the
car gives up trying to get his clunk on stops problem fixed. He trades it in.
The next owner fights like hell with the dealership that sold it to him, claiming
he got stuck with a lemon. And the car passes through a couple of other owners'
hands until a savy repair tech uses a high-tech listening device to track down
the location of the noise.

Inside a body panel. Something loose inside this panel. He cuts open the
body panel to find out what’s loose inside, and retrieves the time capsule. Fishing
it out with his long-skinny grabber tool, he retrieves the metal capsule. And
when he unscrews the cap and looks inside, he finds the note left by the unhappy
practical joker factory worker so many years ago. Unrolling the scrolled-up
piece of paper he reads.......

Editors note: This shhtt..clunk! story has been around for decades, and has
become an urban legend for auto mechanics. The kind of car is usually a Cadillac.
The time capsule has been anything from a metal film can, prescription bottle,
and pipe. The location has been inside the frame, body, and kick panels. The sound
it makes is always the same: An intermittent clunk that’s accompanied by a hissing
sound, but happening only when braking, sometimes. The owner reports hearing it come
from under the seat, inside the door, in the dash, and the trunk.

The lessons to be learned from this Mechanic’s Nightmare are:

· Always expect the unexpected.

· Do whatever is necessary to be a witness of the problem.

· Make it happen, then record the circumstances involved.

· Look for connections (or clues) between the circumstances involved when it happens and the actual problem occurrence.

· Beware that the problem you’re dealing with may have been built into the vehicle right from the factory.

Honda Foibles

The Game

Working as a mechanic at different car dealerships has been interesting, both good and bad. There are rewards and punishments, both deserved and undeserved. The rewards are steady work, good pay, and good working conditions. One punishment is having to do warranty work where you get paid by the factory time—which is never enough. And then there’s the issue of boredom.



I worked at Aston Martin, Chrysler, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lotus, Mercedes- Benz, Peugeot, Rolls-Royce, Saab, Toyota, and Volkswagen dealerships. There were many good times. Oh, the exhilarated feeling of the g-force on my body when test driving a Ferrari or Lambo. The brisk feel of taking a corner at high speeds, the spit wanting to fly out of your mouth sideways. And the pompous air from cruising along in a Rolls-Royce, sitting in the company of all that burl-wood interior.



Being a dealer tech has also doled out some of the most trying times in my career as a mechanic. It hasn’t been so rosy either. By far, the biggest downside of being a dealership tech is boredom. Big time boredom. Routine services, day after day, week after week. B-o-r-i-n-g! Of all the dealerships, working at the Mercedes dealership in Palo Alto made me almost lose my sanity due to boredom.



Einstein said when you keep doing the same thing over and over again, and expect different results, you’re insane. Well, I’m here to tell you that I went insane at that place. Day after day, week after week, doing the same routine service on the exact same types of cars. I really lost my marbles.



I had to invent a game in order to keep from totally losing it. I mean, I wanted to run screaming out the door and into the street! So I invented this game that I would play with myself. No one else knew about it. My game was a memory testing game. Here’s how it worked:



I would roll my Hazet service cart up to my toolbox and load up all of the tools that I would need, in order to carry our a certain type of service. The game was to see if I picked up every tool needed. I would take away points for each additional trip that I had to take back to my toolbox to retrieve a tool that I had forgotten to pick up. In order to win the game, I would have to complete the service, and not have to go back after a single tool.



In a way, this was a great distraction and provided enough of a mental challenge that helped keep me from going bonkers.



Being a typical Mercedes-Benz dealership, we offered a number of factory services, the most common being a “C” service—which was basically a lube-oil-filter service. And this was the easiest service because you only needed a few tools to carry it out. But a major service, like an “E” service was much more involved, and required a whole host of tools. The biggest part was a valve adjustment. It also included a power steering fluid and filter service, along with a host of other operations.



The Germans are known for their efficiency. The owner of that dealership was very true to form in that manner. I like to be efficient too, and my “getting all the tools” game made me even more efficient than anyone else. And that didn’t go unnoticed by the owner either. My productivity report was consistently the highest in the dealership, primarily because I completed the job with less effort. My tool game saved me countless trips back and forth between the car and my toolbox.



And to fight boredom and looming insanity, I worked my method so I would carry out all the service operations on one side of the car before I went over to take care of the other side. I imagined myself a robot that only moved as necessary. I tried to make no unneeded motions. Each job operation was carried out with absolute determination and precision. And when I was done, every step had been executed exactly in order, every tool needed was within easy reach, and I was standing on the correct side of the car to complete the particular operation required.



For one thing, the owner could also see how efficient I was by the number of cars I was able to service. And by being so efficient, I was able to crank out more cars than anyone else at the dealership. This meant the dollar amount I produced outpaced even the 22-year veteran employee, which made me into a valuable worker. But it didn’t come without its drawbacks either. For one thing, it made me unpopular because I was businesslike and unsociable. I didn’t jabber with my co-workers much, and concentrated only on what I was doing.



I had to. If I engaged in social conversation with another mechanic, I would lose my train of thought and forget a step or miss a tool. Then I would have to go back to the other side of the car or raise the car a second time in order finish something I neglected to do the first time. Or I would have to go back to my toolbox to retrieve another tool. So, in order to keep my concentration, I didn’t talk.



Mind you, this was a union shop. We were paid a salary, and there wasn’t any incentive to work quickly. We got paid the same, regardless of our productivity. “Just stay busy” was the rule of the day. And if you walk back and forth between the car and your toolbox twenty times, that’s ok—because you still look busy. And for everyone else in the shop, that’s what they did.



But not me. I was different. I was fighting boredom and was busy engaged in my own game. And being more productive for it made me feel good about myself at the end of the day. Otherwise I would become insane, doing the same things over and over again.



Unbeknownst to me, I had earned the owner’s regard for my salient efforts. But, this didn’t make Steve, the service manager very happy. He was best buddies with Chan, the shop foreman. My fastidiousness made them feel threatened somehow, and they were suspicious of my work. They must have figured that I wasn’t doing my job correctly. Maybe because I finished doing each service so quickly. I was beating the allocated factory time by half!



