Last week i learned how important alignment and suspension are because when your vehicle wont drive straight down the road especially a semi with a trailer it can cause some definite problems. Attention to details as a mechanic is the biggest thing i have got throughout the course of these last 2 years.





(15 hours)

Last week i learned how to properly go about checking the alignment on vehicles with both a tape measure and the laser method.




(15 hours)

Keep checking everything to make sure there is no failures or damage and that you put everything back right. The last step is to just put the tires back on and torque down to specs.

While putting the brake drum back on you are gonna want to check the inside surface for anything unordinary like cracks or any kind of damage.

Torqueing down the nut you want to make sure you are using a good sized torque wrench in order to get some good leverage and go from the angle you feel most comfortable at.

The 330 is indicating what it should be torqued down to on the nut so pay attention to that.

After putting the brake shoes back on, using the brake pliers to stretch the springs back into position, you are gonna want to start assembling everything back togeither and once your parts are all cleaned and have been wrapped up especially the wheel bearing you can do that. The big nut will have a number on it to tell you what the torque is on that.

There are a variety of ways to pull the springs off to take off the brake shoes but my favorite is the special tool that has an extra part to the odd shaped pry bar that allows you to get under the springs so you can lift it right out of the spring hole. When doing this you are gonna want to check the wear pattern on the pads to see if its braking smoothly or not and if its not you need to find out why.

To drive the new seal in you want to use a good sized hammer on the special tool for driving in wheel seals and wack it 3 or 4 times till you hear it bottom out, you should notice this by the sound.

When it comes to replacing the wheel seal you can either use a special tool to get it out or if that is not available use 2 prybars. When you get out you want to clean it real good so that the new seel is gonna sit in there right and have a clean surface to seal against.

When you pull the rest of the nuts off you are gonna want to pull out the shaft and use the proper tool to take out the nut and pull the rest of the washers and nuts out as well. Place all the parts in an organized fashion where you want lose any and they are safe from damage. And all while this is going on you want to be inspecting everything making sure its up to par.

First you wanna start off by taking the lug nuts off the tire with an impact wrench using the proper socket size and extension if needed. When you take the lug nuts off place them neatly somewhere that you wont lose them. Then take the tires off and put them aside. Using a pry bar is usually the easiest way to slide the tires off.

Last week i did some more brakes and got more into depth and understanding with them. I learned its not as difficult as i thought it was and a few tricks into speeding up the process. I learned the proper tools make quite a difference in how fast it takes to put the springs back on.




(12 hours)

Last week i learned how to use the specialty tools for pulling off the springs which made it alot easier and quicker. I did my first brake job too on the kenworth so i learned that as well.



(12 hours)

Last week we finished up with the electrical section and did our OEM test. Its always good to know how to do the OEM test for looking at any electrical problems. I also did some work on my riding lawn mower to find out why it wasnt starting after replacing the solenoid and relay because both were testing bad i got it start. I also pulled the carb off the push lawn mower and soaked it in carb cleaner over night to get it running.


(10 hours)

This week we went over shorts and set up a few circuits on the board. I went to a brake class in the mount vernon put on by motor trucks to learn alot about the basics but it was also a dayton rep trying to sell parts even though he said he wasnt trying to.

(15 hours this week)

Electrical

I know there can only be 3 problems in electrical situations, and that is shorts, high resistance, and opens. I also know that volts= amps x ohms or E= I x R. I know that i am not very efficient at finding problems in a timely manner and that i have the biggest problem finding shorts in a system. More experience will help increase my speed.