Stupid stuff you see at work...

[Bggrnchvy]

People would say the stuff I work on (made in Italy) is impossible to work on and full of unnecessary and over complicated computer crap but thats mostly because they can't fix it with a cresent wrench and hammer and also because they think a test light and a multimeter are the same thing. Times have changed in the construction equipment business and some people can't wrap their heads around that.

The evil 'I' descriptor for machinery, Italian.

We're a wine equipment OEM, almost all of our competitors are the 'I' word. If I never see another machine with all white wires and poor labels in the control panel it will be too soon.

For the thread:

Customer calls to report their HMI (touchscreen) has died on a 10 year old machine. I burned up my last direct swap HMI the week before on a fleet skid.

Two options presented to their maintenance manager.

A) Wait the 12 weeks for the unit I already have on order (damn chip shortages) which is the more expensive unit and pay a couple of hours labor to load the program and swap it. Same --> same.

B) We will pull a cheaper HMI from an unused stock panel, same cutout size but lower resolution/screen size. Customer pays for 4 hours programming to resize their old program to fit the new screen plus program loading and install.

Net, net about the same cost. Option B has them running in a couple of days with a slightly lower image quality on the screen, A is 3+ months out. They opt for B. We do the swap, operators are happy, tech goes home.

Maintenance calls an hour later, they don't like the resolution and text size, can we fix it? Sigh.

 

[TrikeKid]

Early Hemi Ram was towed in last night, sitting in the lot when I pulled in. Only story is that it just died going down the road. Service writer goes out and trys to start it to move it, just clicks, but it's that "Starter smacking a flywheel that won't turn" click. Tech goes out to look at it, same thing. He pops the hood and finds metal laying on the top of the engine and a big hole blown in the valve cover since this thing has rapidly disassembled itself. Pretty normal stuff around here. People neglect shit and then it blows up and they're shocked.

The stupid part was I pull in from lunch and the boss is out talking to the owner of the truck's boss, then the owner and I'm guessing his dad show up. They spend some time staring at this blown up neglected 5.7 and then determine that us diagnosing the problem was what caused the engine failure, WE broke a "perfectly good" truck and now the shop owes them an engine. A truck so perfect that it's in the shop because it doesn't even turn over, and didn't turn over when it was towed in. They spent a solid half hour arguing in hopes of a free engine. Then when they accept defeat they leave and call a wrecker, and take the fucking keys to the truck with them wasting the tow company's time.

 

[Brad]

Whats wrong with that? It's the only way I've ever welded. Glove on the left hand, ungloved on the stinger.

If you saw the way he was welding, you’d understand. He’s got his ungloved hand closest to the weld. I’ve had to tell him numerous times to put gloves on this week alone.
This pissed me off
What’s hard to see in the picture is he is blowing out that piece that is filled with dirt. Light breeze blows it towards My bay with fan blowing into it. Now my bay has a haze of dirt. He gets yelled at. Decides to turn the fan and blow to the right of the picture. Directly at one of the mechanics service truck and the open shop door. Yelled at again by the mechanic this time. Asks what he should do. Gets told to point the fan so it’s blowing away from the building. “Oh, ok”

 

[Steve300xcw]

Sounds like a shop kid

 

[Gtrplyr78]

Fixed the door earlier today (patched it is more like it). What a mess, nothing was lining up / had to cut a good bit to get door sleeve plate to get on there good enough. Similar issues with bottom handle/lock that part of door looked like it was attacked with a sledgehammer.

I plan on painting it next time, and getting some scrap metal to close the gap on the exterior side. Kind of figured glass door in this spec is likely closing in on a $800-1000. All of the hardware was around $150, plus my time. They made out ok. It locks again top/bottom.

Would love an opportunity to meet the dumbass that decided sawzall is the tool to remove the lock from the closed door.