I remember what happened one day when I was parking a car I had just finished servicing. I saw Chan under the hood of a car that I worked on earlier that day. I walked close enough to see that he was re-checking the valve adjustment I had already completed as part of the service.



“He was checking on my work to see if I did it correctly!” I thought to myself as I saw what he was doing. “He doesn’t trust me!” I thought, feeling both angry and insulted. Warily, I walked up to Chan and said, “Everything OK?” He smiled and said, “Sure. Fine. Just fine. Maybe just a little tight, but no problem.” And after that I never heard another word about it.  



Then there was that one morning I’ll never forget. The one that haunts me still, and will no doubt haunt me for the rest of my life. A day that I wish I could erase, that I could cut from the script, that could be edited out of this movie I call my life. Everyone has some skeletons in the closet. This is mine.



That day started out just like any other day. My in-box contained the usual assortment of repair orders. And as usual, they were routine services. Chan got all the interesting work. The rest of us lackeys got the same old routine stuff. The first one was a “C” service with the words, “Customer wait” highlighted on it. Because of my efficiency, I usually wound up with the “customer wait” jobs because I was able to complete them so quickly.



I sipped my coffee while I stood next to the 300D, waiting for the oil to drain. Before I raised the car, I had already unbolted the oil filter canister top and lifted up on the huge filter. I did this to break the filter’s lower seal in the container, so the oil hung up in the canister could drain out. This was done before I raised the car, so that by the time the oil had drained from the pan, the filter and canister would be empty too.



By doing this operation first, the filter wouldn’t leave a trail of nasty oil drips as I carried it from the canister to the drain pan. Less drips, less cleanup, less wasted time. And you don’t even want to think about how nasty dirty diesel oil is to try and clean up! One drop on a customer’s finish could cause a major uproar. You’ll pay hell trying to get it off the shiny painted fender, and not leave incriminating evidence behind.



Clean, clean, clean! It must be kept clean. The car must be spotless when you’re done. You can’t leave any evidence of your work. No smudges, no fingerprints, no tracking marks. Our uniforms had to be clean, our shoes grease-free and our work area spotless—including floors that were clean enough to eat from. And one unintended oil drip on a shiny Mercedes fender could result in a wasted twenty minutes in removing it from the paint including wax and polishing. And even then, you may still catch hell if the owner could see any evidence of your cleanup.



For this reason we always had fender covers draped over the entire work area, and faced dismissal if we didn’t. And if some oil or grease got on your uniform, we were to change into a fresh uniform immediately. We had to look good at all times. After all, a customer might want to inspect the shop and see how we looked! Shoes shined, uniforms clean, hair combed, floor spick-and-span. Boring!



While the oil drained out, I would do the services under the car. Inspect the hoses, water pump, motor mounts, driveshaft couplings, tires, brake pads, and exhaust system. Suddenly, as I turned around I almost ran over the customer! There he was, standing right in my face. And even worse, he started chatting incessantly, like there’s no tomorrow.



By now you’ve probably heard someone say how insurance regulations prevent customers from going into the work area. Well, at this dealership, that wasn’t true. There were certain customers who were allowed to wander wherever they wanted. Either they knew the owner, or the service manager—and were considered “privileged customers”.



Certain people were allowed to walk into the service bay and hang out with us while their car was serviced. Usually, they hung out with Chan. I had never had anyone come into my bay. But on this particular morning this customer was there standing next to me under the car and annoying me.



At first, I was amused and entertained by this break in my routine. I didn’t see it as a threat, as I should have, and listened politely as he jabbered away. But, I had suffered so much from boredom, I looked at him as a sort of reprieve. It was just like Einstein said. I was looking for a diversion to change things. And because of it, I made a terrible mistake. Instead of politely asking him to excuse me while I finished his car, I listened to him. I let him distract my attention.



Soon, his incessant jabber became more annoying. It was as if he had saved up all of his questions for years, and was pouring them out machine-gun style. He was asking me “Would you check this?” and “What about that? Why are you doing that? What does that mean? It that good or bad?” On and on he went. His mouth never stopped.



It was like he had diarrhea of the mouth, he just couldn't stop talking. And unbeknown to me, my attention was being sidetracked. His incessant questioning demanded my attention. It became so irritating that I wanted to tell him to shut up.



To make matters even worse, he kept standing very close to me. Now that really gave me the heebie-jeebies! Every time I turned there he was in my way. I had to walk around him to get at the various things I needed to do. He reminded me of a overly-friendly puppy that’s always in the way—right underfoot. He was a pest and I couldn't wait to finish so I could get away from him.



But! Since he was a privileged character, I didn’t want to treat him with disrespect. After all, he may be the president of some local big company, or a personal friend of the owner. “Stow your anger. Kids gloves. Treat customer with kids gloves. Just get finished and he’ll be out of your hair,” I thought to myself.



Finally the service was completed and I would be rid of my pest. Ironically, I couldn’t wait to return to my private and boring routine. Next, I took it for a short test drive around the block, as was the dealership policy. Then all hell broke loose. I was barely a block away from the shop when the engine began making a knocking sound that grew in intensity.



This was a sound unlike the usual diesel clackety-clack. It was much lower and deeper. Then the red oil pressure light winked on and I suddenly realized what I had done. I was hearing the rod bearings. They were making that noise because there was no oil pressure.



I had been in such a hurry to get away from the irritating customer that I forgot to put oil back into the engine! The jabbering customer had broken my routine. I had become distracted. The customer’s battery of questions and jabber had not only distracted me, but caused me to rush. And I forget the most crucial step—to refill the oil! Now I was in big trouble—and would probably lose my job because of it!



With my head bowed, I sat in the service managers office waiting for the dealership owner to arrive. Then, when he came into the room, I pleaded with him to let me keep my job. I offered to repay the dealership for the ruined motor and to install it without pay. With an expectant wife, this would have been a very bad time to be without a job!



Well, everything turned out okay. I was so well liked by the dealership because of my work habits, I was allowed to keep my job. The owner of the car got a new engine, and I never saw him again. I agreed to pay back the dealership for the ruined engine, which I did by working overtime after hours, off the clock. It took me over a month to earn enough to pay for my mistake. A mistake I should have never have made. A mistake I’ll never forget!



The lessons to be learned from this nightmare are:



If you’re a shop owner, don’t let your mechanics be distracted while they work.

