Dash

One of our trucks dash was caving in because the back module broke. It was pretty easy hard part was remembering how it all went together. But I used zip ties and color markers to help me. Here is a picture of the dash after I pulled it all apart.

Here is a picture of it put back together with the new module.

I learned ways to help my self remember where everything goes and just practicing to reverse what I did to take the dash apart. It was a fun clean job and it turned out good.

U joint

Today I changed two U joints. There was about half an inch of play in the U Joints.  I used a bottle jack and a big punch to pop the caps from the U joints. I have changed U joints couple of times before so there wasn't much new but this time instead of struggling to hold the heavy drive shaft up then putting the caps in which takes two people I tried using a ratcheting strap to hold the drive shaft up. It worked out amazing! Here are some pictures!

That's how I used the strap. 

Hours around 290 

Muffler

Couple weeks ago we had a truck come that had a big banging sound every time the driver would accelerate. From how loud the banging noise was everyone in the shop thought it was something really bad. Well the foreman first wanted us to adjust the valves and the engine brake because it seemed to do the loud bang most when the engine brake hit. Well that didn't solve the problem. But the truck had gotten a new clutch put in couple weeks before, so foreman said pull the transmission out there is probably something wrong with that, a new clutch really didn't solve the problem. Well now the next thing he wanted to do was drain the rear end oil to see if there are any big chunks, they were good. So we sent it to another shop, they said the truck needs a new EGR so they threw a EGR at it. Still doesn't fix the problem. They tried some other things and that shop gave up. So i drove it back to the shop and i thought it was a good idea to just stand on the back of the truck have somebody drive in the yard going 5 MPH and see where the noise is coming from. And low and behold it was coming from the muffler. I took the muffler off drove it around the yard with out a muffler problem solved. That muffler costed $80the shop spent close to $10000 trying to figure out what is wrong. The biggest thing i learned from this is to stop and think back to the basics instead of thinking all these big problems and when someone just wants to through parts at a truck tell them why not to do that. Fixing something with sold evidence costs a lot less money as well. Here is are a couple pictures of the muffler.

N14 cummins putting the engine back together

Taking apart the N14 was a great experience. i got to learn a lot about how different systems work and how to find the right information needed to rebuild engines. For example, for Cummins its quick serve and reading all the N14 books. It was a lot of fun taking pistons out and turning the engine over to see the firing order. We did a lot of measurements to make sure everything is within specifications, which i will show in a picture down below. After that i started putting it back together and i was very thankful that when i dissembled the engine i bagged and tagged every bolt and part which made it a lot easier to reassemble the engine. I torqued everything to specifications by using the N14 book as well as adjusting the valve lash. Here are some pictures....

Pistons are out. 

There it shows one piston I pulled apart practicing how to do measurements. 

Connecting rod bushing that is definitely bad. 

I removed the cam shaft cover plate to measure the lobs 

Just a picture showing how I bagged everything to stay organized. 

I didn't really take very many pictures of putting everything back together because i got caught up in work but this picture is taken after putting the jakes back on. 

Finished project

All the measurements and the results. 

N14 disassembly

In school for the past couple days I got the chance to take apart a diesel engine. I choose the N14 Cummins. I went through the parts break down manual and today I took two pistons out. I was hoping I only had to take apart the back half of the motor and get my measurements but since I have to get measurements of the camshaft lobes I will need to disassemble the rest of the motor tomorrow. Which then the timing will be off and i will need to go into the N14 books and figure out how to do the timing again. Here are some pictures I will have many more blogs to come this is just the beginning. 

Took out the fuel cross over valves.

Took off the injector housing 

Took head number three off. 

Piston 6 and 5 are out. And in the back you can see i have made sure that everything is covered and everything is bagged and labeled. 

Exhaust Manifold Gasket Job.

Couple days ago I brought a truck in for an inspection and noticed there was a lot of black dust behind the exhaust manifold. I further inspected it and found that the gaskets on this Mercedes engine were most likely bad. So I ordered all of the parts from freightliner and luckily they had them in stock so by the time I pulled everything apart the parts showed up. Again i was alone at the shop working late so i had to think of everything on my own. The first problem I ran into was the turbo nuts where extremely tight. Two of the nuts came out when I put a three foot pipe on the end of my ratchet. But the other two at this point were pretty rounded off. I tried heating the nut up and it didn't work, So then I heated up the base of the turbo and exhaust manifold where they meet so that I could just try to remove it and the stud would just come out instead of the bolt coming loose. And this worked out well and I ended up replacing the studs. In two weeks I did two exhaust manifold jobs. The first job four bolts from the exhaust manifold broke which then I had to use an alignment block and reverse drill bits to extract the broken bolts. So this time I was very careful and I heated up the bolts before taking them off as best that i could to break the rust. It worked out well none of the bolts broke. The rest of the job went good I changed out the gaskets and fired up the truck took it for a test drive and there were no problems. Here are some pictures...

You want to make sure that arrow points up when reinstalling the gaskets

This how I realigned all the bolts and got the exhaust manifold mounted. 

Master Lighting And Harness Technician

Today I went through a series of courses on basic electrical. It was a nice review and I got to brush up on some things that I was not sure about. I went through all six of the courses and got a 97%. Here is a screenshot of the completion and I will be getting a certificate in the mail.