 

[Gtrplyr78]

If you saw the way he was welding, you’d understand. He’s got his ungloved hand closest to the weld. I’ve had to tell him numerous times to put gloves on this week alone.
This pissed me off
What’s hard to see in the picture is he is blowing out that piece that is filled with dirt. Light breeze blows it towards My bay with fan blowing into it. Now my bay has a haze of dirt. He gets yelled at. Decides to turn the fan and blow to the right of the picture. Directly at one of the mechanics service truck and the open shop door. Yelled at again by the mechanic this time. Asks what he should do. Gets told to point the fan so it’s blowing away from the building. “Oh, ok”

Lets hope he avoids an injury and learns some good habits from more seasoned fellas in the shop.

 

[M92PV4U]

Customer has a well house door with a deadbolt that holds it closed, the key lives in the door.
My dumbass hooks the key and breaks it off in the lock . I tried to carefully disassemble the tumbler to extract the broken key so I could get a copy made. It was the only key. Of course it exploded and parts were lost. I got it taken care of.

 

[Gtrplyr78]

So my mom's Escape got a transmission rebuild this winter, got a call that it was making bad noises last month so I headed down to check out out. Could tell before it even started all the way that the flex plate was broken or the converter nuts were loose. Dad trailers it to the shop that did the work and they "Can't find anything wrong, it's definitely in the engine". Engine is a year old Ford reman that I installed. Pulled the transmission today and wouldn't you know, there aren't any dowel pins in the block and the flex plate is busted all to shit.

Please post of up the name of the hack shop - perhaps someone on here makes a note of it not to do business there.
Aren’t those bolts supposed to be torqued to a spec with loctite applied? For all you know master installer got those on with an impact and let her rip:)…

Clown world, and then some.

 

[TrikeKid]

Please post of up the name of the hack shop - perhaps someone on here makes a note of it not to do business there.
Aren’t those bolts supposed to be torqued to a spec with loctite applied? For all you know master installer got those on with an impact and let her rip:)…

Clown world, and then some.

The break came from misalignment between the engine and trans due to the missing dowel pins. The flex plate was tight, I put those in when I put the engine in last summer (with thread locker and a torque wrench). It's unfortunately getting hard to find a good transmission shop around here, even the one we sublet to has more issues than they should.

 

[Gtrplyr78]

The break came from misalignment between the engine and trans due to the missing dowel pins. The flex plate was tight, I put those in when I put the engine in last summer (with thread locker and a torque wrench). It's unfortunately getting hard to find a good transmission shop around here, even the one we sublet to has more issues than they should.

I hear you there.
Not much different where I live. Once my friend fully quits business, I really have no one I trust to turn a wrench if I am not capable of doing it myself.

With as old as my fleet is getting any of todays super mechanics will just run from it anyways, they would actually have to diagnose versus throwing parts at it (just earlier tonite I was watching Car Wizard on YouTube, don’t necessarily agree with everything he says but man is pure gold with his views on doing a proper diagnostic vs opening parts cannon and hope for the best.)

 

[Brad]

Sounds like a shop kid

Fresh outta highschool and welding school(community college I think)
Funny story
Kid worked here over Christmas break this past December. The guy I took over for in April threatened to quit if they hired him when he was done with school. he seems to be listening to me when he’s told what to do as far as the job goes. A friend who works here told him when a journeyman tells you what to do/his way of doing things, do what he says. Don’t take advice and ignore it.

 

[Brad]

And to keep up with my work shit
Operators don’t give a fuck which gives me job security
2 separate rippers. One they broke the tip off. The other they broke the whole ripper bar off the mount

 

[Wades_76_cj7]

That's pretty impressive. lol

 

[M92PV4U]

 

[aczlan]

Someone needed a little more turning radius?

Aaron Z

 

[M92PV4U]

Someone needed a little more turning radius?

Aaron Z

That hitch has only one mounting hole.

I almost let him hook the truck to the trailer before pointing out that he didn't install the hitch right. He argued, getting loud saying that it was right and there was nothing wrong with it. I jerked it out and threw it by his feet .