If you’re a mechanic, remember that one break in your train of thought can result in a big mistake.

Even minor distractions can cause disastrous results.

Mechanical repair involves a process of many small steps. Concentration is needed to keep from leaving out even one step.

Develop a routine that had double-checks for critical service operations. For example, pull out the dipstick and leave it sticking out until you’ve refilled the oil. That way, if you forget, you’ll (hopefully) see the dipstick hanging out before you close the hood.

Finding the cause of a blown fuse

Pats' Perspective 151 - Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems

Toyota Air Management Valve Problem

Water Pump Failures

ENGINE BIRTHS AND BOO-BOOS

Men never get an opportunity to give birth. Never have and never will, But I do
believe that we get to have an experience that's somewhat akin to birthing a
baby. What on earth could that be? Now, I don't want to insult any of you ladies
out there, so please don't take this too seriously! But, I'm referring to giving
birth to an engine.

If you've ever built an engine - assembling it piece by piece, and then cranking
it over, watching it come to life - you know what I mean. First you must spend
countless hours measuring, checking, and determining what's needed to complete
the rebuild. Then you go out and find all the parts you need to complete
the job. Finally, there's the long and laborious assembling of all those pieces.

Everything must be done with extreme care and in a certain order. Certain parts
must be bolted together and then torqued to proper specifications. Gaskets and
seals must be installed in their proper places. The timing gears must be lined
up, and the cam timed properly. And all the parts that are normally lubricated
must be coated with a special grease. That's so they won't starve of oil until
the oil pump is primed and is able to pump oil to all the moving parts.

And then, after all those long painstaking hours of work, the moment of birth
finally comes. You twist the key and bring the engine to life. First, it cranks
and cranks over. It takes its first breath. It starts to fire as it sparks to
life. And the final reward is hearing it roar as it fires up. And everything
that you did, all those painstaking hours of tedious labor, must be right on the
money - or it won't work. Even the tiniest mistake can result in a disaster. But
this is the story of one particular engine rebuild that didn't go well, In fact,
it ended in a disaster.

I've certainly had my share of engine disasters in my time. Ironically, it was
because I didn't want to make a mistake - building this particular engine - that
the disaster happened. I let the machine shop build it for me, and they blew it
royally. And this was an important engine that was going into my personal
vehicle, my Ford camper. Unfortunately for me, my shop at that time was completely
open on one side and sand blew in the door making it impossible to assemble the
engine without grit contamination. So I let the machine shop build it for me.

Actually, I had the machine shop assemble the short block and grind the valves.
A "Short block" refers to the block sans the cylinder heads. I installed them
myself. I had the engine fitted with new pistons and a reground crankshaft. It
got a new camshaft, lifter, oil pump, and all bearings. The connecting rods were
reconditioned and the cylinders were bored oversize. The ticket was a couple of
big ones, like two grand plus. But, its the price you must pay for reliability.
After all, I wanted my camper to be as reliable as possible. That's what you pay
for. I mean, I could have just installed a junkyard motor and taken my chances
and saved big bucks. But who wants to break down in the middle of the Painted
Desert, right?

I know, I know. This is supposed to be a story about the joys of building an
engine and watching it come to life for the first time, right? Okay, I really do
love to build engines. Build plenty of 'em. In fact, I once had a job where
that's all I did - build engines day in and day out - engine after engine. I
guess I became somewhat jaded after "birthing" all those engines. After awhile
you get kinda' callused. You stop caring. I mean it works or it don't work -
and you could care less if it don't. Oh yeah, you care enough to be sure that
your productive - but not to the point of being insane about it.

I also remember those engines I installed when I worked at the Mercedes-Benz
dealer in Palo Alto. Hey, that was really a tight-run shop. Clean, clean, clean -
everything had to be as clean as a whistle. You had to keep your clothes neat
and clean. Shoes shined. Hands always clean. Wash your hands maybe twelve times
a day. Because if you didn't, and you left a grease smudge on a customer's car,
you were fired right on the spot. And we didn't build engines either. We only
installed Mercedes-Benz factory-built ones.

Oh, and what a strange sight those engines were, those beautiful Mercedes-Benz
engines sitting there in their cages. That's right, cages. instead of being
shipped in a crate like other rebuilt engines, they came in a cage - just like a
lion. In fact, it looked a lot like a lion cage - with strong metal bars and a
cage door. Only the door was on the top instead of in front. Wild! It was like
the engine was dangerous and had to be kept in a cage or it might get out and
run away!

As part of my initiation at that MBZ dealership, they tested my skills. And no
one warned me about it either. they just sprung it on me. When I came in to work
one Monday, there was one of those engines-in-a-cage sitting on the floor in my
work bay. Next to it, on my rack, a car was waiting to have it installed. By
five o'clock I had the new engine in the car and running. The old engine was
bolted in the lion's cage, waiting to be shipped back to the factory in Germany.
Now that was an accomplishment. There aren't many guys who can swap out an
engine and have it running in an eight-hour day. And remember, when I was done,
there couldn't be as much as one smudge left on the car either.

Then, the next day when I came in, there was another new engine sitting in a
cage, and another car in my bay waiting for a transplant. And once again, by
five o'clock, the new engine was running and the old one was bolted to the cage,
ready to shop, Then, on Wednesday, the same thing. Thursday ditto. And when
Friday came, things were different. This was the final test. Instead of being in
my bay, the car needing an engine was parked on the outside service rack, and
the engine was sitting next to the door. Chan, the shop foreman, had taken over
my rack and was using it for some other job he was involved with while his rack was
tied up. Actually, it was a setup, just so I would have to do the job outside.

It's not like I mind working outside. In fact, I love the opportunity to get out of
the stinking shop and work in the California sunshine. But, it was raining that
day. Bummer. I would have to do the job in the rain. So, I rolled my toolbox as
close to the door as I could, without blocking it, and went to work. Working in
the rain means slipping on the pavement, having tools slip out of your hands,
and rain trickling down your back while you worked. But, by 5 o'clock, that
engine was installed and running. I had passed the test. My initiation was over.

