Phonetek
03-21-2018, 02:24 PM
If you don't like long posts, hit the "Back" button now! If you don't care then by all means keep reading. Yesterday I got called in for an early shift working the counter, someone called off. It was only for 4 hours so no biggie. Wifey dropped me off since my truck is still down. I had to work last night too so I figured instead of going back and forth having wifey come and get me I just stayed. I was off the clock but I decided to use the time to do some stuff on my own with the mechanic. He was excited he had the time with me so he made use of it.
First thing he did was had me change a spotting cell because it was broke. Spotting cells are a scissors like mechanism that picks the pins up off the deck and sets them back down. I will say it's so easy when your laying on your back to lose track of where your at. The spotting cell was for pin 5 and each pin has it's own. I kept going for screws in other pin cells without realizing it. The mechanic was under there with me and quickly pointed out my error and he agreed it is a little disorientating at that angle but experience will cure that. After replacing the one I adjusted the other 9. There was only 2 out of 10 that didn't require any adjustment. The others were either too tight or too loose which would cause them to drop pins or not release them. They weren't that far enough out of spec to cause either YET but he was showing me the proper way of doing things.
After that I was watching the operation of another machine and noticed the distributor belt was curled and no longer flat. The distributor kept jumping where the belt was joined together. It was old and oil soaked which caused it. It was incredibly easy to change it, took only a few minutes. When we turned it on the distributor no longer jumped but I noticed it shook slightly side to side. The cause for that was the drive shaft for the distributor was bottomed out on the motor. We changed the shaft which just snaps on easily. Less than a minute repair. However, that didn't fix it.
We had two choices to repair it from there. One was to removed the motor and put in shims to give the proper clearance or cut a 1/2" off the shaft and drill a new hole in the shaft. We chose to trim the shaft, a much faster repair than the other. Now the distributor sits nice and still both horizontally and vertically. Then looking at the ball return drive belt I noticed that they were riding on the center pulley off center both from the top and the bottom causing it to get frayed. Turns out the pulleys weren't properly lined up. He got out a fresh belt for it and moving the pulleys was just a matter of loosening set screws and tapping them over. Very tight in there to move with your hands though.
The last thing I did was on one of the lanes the table was very herky jerky and went it got to the top it would drop and jerk down slightly. I knew the fix because I did this a few weeks ago. That was a sign that the brushes in the table motor were worn and they had less than a week of life left. That's another very quick repair, just popping out what's left of the old brushes and securing in new ones. Takes about 7 minutes. Now it's nice and smooth and should go another 2yrs or so before it needs it again.
My counter co-workers think I'm crazy doing this on my own time. To me it's time well spent, I really felt a sense of completion even though it was minor stuff and I learned something worth learning. The mechanic loved it, all he was gonna have me do was the spotting cell. He was impressed that all the rest was things that I noticed and was eager to repair. He is already compiling a list of some much more major stuff that he has planned for up and coming lessons. I my own list too! I hope he warns me ahead of time though, since we wear dress pants and very nice clothes normally I might invest in a mechanics jump suit for the occasion. There is a reason this work was on "Dirty Jobs"
First thing he did was had me change a spotting cell because it was broke. Spotting cells are a scissors like mechanism that picks the pins up off the deck and sets them back down. I will say it's so easy when your laying on your back to lose track of where your at. The spotting cell was for pin 5 and each pin has it's own. I kept going for screws in other pin cells without realizing it. The mechanic was under there with me and quickly pointed out my error and he agreed it is a little disorientating at that angle but experience will cure that. After replacing the one I adjusted the other 9. There was only 2 out of 10 that didn't require any adjustment. The others were either too tight or too loose which would cause them to drop pins or not release them. They weren't that far enough out of spec to cause either YET but he was showing me the proper way of doing things.
After that I was watching the operation of another machine and noticed the distributor belt was curled and no longer flat. The distributor kept jumping where the belt was joined together. It was old and oil soaked which caused it. It was incredibly easy to change it, took only a few minutes. When we turned it on the distributor no longer jumped but I noticed it shook slightly side to side. The cause for that was the drive shaft for the distributor was bottomed out on the motor. We changed the shaft which just snaps on easily. Less than a minute repair. However, that didn't fix it.
We had two choices to repair it from there. One was to removed the motor and put in shims to give the proper clearance or cut a 1/2" off the shaft and drill a new hole in the shaft. We chose to trim the shaft, a much faster repair than the other. Now the distributor sits nice and still both horizontally and vertically. Then looking at the ball return drive belt I noticed that they were riding on the center pulley off center both from the top and the bottom causing it to get frayed. Turns out the pulleys weren't properly lined up. He got out a fresh belt for it and moving the pulleys was just a matter of loosening set screws and tapping them over. Very tight in there to move with your hands though.
The last thing I did was on one of the lanes the table was very herky jerky and went it got to the top it would drop and jerk down slightly. I knew the fix because I did this a few weeks ago. That was a sign that the brushes in the table motor were worn and they had less than a week of life left. That's another very quick repair, just popping out what's left of the old brushes and securing in new ones. Takes about 7 minutes. Now it's nice and smooth and should go another 2yrs or so before it needs it again.
My counter co-workers think I'm crazy doing this on my own time. To me it's time well spent, I really felt a sense of completion even though it was minor stuff and I learned something worth learning. The mechanic loved it, all he was gonna have me do was the spotting cell. He was impressed that all the rest was things that I noticed and was eager to repair. He is already compiling a list of some much more major stuff that he has planned for up and coming lessons. I my own list too! I hope he warns me ahead of time though, since we wear dress pants and very nice clothes normally I might invest in a mechanics jump suit for the occasion. There is a reason this work was on "Dirty Jobs"