On the Road Again

[DMiller]

Quality Enganearing at its finest, the retro Re-fitting is a sure sign of Craftsman.

 

[Nige]

It's a pi$$er not being able to pick up the phone and talk to a factory engineer like I used to be able to in a former life, and just get it changed a hair so the field re-fitting would not be necessary.

 

[John C.]

At my last employer who was a Cat dealer, a call to the factory for the most part was a complete waste of time. I had used machines being stuffed into my department to facilitate a sale on a new machine because of problems that became unsolvable on the used ones. On the last issue I told the service department to shove off with the factory and went to the lead welder and asked him to take a look. He fixed the problem in about two hours by recognizing the issue and designing a lasting fix. The "engineers" at Cat wasted our time and cost us a ton of money because of their arrogance and inability or reluctance to acknowledge that maybe they could be wrong about something.

 

[Nige]

Mining dealers like the one I used to work for could generally shout louder. Having over 10k employees world-wide even back then helped.
In the mining equipment worlld I met some great and some not-so-great factory engineers, quite a few of whom became friends. My black book was full of phone numbers for everything from engines to diffs, chassis to final drives and everything else in between.

However all this was 15+ years ago. Uncle Cat is a mere shadow of his former self these days and nostalgia isn't what it used to be...........

 

[DMiller]

Was discussing this with JY earlier. Several years ago I still had contacts at a local CAT Dealer, good hands, find anything even seriously obscure I could come up with. Alas they have retired, the ones left cannot find the collective asses without a PC. Enganears seem intent on making nothing serviceable.

 

[hosspuller]

snip..
In the mining equipment worlld I met some great and some not-so-great factory engineers, quite a few of whom became friends. My black book was full of phone numbers for everything from engines to diffs, chassis to final drives and everything else in between.

However all this was 15+ years ago. Uncle Cat is a mere shadow of his former self these days and nostalgia isn't what it used to be...........

Same here... After many years in the company, built up a network of sources that could get the brain trust working. With the various buy-outs and division sales, the connections were lost... Like a lobotomy... Getting things done was harder, slower, and much more expensive. The corporate big wigs don't seem to appreciate the institutional knowledge that gets lost.

 

[lantraxco]

After I mostly gave up my coveralls, I worked a bit for Deere and CAT dealers, from paper books through Microfiche and on into JDIS and CAT SIS... the industry standard attitude was you only needed the three "P's" to be a parts tech, Present with a Pulse and a Pencil. No brains or sense required. As they went computerized and the CAD guys made the parts pictures, the engineers made thousands of instant revisions a month and new designs went from mainframe to obsolete at dizzying speeds, the ability to learn and remember details about any make and model became almost impossible. As the tech became... better? No. Just more complex as they constantly added "features" most of us had no use for, it became harder and harder to find actual information. And of course as the computers were marketed as labor and time saving, the number of people in the system shrunk, along with the loss of knowledge and experience. The Portland CAT dealer turfed me out in 2002 along with a baker's dozen others from around the company, all men or women in their forties with typically twenty years in yellow iron. Why? We were expensive. The older guys were coasting into retirement and it would look bad to lay off lifers, the younger ones still hadn't had the hope beaten out of them, would work harder longer, and worked a lot cheaper. Now they want all the customers to look up and order their own parts online, further reducing the number of available brains to pick when you don't know if you have Type 1 or Type 2 or is it Delco or Leece-Neville, or if it doesn't matter because they both sub to Denso? And what ever happened to the NPR? "Like teardrops in the rain." as Rutger Hauer said in Bladerunner.

 

[mg2361]

Sorry to vent on your thread Nige

As they went computerized and the CAD guys made the parts pictures, the engineers made thousands of instant revisions a month and new designs went from mainframe to obsolete at dizzying speeds

As a Deere dealer guy for 30 of my 40 years in this business, I can tell you that the damn Service Advisor program, in my opinion, has slowed us down. They constantly come out with revisions to the program to fix some glitch only to create another one which you don't discover until standing in front of a customer with egg on your face. Having grown through the same path with microfiches and paper books I consider myself fairly computer savvy. Knowing along the way the "change" that was coming I spent many hours of my own time educating myself on new technologies, whether it be on the machine or on laptop use. Deere puts way too much enfaces on the laptop (and JDLink) and what it can supposedly do rather than put the tech through quality training (and don't get me started on the "Capstone" training process, there is not enough room in the forum for that). You have a million parameters you can view and no explanation/training on what they mean or what is normal. I had to train myself to learn what many of them tell you. Now Deere wants you to perform recordings of the readings and send it to them for them to troubleshoot, Oh! Wait, the readings now freeze up when you hit record.....AARRG....welcome to our latest glitch.