I'm sorry. I've strayed from the story. I was telling you about the Ford engine
in my camper, Anyway, as I was saying, I had this machine shop build the engine
for me because of the sand that would blow into my shop. I installed the engine
in my camper and went happily sailing around the country. Over the next dozen or
so years, I drove that camper all over. I visited Yellowstone, Yosemite, the
Grand Canyon, Arches, the Painted Desert, drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and even
the 7-mile bridge to Key West. I took I-10 from Tallahassee to L.A. and went
from San Francisco to Baltimore, and back again, camping all the way. Loved every
moment of it.

It was fifty-seven thousand miles later, and more than a dozen years, when I was
on my way into Denver that it happened. As I drove westbound, halfway across the
great western prairie that leads to Denver, I noticed one of the cylinders
beginning to misfire. How could I tell? After spending that much time in the
driver's seat of my camper, I could tell. I knew that engine intimately. And I
knew instantly, when it began to miss. I stopped and checked all the usual
things, but nothing appeared to be wrong. So, I decided to limp into Denver
where I could do a more thorough analysis of the problem.

The next day I began my diagnostic checking by pulling the spark plugs. Oh how
well I remember the sinking feeling when I removed the spark plug for
number-eight cylinder. It was completely oil-fouled. Not good. I figured that a
valve guide was probably to blame, and calculated that I was in for some repair
work to the head. No big deal. Maybe a few days delay, no more. Boy was I wrong!
I removed the cylinder head and popped off the valve keepers in order to get the
springs off so I could eyeball the guides. There wasn't anything wrong with the
guides. Damn!

With major depression setting in to my mood, I figured it had to be a damaged
piston. Wrong again! As I carefully examined number-eight cylinder, I saw a dent
in the cylinder wall. Not just a nick, but a big dent. I mean big! By now my
heart was in my stomach as the realization hit me. This engine was toast. A oat(?)
anchor. Scrap metal. What caused the Dent? I just had to know, But First, I
would need to find another engine or remain stranded in Denver! Luck was with me
and I located a used engine in a local wrecking yard. Only $350. Guaranteed to
run. Oh goody, I wasn't stranded.

Knowing that another engine was available, I rented a portable engine hoist,
jerked out the engine and began tearing it down in order to find the answer to
the mystery of the dented cylinder wall. I discovered the answer as soon as I
removed number-eight piston. The damn machine shop had failed to install the
piston wrist-pin clip and the wrist pin made the dent. Without the clip, the
wrist pin floated in its bore. And when the circumstances were just right, it
would slide over and kiss the cylinder wall. The dent was exactly at the place
where the piston changed direction from its upward to it downward stroke. When
this happened, coupled with the force of the air-fuel combustion, the piston pin
would shoot sideways and hit the cylinder wall at exactly the spot where the
dent was.

Funny, for years I had been hearing an engine tap or knock. In fact, it began
not long after I installed that engine. it would come an go, sometimes louder
than others. I figured it was a lifter or rocker arm. But since it never got
worse, and the tapping was so intermittent, I would just wait until it failed
altogether before digging into it. i(I) had no idea that I was hearing the wrist
pin banging against the cylinder wall!

I've seen this kind of mistake before, but it always looked different. The usual
scenario when a C-Clip is left out will result in the wrist pin gouging a long
trough in the cylinder wall - the whole length of the piston st(r)oke. but this was
only a dent. It looked like someone had taken a ball-peen hammer and hit the
cylinder wall in the same place a million times. Why wasn't there a long gouge
in my engine's cylinder wall? And why did it take fifty-seven thousand miles to
fail, instead of a couple hundred - as usual? What was different? Was I blessed
or what?

The answer was simple. The difference was that I used synthetic oil. The
synthetic oil was such a terrific lubricant, it prevented the piston pin from
digging into the cylinder wall. When the pin hit the wall, the synthetic oil was
there to lubricate it and keep metal-to-metal combat from taking place. It
provided adequate barrier protection, never allowing the two metals to bind or
scrape. Instead, the pin would just hit, bounce back, and go about its merry
way. And over the past dozen years, and all those miles, the pin had hit the
cylinder wall enough times to make a large enough dent to allow oil to bypass
the rings. And that's what finally fouled the spark plug.

So what was I do to? The machine shop screwed me totally when they built the
engine. What could that machinist have thought when he finished and discovered
the extra wrist-pin clip laying there? Did the jerk even know he'd made a fatal
mistake? Maybe he was on drugs. Was there anything I could do now, a dozen years
later? No way. Sorry. Too bad. You don't just walk in and say, "Hey, you screwed
up an engine rebuilt(d) that you did fourteen years ago and I want my money back!"

I don't think so. There wasn't a damn thing I could do except eat the mistake.
Welcome to the wonderful world of automotive repair. Anyway, I installed the
used engine and drove away with hatred and loathing for that machine shop. For
the previous week I had racked my brain trying to come up with a way to get even
with them for their dirty deed. Now, here I was, driving with a junkyard engine
after all. And all the money I had spent on having the other one built was
wasted.

Just for the record, the junkyard engine only lasted eighteen thousand miles
before it went south. And it was a total mess, needing everything to be rebuilt
or replaced, including a bent crankshaft. And as I went through it, and was
rebuilding the heads - which I had swapped with the junkyard engine - I found
another mistake. The jerk also installed the valve-guides upside-down!

Anyway, with the nightmare behind me, I drove away from Denver en route to Santa
Fe. As the miles disappeared, my anger began to abate. My hatred cooled, and my
thought(s) turned to my vacation once again. As I drove through the day and into
the night, lo and behold, another nightmare started to happen. I began hearing a
horrible noise coming from the driveline. A loud metallic nose, like a metallic
snap. But, that's another story.

Pat's Perspective #150 - " Tire Siping "

Pat's Perspective 149

Infinity Brake Problem

PAT'S PERSPECTIVE 148 "A PARTS NIGHTMARE

What is it for Sept 2018?

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FORD FUEL PROBLEMS

Daniel and the Mammoth

Daniel was an avid race fan and long-time backyard mechanic, just like millions of other Americans. And just like millions of other mechanics, he went to the races whenever he could. He would pile his family and friends into his huge motor home and leave behind the fast-food franchise that he managed in his little home town in Indiana. Off to the races they would go.



