Quote:
Originally Posted by cooperino
This is really funny  I have no doubt Jon would pass this. I think he has most if not all of this info in memory. The funny part is as a mechanic myself, I would say anyone with a google machine could ace this without too much trouble.
One of them says "Master Diesel Tech". Pfffffffft.. who cares |
Quote:
Originally Posted by DieselDoctor
Worked 41 years in auto and heavy truck repair. Never seen a techie yet with a fancy patch on his arm that could get the information from his brain to his hands. Big deal, you passed a test. Take a call out at four in the morning at 25 below and bleed a man-lift down with the operator still in the basket and half frozen because the computer controlled system locked the hydraulics. And before you say just open the holding/counterbalance valves and bleed off the pressure, remember to take into consideration upper, lower and jib boom positions, center of gravity, load on the boom, and position of the booms relative to energized conductors. Do it quick because the operator is cold, the foreman needs the circuit repaired to put the customers back on, and do it SAFELY. Just another night at work boy. That's shit you don't learn in a book and then answer a fancy test question. It's field experience.
I'm quite certain Jon has plenty of good field experience under his belt. Who gives a rats butt if he can or will answer the questions you've posted. He knows how to do the work.
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(Even though I quoted Stan and Coop, this response is really directed to G4A, just so Coop knows I'm not ripping on him, lmfao. Anyone if of coarse free to respond though, lol.)
Thanks guys. I highlighted a couple things you said I got a kick out of.
First off, I spent more time self employed than I ever did working for anyone else, so ASE certification patches never meant anything to me. Besides, when I was working for "the man" I worked at an independent shop, then went to work for Case IH, so ASE tests didn't really apply to either. Now, while at Case I got some nice "wall hangers" for the time I spend in their classes. Kind of cool, but I didn't get any patches for it.
Stan really nailed it. You don't know how good you are until you have to work off of a service truck, in the middle of nowhere, after hours, with just the tools on the truck. Now, I never had to deal with a guy stuck in a basket near a power line.... and not that I never worked on bucket trucks, because I did. Just never had to go on a call for that. Most of my stories are about trucks on the side of the road, or equipment in the middle of field or out on an oil lease. When you can only work with what you have, and usually without a manual of any kind, and still fix the issue, or at least get it running good enough to move it to where you can fix it, that proves your worth. A place or position where you can't just run get a part, or grab that special tool out of the box. That's when you start making up stuff to get it done. Things like (and this is real things I've done) pulling your belt off to use as a strap wrench because you didn't have anything big enough to wrap around that "thing" (filter, shaft, whatever) to hold it still, or loosen it up. Using a piece of baling wire to run to a fuel shut off solenoid from the battery because there was a major electrical failure and you just needed to be able to move the piece of equipment to a better area. (That one makes you nervous, nice bare piece of wire with current flowing through it right up next to an engine block.)
How about a pulling a 24-30 hour straight shift trying to swap a rear end on a cement plant truck for plugging or setting new oil wells? You ever have a customer breathing down your back while you work 24 straight hours because he was losing a few hundred thousand dollars a day while his rig was down? Plus, the design of the truck and the fact that every bolt is covered in concrete and won't come apart, won't allow you to get the rear diff out, so you have to pull the entire axle, plus drive 300 miles (one way) to pick up a new diff because truck shipping just won't get it here fast enough? Those jobs always paid really well, by the way.
How about taking a throat off of a combine in a field, by yourself, with no equipment? Attaching it to the head, using a jack to hold it in position so you can back away from it, (and get it back on) so you can slide the rotor out enough to get to the busted drive hub replaced on the back of it (the rotor) that suddenly gave away while shelling corn? Ever do anything like that?
You know.... G4A, it's really nice to know that somewhere guys like you can work in a nice shop, with a nice little patch on your shoulder, or from a nice comfy desk chair answering questions on the phone. At this stage in my life, that would be a dream job. You know, you rattled off not wanting to teach in Illinois for $60K a year. The last "job" I had was running two shops for Republic Services (yes, the garbage company). I had two shops, 30 miles apart, 6 techs on two shifts, a clerk in my office, and 65 pieces of equipment I was over. Like $5 million in equipment. It paid that much, ($60K) and I spent most of my day on the phone, or at a computer. I did have to get dirty now and again.... but for the most part, I went home clean. Almost every time I have ever encountered a problem that I couldn't solve, and had to call a tech line, after explaining the problem, what I had done to try to resolve it, what I thought the issue was, and asked my question.... the guy on the other end usually went, "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh........ let me get back to you.". I dumbfounded more guys on tech lines with questions than I ever got help. One guy at Allison Transmission actually told me I was smarter than he was, and he had no idea how to help me. He went on to say he thought I had a better understanding of their system than he did, and had no idea what was wrong. I did find the issue with that trans too..... all on my own. After figuring out what was actually going wrong, it took about 15 minutes to fix too. Just a wire that had a bad connection. Took 3 or 4 days to figure out the trans controller was resetting itself from a 25 millisecond loss of main power that occurred randomly while driving. Finally found it after doing a data record with a Snap-On Modis in graphing meter, recording mode, recording at the fastest frames per second it could. "Oh, look! It lost power right there! Huh."
My experience goes far, far, faaaaaaaar beyond automotive. It's just one of the area's I have expertise in. Out of all the types of "things" I've worked on over the years, auto was one of the easiest. Seldom did I ever spend more that a few days on a really hard car problem. That is outside of pulling and rebuilding a motor or trans. Some jobs took longer..... sometimes because of how busy the shop was, how much money the customer had, or part availability. But of all the "hard" diagnostic problems I ran into, usually a few days and they were fixed. Big equipment though.... you might work on the same combine or tractor for weeks on end rebuilding it.
No man..... I'm sorry, but you just don't "get it". Stan and Coop do though. Glad I'm not the only one here who does.