 

[aczlan]

That hitch has only one mounting hole.

I almost let him hook the truck to the trailer before pointing out that he didn't install the hitch right. He argued, getting loud saying that it was right and there was nothing wrong with it. I jerked it out and threw it by his feet .

Ah, I was thinking he put a second hole in to have it stick out a little more in the back.
Complete and total idiot then.

Aaron Z

 

[Death Row Dave]

So my mom's Escape got a transmission rebuild this winter, got a call that it was making bad noises last month so I headed down to check out out. Could tell before it even started all the way that the flex plate was broken or the converter nuts were loose. Dad trailers it to the shop that did the work and they "Can't find anything wrong, it's definitely in the engine". Engine is a year old Ford reman that I installed. Pulled the transmission today and wouldn't you know, there aren't any dowel pins in the block and the flex plate is busted all to shit.

Someone needs to have that stretched over his head so he has to wear it for a few weeks ! I get furious over mechanics taking advantage of the honest elderly person. If I was near you , I would gladly return this to the mechanic for an education class of how you treat people , karma returns 10x over .

At my age life in prison is no longer a deterrent as it once was .

 

[plym49.2]

 

[M92PV4U]

What happened?

 

[4x4mechanic]

Uhhh.... Ooops!

 

[plym49.2]

What happened?

Shooter shot the clay thrower.

 

[M92PV4U]

Shooter shot the clay thrower.

Release trigger?

 

[Stingray]

Shooter shot the clay thrower.

that's one way to make sure you hit it.

 

[Captain Call]

Pull!!!!!!!

 

[plym49.2]

Release trigger?

No, the fence. He shot it as it was coming around. Short dude, first thrower, dude was not standing by the thrower but was off to the side and down about a foot b/c he was not on the concrete pad. And this after he was already admonished for not following range rules.

 

[Gtrplyr78]

No, the fence. He shot it as it was coming around. Short dude, first thrower, dude was not standing by the thrower but was off to the side and down about a foot b/c he was not on the concrete pad. And this after he was already admonished for not following range rules.

Give that dumbass some tannerite and please set up a camera…

Way too much nurturing all around us, let the nature take an intended course.

 

[TRINDU]

Someone needs to have that stretched over his head so he has to wear it for a few weeks ! I get furious over mechanics taking advantage of the honest elderly person. If I was near you , I would gladly return this to the mechanic for an education class of how you treat people , karma returns 10x over .

At my age life in prison is no longer a deterrent as it once was .

I have a disdain for general mechanics. They take advantage of young kids too. Worked with a guy in college who had a front end clunk on his ford. Parts monkeys (Olympic auto in Bryan, TX) kept throwing parts to no success. I fixed it, coached the kid to ask for refund, and sat in the lobby. Owner is a complete dickbag who started brow beating my coworker. I which I stepped in and laid into him with a lobby full of people.

Everytime I think a find a decent shop, they end up trying to fuck me.

 

[TrikeKid]

I have a disdain for general mechanics. They take advantage of young kids too. Worked with a guy in college who had a front end clunk on his ford. Parts monkeys (Olympic auto in Bryan, TX) kept throwing parts to no success. I fixed it, coached the kid to ask for refund, and sat in the lobby. Owner is a complete dickbag who started brow beating my coworker. I which I stepped in and laid into him with a lobby full of people.

Everytime I think a find a decent shop, they end up trying to fuck me.

I have the same disdain and I are a mekanik. The amount of just dumbass shit I see from other shops on a daily basis is amazing. Even if the guy pulling wrenches isn't dumb you just as easily find some dipshit service writer that will have folks throwing good money at a bad car.

 

[jpmassey]

That hitch has only one mounting hole.

I almost let him hook the truck to the trailer before pointing out that he didn't install the hitch right. He argued, getting loud saying that it was right and there was nothing wrong with it. I jerked it out and threw it by his feet .