Daniel lived for it. And almost died. Read on. Over the years, Daniel and his wife scrimped and saved enough money to buy a liquor store. They had just closed the deal on the store one week before Daniel’s nightmare, which happened just before a racing weekend. Because racing was real important to Daniel, a big race meant everything else came to a standstill. He lived for NASCAR. And this race promised to be an exciting one too.



Daniel had his heart set on going and wanted to make absolutely sure he didn’t miss it. Nothing was going to stop him, not even a new store. And because Daniel was detail oriented, he’d leave nothing to chance. But he had a funny feeling about the motor home. Maybe it was that nagging oil leak. He wanted to make completely sure the RV wasn’t gong to leave them stranded along side the road in the breakdown lane somewhere. No way. Not on his watch.



There’s one kind of nightmare any traveler faces. Breakdown. Ever since man became dependent on something other than his own two legs for transportation, he’s faced the threat of a break down on the way. In days of old, the horse or camel could become lame, leaving the traveler stranded. Many perished because they weren’t able to reach their destinations due to a “broken ride” problem. Some died from the elements, others from lack of food or water.



In modern times, a broken ride problem is certainly just as hazardous. Stranded motorists have been smitten by freezing cold. Some people breakdown in a bad place, leaving them in the path of harm. Another vehicle may be unable to stop in time to avoid a collision. We’ve all seen pictures of what happens to a car stalled on the train tracks. Equally horrifying is the thought of having an unplanned breakdown in a motor home.



For one thing, a motor home is bigger than a wooly mammoth. Because of its huge size, if it does break down, it’s likely to create a terrific traffic jam. Imagine a big RV stuck blocking an intersection. Or even worse, failure of the steering or brakes. Imagine several tons of motor home hurling out of control into a crowd—or crashing into a storefront. Unthinkable.



Being accountable for operating a safe piece of equipment—especially when there are other lives involved—is a tremendous responsibility. Being a racecar mechanic has this same kind of responsibility. Consider the potential horrific consequences. A mistake could result in the race car losing control and flying off the track into innocent bystanders.



This kind of responsibility is one that mechanics face on a daily basis. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how serious the consequences might be if a vehicle you just did a brake job on wasn’t able to stop. I believe the legal term for such a screw up is called involuntary manslaughter. What a heavy thought—causing the death of another because of your stupidity. Whew!



It was this kind of thinking that was driving Daniel. He wanted to be as thorough as possible as he prepped the motor home for his trip. And as usual, his buddy Alan was pitching in and helping. Daniel wasn’t a fool either. He was trying to be careful. But with his job and the store they had just bought, he was really pinched for time. He was in a hurry. And that was a part of his big mistake.



He knew that the massive motor home was too much to trust to a jack, so he carefully placed safety stands under the front end to take the weight off the jack. His driveway was level, so he didn’t have to worry about it rolling. But to err on the safe side, he even chocked the rear wheels to keep it from rolling. This was important, since he planned to check the brakes all the way around.



It was strictly for safety’s sake that Daniel wanted to inspect the brakes. There was nothing really wrong with them. Maybe you’d call it preventative maintenance. Anyway, after pulling the drums, Daniel concluded everything was okay on the rears. So, he reinstalled the drums, rear wheels, and moved his attention to the front. The front rotors were scored and could use turning to true them. He decided it was a good time to replace the pads too.



Daniel pulled the front rotors and dropped them off at the local machine shop to be machined. While waiting for them to get done, he decided to chase after an annoying oil leak. It was coming from somewhere in the back of the engine, a place where the sun never shines. He hated dealing with things that were hard-to-find. In fact, one of his favorite sayings was, “Why can’t they ever make anything easy!”



This pesky leak had been evading him for a while now and he was determined to find its source. Daniel considered the oil leak just like any weak link. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” This was another of Daniel’s favorite sayings. And to him, this was another detail that needed attention. He always took care of minor details, lest they become major ones.



To Daniel, this pesky oil leak represented a weak link that could suddenly break. The next thing you know, oil is gushing out. Then the engine loses its life blood. If not caught in time, it could wind up costing a motor. If it didn’t happen in a fortuitous place, the failed engine could cause even more frightening possibilities. Remember, this is a big motor home.



While the brake rotors were being cut, Daniel chased after the weak link in the chain. Crawling around under the RV, he poked and prodded while Alan looked down from above and held the drop light for him. The two of them looked and looked, but the source of the leak remained a mystery.



After all, this was a RV, and motor home builders don’t make mechanical access easy. They build RV’s to look good, not for ease of repair. This means the driver and front seat area are designed for eye appeal, not accessibility for the mechanic—who’s destined to work on it. The back of the engine was completely covered up—and wouldn’t you know it—that’s where the engine oil leak was coming from. You couldn’t see it or even touch it from above. But Daniel thought it might be possible to touch it from below, if he reached up and felt around.



Practically wrapping himself around the transmission, Daniel was reaching up as far as he could and was trying to run his hand along the back of the engine, to find the spot that leaked fresh oil. Time was of the essence. The rotors would be ready shortly and Daniel was feeling pressured to find the leak. Time was slipping away, and the races loomed in his mind. He was pressured to find it so he’d still have time to get to the parts store and buy the gasket—or whatever was needed to stop the leak.



Then the unthinkable happened. Maybe it was fate reaching out and calling him. Maybe it was just plain old bad luck. Maybe it happened because he bumped the linkage. Suddenly the transmission fell into gear and the mammoth machine began to move. The rear wheels started pushing the RV forward. Remember that Daniel placed the wheel chocks behind the rear wheels. They were totally useless in keeping it from moving in a forward direction.



The jack stands, which were ordinary do-it-yourselfer quality, weren’t capable of withstanding sideways force. The moment the RV lurched forward, the jack stands collapsed, leaving nothing to keep it from crushing Daniel. He was trapped underneath.



It all happened in slow motion. First he heard the click of the transmission as it fell into drive. Next, he heard the engine speed slow down as it coupled to the driveline and began working the torque converter. He then heard the RV creak as it lurched forward. All while this happened in less than a second. And while it happened, Daniel was hastily trying to extricate himself from underneath and escape.



But, in the time it takes you to say, “Hello,” the two jacks stands flattened sideways. The RV fell with a horrific thud, coming down on his chest and head. In reality all happened very fast—except for those who were witnesses. They would describe the event later on as if it had all happened in slow motion.