 

[Birken Vogt]

These are the reasons I hook a laptop up to any new machines that come across my path and take readings and watch diag screens so I can get an understanding of what is normal. Because I don't necessarily trust a tech adviser in a far off state.

Last unit I had engine trouble with I tried to take a recording. When I got back to the shop the recording did not exist. However, I had taken a video of the screen with my phone which saved me. Even that only works half the time because you have to push record 3 times to get it to start and it makes decoy beeps and such. Got to make sure the timer is actually running to have any faith it is actually recording.

 

[Nige]

Quality Enganearing at its finest, the retro Re-fitting is a sure sign of Craftsman.

Not so sure where the craftsman bit comes in.
A man who I admired greatly (RIP Fred) used to refer to it as "back-street mechanicking" .....

 

[Truck Shop]

Present with a Pulse and a Pencil. No brains or sense required.

How true-Belt tensioner retro fit on DD15 and DD16. Had the first one yesterday didn't bolt up tried two
of the new designed models neither fit. Called dealer told them there's a problem {Nope that's the right
number I was told}. Later the head parts manager called and told me there was a service bulletin that only
a small number of 15 and 16's are odd, only Gates supplies the tensioner and none in DC's and a nine
week lead time.

She told the parts people on the counter-quote{If Mike tells you it doesn't work that means it doesn't
work}.

 

[kshansen]

How true-Belt tensioner retro fit on DD15 and DD16. Had the first one yesterday didn't bolt up tried two
of the new designed models neither fit. Called dealer told them there's a problem {Nope that's the right
number I was told}. Later the head parts manager called and told me there was a service bulletin that only
a small number of 15 and 16's are odd, only Gates supplies the tensioner and none in DC's and a nine
week lead time.

She told the parts people on the counter-quote{If Mike tells you it doesn't work that means it doesn't
work}.

Must be nice to get one of the "SPECIAL" ones. Bet the customer/owner will be happy to hear of the 9 week lead time! Just hope they take it out on the place that sold them the truck and not you!

 

[DMiller]

Not so sure where the craftsman bit comes in.
A man who I admired greatly (RIP Fred) used to refer to it as "back-street mechanicking" .....

I prefer being the Back Alley Mekanic than a Parts Changer. When set pen to paper on costs as to buying new or fixing what have or not being able to buy parts and figuring out a corrective action, That sets apart Mechanic from Shop Tech. I was not ever a 'Shop Tech'.

 

[DB2]

We have a 2012 IHC Durastar with hydraulic brakes that was giving a brake pressure warning (also ABS and Traction Control) and an engine light (unrelated) so
I took it in for an estimate. For the brakes they said there was corrosion on the terminals of the HPU and ECU and the fix was a new unit for around $7000.00 dollars plus labour to install.

My mechanic took the connection apart and cleaned it up and voila no more warnings. I would hate to be at the mercy of a dealer for all maintenance and repairs. Just keep putting more new parts on.
Rant over.

 

[Truck Shop]

Must be nice to get one of the "SPECIAL" ones. Bet the customer/owner will be happy to hear of the 9 week lead time! Just hope they take it out on the place that sold them the truck and not you!

Believe it or not I was able to find one at O'Reilly's.

 

[John C.]

Believe it or not I was able to find one at O'Reilly's.

Now that's funny!

 

[Truck Shop]

Now that's funny!

That's not all of it, it is a $115.00 bucks cheaper. Same one.

 

[Slidey]

It might make more sense with the rest of the photos .......

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I’ve worked on quite a few 89s but never realised there was a drama under there. Noted for future reference.

I do recall on the 793f that it would go through the Flexi joints at an alarming rate. Partially to poorly aligned exhaust tubes. They even tried a woven after market Flexi, that was a horrendous to try and fit

 

[AzIron]

That's not all of it, it is a $115.00 bucks cheaper. Same one.

I find it highly interesting that o'Reillys that our industry would consider possibly a second rate parts store has things like that we pulled an alternator for a backhoe from them at half the cost of dealer and the dealer was an overnight o'Reilly was on the shelf

 

[Truck Shop]

I find it highly interesting that o'Reillys that our industry would consider possibly a second rate parts store has things like that we pulled an alternator for a backhoe from them at half the cost of dealer and the dealer was an overnight o'Reilly was on the shelf

Hell all I did was type in the Gates number and several popped up, O'Reilly is here in town so gave it a shot. Summit has crept into that market also. But Napa really isn't much more
than second rate these days. You can find Fel Pro gaskets at AutoZone no one else carries.