This week I finished up working on my 1989 chevy 3500 installing new main bearings, rod bearings, and an oil pump. Since the engine has to be lifted up to get the oil pan off the engine, I decided that I was just gonna pull the engine out of the truck and put it on an engine stand to make working in it easier.
This week I spent a lot of time greasing the trucks and trailers in the fleet. I leaned a lot about looking for broken things on trucks. Some things you find are more obvious than others, like a brake can on a trailer with broken studs so it was only hanging from the air lines and the slack adjuster.
This week I was reading article in a magazine that was talking about brake cleaner. The article was titled Poisonous Gases in Your Shop and in it the writer was saying how you really need to read the warning labels on the chemicals that you use. The writer talks about an experience that he had with brake clean and how it almost cost him his life. One of the warnings on brake cleaner is "Vapors may decompose to harmful or fatal corrosive gases such as hydrogen chloride and possibly phosgene". When the active chemical in brake cleaner, tetra-chloroethylene, is exposed to extreme heat and along with being in an argon purged enviroment from welding, it produces phosgene. The authors story was that he was using brake cleaner to clean some heavily pitted aluminum before welding it and he had thought the he has gotten all of the brake cleaner off of the metal. When he was welding he came upon a heavily corroded pitted area but there was still some brake cleaner in the deep pit and this caused a small puff of white smoke that was phosgene gas and almost caused an end to his life. In the article it says that phosgene gas can be fatal with a dose as little as four parts per million. Because it is a nerve agent symptom can be delayed 6 to 48 hours. There is also no antidote for phosgene poisoning and if you do survive it can cause chronic health issues. I think that this is a good warning to be careful with how we use the chemicals that we use.
Week = 50, total =273
This week I was working on a 2000 Dodge pickup trying to figure out why the power windows and the blower motor weren't working. At first I tested the switch to making sure it had power going to it and it did, but after I looked at the wiring diagram that we had I found out that was the power wire for the door locks and not the power windows. So then I started checking the fuse and it was good. Then I looked at the wiring diagram to see where the wires for the windows go to but that didn't help any since we didn't have a very good wiring diagram. Since we knew the windows and blower motor only work while the truck is in the run position one of the guys suggested that I check at the ignition switch. So after u got the plastic covers off the problem was very easy to see. The wire that sends power for the power window and blower motor had pulled apart from the connector, which had most likely happened cause of how tight the wire was when the tilt steering was put all the way up.
Week = 52 , total = 223
This week I replaced a spindle and steering arm on a 2009 new Holland t4030 tractor. The steering arm and spindle were starting to get a lot if slop in them where they bolt together and this tractor only has 2500 hours on it. The only reason that I can think of why this happened is because that was the side that has the hydraulic cylinder connected to it for the steering. So my guess is that the pushing and pulling from the steering cylinder puts a lot of strain on those parts. This type of tractor also doesn't seem like it was designed to see real use on a farm and seems more like it was made to be a hobby tractor. These tractors certainly aren't made like they used to make the old fords.
This week I got to rebuild some brake calipers on a Volvo A30D haul truck. This is something that takes patience to do to get the inside of the calipers cleaned out of any rust that builds up in them.
Week = 56, total = 123
This week I got to help replace some of the leaf spring equalizers and the equalizer mounts on a four axle pup trailer. The trailer was originally in the shop for new s cams on two of the axles and new slack adjusters on all four axles. Then we noticed a crack on one of the equalizes so we looked them all over and found three of them had cracks on them. Changing the eqaulizers was a fairly smooth process. We just had to remove a couple of the tires to get the leaf springs to hang down far enough so that we could slide the new parts right in.
Week = 43, total = 67