Daniel had just run a rag across the back of the motor in order to pinpoint the oil leak. Alan was laying across the floor, looked down into the engine bay and holding the light. The gear shift lever was still in the neutral position. It had been left there earlier to facilitate rear brake drum removal. Following Daniel’s instructions, Alan got up, started the engine, and lay back down on the floor. Several minutes passed. Suddenly he felt the RV lurch forward.



Alan will always remember that sickening feeling. The feeling he had in his stomach as the RV lurched forward… and downward. Down. Then there was the crash. Then silence. “Stalled motor. Crushed Daniel!” Were Alan’s thoughts as he jumped up. Now remember, it’s all happening in slow motion.



It seemed to take forever for Alan to get to his feet. Then there was another forever—like moving in molasses—before he breached the doorway. His yells seemed to come from somewhere else, like he heard someone else shouting. “Dan? Dan! DAN! Can you hear me?!” He shouted.



Nothing. Not a peep. Silence. Again, Alan felt like it took forever to position the jack and pump the handle. It all happened so slow. His view become like a tunnel, with only the jack in the foreground and the RV filling the remainder of his field of vision. He didn’t hear Daniel’s wife screaming behind him.



When she heard the crunch, Daniel’s wife felt as if someone had just walked across her grave. You know that sinking feeling when your heart and soul speaks out and says that you’ve just suffered a tragic loss. She knew as soon as she heard it. It was Daniel. And just as in a nightmare—one of those kind where you are struggling to move—your movements are slow and laborious. Like running in water, her legs couldn’t move fast enough. Slow motion. Then she heard Alan’s frantic calls and she knew.



She’s running to the door and her fingers are punching in the phone number to emergency rescue on her cell phone.   She knows the number by heart because her husband is also volunteer fireman. She struggles to press the buttons. Her fingers don’t want to seem to move.



She hears herself screaming, “Danny. Danny! Answer me Danny! Can you hear me? Danny!!” as if it was from someone else. Then she sees the RV, nose down on the ground. Her heart sinks.

One of the local volunteer firemen was the first to arrive, just minutes after she called. The ambulance was next, arriving about five minutes after the RV fell. The men carefully moved his crushed body onto the gurney, not knowing if there was any life left in it. If they didn’t know who he was, they would have never recognized their compatriot. Daniel’s poor body was crushed beyond recognition.



The ambulance took him to the Randolph County Hospital with hopes that he could be stabilized enough to be transferred to Miami Valley Trauma Hospital in Dayton. Even though his lungs were collapsed, his heart kept on beating. Daniel was still alive. But he suffered from multiple skull fractures, nine broken ribs, collapsed lungs, lacerated liver, ruptured spleen, shattered left humorous and broken clavicle. His situation looked very grim, and he wasn’t expected to survive much longer. The attending physician told Daniel’s parents and wife that only a miracle could save him.



In the hours that followed the accident, Daniel’s life was in limbo, as he held on by a thread. He underwent five prolonged and extensive surgeries to repair his internal organs. However, it was his crushed skull—and associated brain damage—that gave the doctors such a grave outlook. Then the process to reconstruct his crushed body began. Daniel remained unconscious until several days after the incident occurred. When he came to, he didn’t remember anything about what had happened.



During the next five weeks he underwent operation after operation, as the surgeons tried to mend the damage to his organs. Multiple skin grafts were needed to try to close off the tears. And then complications set in. First, the muscles could not withstand the surgery to repair them. Then several fistulas spontaneously developed. These are holes that open in the organs. As soon as they were discovered, they were repaired one by one. The abdomen was kept open so the surgeons could continue to make repairs as needed. Eating and drinking were impossible. Daniel was kept alive by life-support machines.



The doctors believed his internal organs were too damaged to ever heal again. It was thought he would always need to be connected to an intravenous feeding system because he would never recover enough to eat again. The surgeons were in the process of the procedure to attach a life-support apparatus when they discovered the fistulas had healed! His condition had taken a turn for the better. A miracle happened.



It was a major feat for Daniel to be able to nourish himself again. However, he would still require many more surgical operations to repair the damage. Daniel’s incredible determination to make it drove him on. Soon he was able to walk, and began physical therapy three times a week. Long before the doctors thought he’d get out of bed Daniel was taking long walks around town.



The accident left him deaf in his left ear and with nerve damage to his right eye. He returned to the trauma hospital for bi-monthly checkups and had his final abdominal surgery last July. In September he underwent a special surgical procedure to return part of his hearing. In an incredible total of six months time he returned to work.



From the very start of his recovery, Daniel said he wanted to resume his life as soon as possible. “I knew that I would go back, that it would be on my time frame and not theirs. I had seen everything my wife, my girls, and my mom and dad had gone through. And I just wanted to get life back to normal,” he said. “I felt if I didn’t get back to work—get my life back—that I had lost. I’m not a good loser.”



And he wasn’t a loser. In fact, Daniel’s gallant efforts to recover, take back control of his life, and determination to return to work were awarded in yet another way. The WillReturn Council honored him with the Perseverance Award, which is bestowed on individuals who demonstrate remarkable initiative and positive attitude, either during recovery from a disabling injury or illness, or while adapting to a new lifestyle necessitated by their disability.



The lessons to be learned are:

Never work under a running vehicle without taking special precautions.

Never trust jack stands to hold up a vehicle with its wheels removed.

Place the wheels under the vehicle as a precaution in case a stand fails.

Never go cheap on jack stands.

Never get in a hurry and compromise your safety.

Pat's Perspective #147 - Auto Air Conditioning Systems

HEADLIGHT BULBS

FRONT END RATTLE

Pat's Perspective 146 "Deadly Consequences"

Bucking Bronco

It’s a car from hell, and it has been kicking my ass all day! Tim was about to tear his hair out over a 1987 Bronco that was untamable. It would run perfectly for a few minutes and then start to buck. Then it would buck and shake and die. It didn't matter who drove it, it would buck and die for anyone. To make matters worse, it didn't always do it. Sometimes it would run fine for a day, then start to act up. The whole thing happened after the owner put a new clutch in the manual transmis­sion. A few days later it began to act like a wild pony and lived up to its name. It bucked and shook so hard that the engine would die.



To make it even more of a mystery, the pony had some quirks. It never misbehaved when it was cold -- you had to drive it for a few minutes before it would buck and act up. Also, if you held your foot on the gas pedal, it would buck and surge until it would die. It sometimes would happen when turning and other times would stop happening when turning. At times it idled fine and other times it would die. But, there was one thing that you could do that would always make it straighten itself out -- "Just stomp on it." Once your right foot was firmly planted on the floor with the gas pedal hammered down, the engine would run as if nothing was wrong. That was fine, as long as there was no one in front of you and you didn't break the speed limit!



When Tim first started on the job, the com­puter was full of codes. Tim figured the most important ones were the MAP and Throttle Position Sensors. Replacing these two sen­sors seemed to lighten things up a bit, and it ran better. The rest of the codes disap­peared, but the bucking continued. Tim thought it was acting as if the fuel pressure was off and the fuel pump was at fault. His gauge said the pressure was only 24 psi, when it was supposed to be at least 35. The pump also flunked the fuel volume test. It turned out there were two pumps, one in and one outside the gas tank. The one in the tank is for transferring fuel out of the tank and the other is for pressurizing the fuel.



Tim replaced the gas filter. No difference. After replacing the outside pump, the fuel pressure came up to 30 psi. He squeezed off the return fuel hose and the fuel pressure instantly shot up even higher. He installed a new fuel pressure regulator, but the problem remained.

"Maybe my gauge is off?" Tim wondered. It was at this point he asked Mark, the shop foreman, to enter into the fray. Mark hooked up his own gauge and found the pressure to still be just a hair over 30 psi. "Let's try running it with the pressure reg­ulator vacuum hose disconnected, which will make the pressure stay at 40 psi.” No dif­ference. The bucking and dying was still there.



"Time to connect BOB, the break-out-box," said Mark. While Tim drove, Mark probed the pins in the BOB.

"Man, this thing is really running lean. The oxygen sensor even goes into negative volts! But, when you give it gas, it straightens itself right out. Why? What does going full throttle have to do with this puzzle?" "Geez, Louise...why me? Why do I always get the winners?!" lamented Tim. "I still think it has something to do with the fuel pressure being low?' Mark replied, "No way, no how. We ran it with 40 pounds of pressure and it still acted the same!"



"Maybe it's a bad computer. Maybe the owner fried it when he was installing that clutch. Maybe he shorted the battery or something and cooked the computer?' said Tim."Yeah. It could be that the computer is turning on the EGR valve and making it run too lean?' said Mark. "Stop the truck and let me disconnect the EGR valve. Here, give me a pen to plug up the vacuum hose?" No, don't use a ball-point pen?' said Tlm. "Why not?"

"Because the engine will suck the ink right out of the pen. Ever see what that ink does to the inside of an engine?"



"No..,"  “Well, ifs not a very pretty sight. Here, use this pencil instead.”



Stabbing the pencil into the vacuum hose effec­tively disabled the EGR, but made absolutely no difference in the way the truck ran. "Maybe its the timing?' said Mark. "Let’s try putting the engine into base timing mode. Here, let me switch to distributor timing while it is acting up and see if there is any difference. This will tell us if there is a problem with the distribu­tor or the knock sensor."



No such luck.



"Maybe the computer can't hold the injec­tors open long enough or something like that. Let’s check out the injectors. Let’s look at their pulse width. The computer fires them in groups: one-two-four and three-five-six. Maybe one group is weaker than the other?' Mark mea­sured the pulse width of the injectors using pins #58 and #59 of the BOB.



"Wow! I didn't expect to see this. Every time the truck starts to buck, the pulse width goes full rich. I'm read­ing numbers as high as 20 milliseconds. But, every time you put the pedal to the metal, it goes down to around 10 milliseconds. I don't get it?!" said Mark.



"Maybe the computer is trying to hold the injectors open and can't. Maybe one of them is shorted and is making the others fail to open. That would cause a rich mixture?' said Tim. “Yeah, you’re right. It follows then, that if I short out pin #58 or #59, it would hold the injectors open and make the mixture richer-artificially. Let’s try it again and see if this trick tames this pony.” As the truck ran along and seemed to run out of gas, Mark tried shorting out the injectors. For a very short period of time, he grounded the set of injectors, then the other set. No difference. “I gotta get away from this monster and think.” said Mark. “Park it. I’m going to run a few errands and think this over.”



As Mark drove along, he was thinking, “Why would the computer make it go lean? Why does the oxygen sensor read normally and then go totally lean? Why does the computer make the injectors go rich but the mixture stay lean? Then, what does flooring the gas pedal have do with it? What does the injector pulse have to do with it? Why does it run so badly at 17-20 milliseconds pulse width, yet straighten itself out when it runs at 10 milliseconds pulse width? Could the computer be failing to open the injectors, even though I am reading a large pulse width? Why?”



Suddenly it hit him right between the eyes. The oxygen sensor was lying to them. The 02 sensor was telling the computer the mixture was lean, when it fact it wasn’t. The computer was actually making the mixture so rich that it was flooding the engine. Somehow theo oxygen sensor was intermittently losing its voltage signal. “Maybe the oxygen sensor lead got caught or pinched when that guy replaced the clutch-and ti is intermittently grounding out the signal. That would do it!” Mark thought. “That’s it! Then, when you floor it, the computer goes into the fixed operating mode and ignores the oxygen sensor. The pulse width narrows and it runs fine.”



Mark couldn’t wait to get back to the shop and stopped at a payphone to call Tim. “Hey, check the O2 sensor lead. I bet it is grounding somewhere around the engine.” By the time Mark got back to the shop, Tim had the Bronco up on a lift and was all smiles. “You’re right on the money. Take a look at how that lead melted against the exhaust manifold. The wonder didn’t put it back into its clip holder and it is grounding out.” said Tim. And all it took to tame the Bucking Bronco was a little electrical tape.

"Miles Per Gallon Wastes Money"

Instructor Series Elusive Intermittent

Tire Repair 101

The Black Limo

The Black Limo


It had been a hellish day. It was very hot, very long, and full of hassles. Big
time hassles. It seemed like nothing went right. One step forward, two steps
back. The day had finally ended and Abbott was glad it was over. He was heading
home at last. The air conditioner felt good on his neck, and his thoughts were
on dinner. Just as his mind was wandering over the trials and tribulations of
the day, something caught his eye up ahead.

There was a limo on the side of the road with the trunk open. 'Broken Down?'
Abbott thought.

As he got nearer to it, he wondered why limos never showed up at the door of the
shop where he worked. 'They probably have special garages that work on
them. Places that are specially set up to handle them.' He envisioned special
lifts that would have huge arms to reach out and hold the massive frames. He
imagined special service bays a mile long.

'Should he stop?' he asked himself. That's when the little devil and angel fight
begins. Abbott has been caught in the middle of battles of the angel and devil
most of his adult life. The devil touts him to do something that is usually
naughty or mischievous. The angel is his conscience, and usually keeps Abbott
out of trouble.

The little devil jumps out onto his shoulder and says, 'Abbott! Hey, don't stop.
They're rich. They probably have their personal tow truck on the way. Or maybe
there's a helicopter on the way. Don't waste your time. It's nice and cool in
here. You don't want to go back out there in that scorching heat. Sit tight!'

Now it's the angel's turn. 'Abbott, they could be in trouble. There might be a
good reason why you should pull over and offer help. Be a good Samaritan and see
why they are on the side of the road. Go ahead. A mechanic is never off duty.
Go for it!'

The angel usually won. And this time, Abbott had no trouble listening to the
advice of the angel.

He pulled his pickup truck onto the shoulder behind the limo and got out. The
driver, dressed in a nice suit, also got out. By the time Abbott had walked up
to the back of the limo the driver greeted him saying in a British accent, 'Sir!
Thank you for stopping! You are most appreciated. I have no knowledge of how to
change a tire. Is it possible that you could lend some assistance in this
regard?' 'Why sure', Abbott replied as he rolled up his sleeves.

The trunk was already open. Abbott reached inside and removed two golf club bags
full of clubs. Then he removed the mat and the spare tire cover, revealing the
spare and jack. 'Oh, that's where it is hidden. I would not have known that this
is the place where it is kept-unless you had showed me,' said the driver with an
amazed expression on his face. Abbott took out the scissors jack and began
looking under the limo for the proper place to position the jack.

'I wonder if this jack can handle this huge car?' he worried silently to
himself.

But, the jack held, and the limo began to go upwards as he turned the crank.
'Now, it's time to break loose the lug nuts--before the tire is in the air,' he
instructed the driver. Pulling with his back, legs and both arms, he loosened
each of the five lug nuts a half turn. Next, he placed the spare tire under the
limo. 'I do this in case the jack falls. The spare tire will keep the limo from
crashing down--maybe on top of me and you!' The driver nodded with wide eyes.

In a matter of a couple of minutes he had all of the lug nuts loose and the flat
tire was laying on the ground. He swapped places, putting the flat under the
limo and the spare in its place. First Abbott tightened the lug nuts finger
tight, and then snugged them home with the tire iron. He carefully lowered the
vehicle, putting its weight down onto the spare. To finish it off, he gave the
lug nuts one final tightening. As he did, he pointed out how he followed a star
pattern as the sequence to tighten them. The driver nodded and was impressed.

Just then, there was an electric whirring sound. One of the rear windows in the
back of the limo slid open and someone inside called out to the chauffeur.
Abbott was startled. He had no idea that anyone was actually inside the vehicle.
The driver walked over to the person beckoning him and stuck his head into the
open window. Abbott could hear muffled voices. Then, the driver pulled his head
out, stood up, and motioned for Abbott to come over.

More out of curiosity than anything, Abbott walked up to the open window. A well
dressed man sitting inside smiled at him through the window. 'Sir, what is your
name? I want to offer you a reward for your gallant actions.'

The man reached inside his coat and took out his wallet. Abbott said, 'No
thanks. Not necessary. Just doing my civic duty. Think nothing of it.'

The man said, 'I insist. Please let me pay you for your time.'

Abbott replied, 'Naw. But if you want to do something nice, just send my wife
some flowers. She'll get a kick out if it.' The man passed a slip of paper and a
fancy gold pen out the window to Abbott and he gave him his wife's name and
address. Then he got back into his pickup truck and headed home. By the time he
pulled into his driveway, he had completely forgotten about the whole incident.

It was a few days later, at work, when Abbott got a phone call. 'It sounds like
your wife is really upset, Abbott. Better get up here fast. This really sounds
serious,' said the boss. As Abbott picked up the phone, he could hear his wife
shouting and screeching in a shrill voice. In their twelve years of marriage, he
had never heard her make sounds like this. In a calming voice, Abbott pleaded
with her to settle down and tell him what was wrong. He was embarrassed that the
people in the front office might hear her shrieking. Finally, she calmed down
enough for Abbott to make sense with what she was saying.

She said that a man had come up to the door and delivered two dozen beautiful
long-stem roses. Just then, Abbott remembered the man in the limo. He had
completely forgotten about the incident alongside the road.

In a voice that would best be described as frantic, she continued, 'Let me tell
you what happened.' Abbott said, 'Hold your horses and calm down. Now talk to
me!' 'Well, this man came to the door--a delivery man. He had the flowers. I was
SO surprised and stunned that it was happening to me. I was maybe just a little
concerned-that maybe I forgot something like our anniversary or something-when
he pulls out this clipboard.'

'And it has this envelope stuck on it. He takes out the envelope and hands it to
me, and says, 'I have been instructed to give you these flowers and this
envelope. I have also been instructed to make sure that you have read the
contents of the envelope and thoroughly understand what is written on this
document.'

'That really threw me for a loop', she went on, 'and I didn't know what to
think. So I opened the envelope to see what was inside and there was this note.

'We were late to a very important meeting and had a flat tire. Our driver had no
idea of how to change a tire. We summoned help, but it would arrive much too
late. Because of your husband's wonderful and gallant efforts, we were able to
reach our destination in time. Marla and I would like to show our appreciation
by sending these roses. Also, as a token of my appreciation, please examine the
attached document. It will explain that the mortgage on your house has been paid
off. Sincerely, Donald Trump'