This will be an interesting thread moving forward......

When I asked HNC about TNH, he replied they are VERY good friends. That alone scares the crap out of me. Stay tuned, I have a feeling this is just gong to keep getting better and better!

Click to expand...

Oh you better grab the popcorn because those two idiots are gonna really screw stuff up

I found out the other day that our “golden child” at work is the #1 cause of field service rework out of the shop (no surprise really). But nothing ever gets said to him?!?

JD955SC said:

my 1/4 ton mini Jet come along is my best friend and best helping hand.

add slings, a few larger come alongs, cribbing, bottle jacks, and similar I can do damn near anything alone. I have one person at work I do grab for lining up buckets and other attachments because I have implicit trust in him but otherwise I prefer to work alone. I’m not a people person anyway.

Also a forklift is a self propelled hammer, among many other uses.

Click to expand...

Now add to that a wireless knuckleboom crane and you’re all set. I sometimes run the crane while driving the forklift to get 2 lift points. I am so glad there is no one around to say you can’t do that!

Vetech63 said:

When I asked HNC about TNH, he replied they are VERY good friends.

Click to expand...

That means that they look at each other's photos on fakebook.

Caption: "Turbo Job. Crushed it."

Those 1/4 ton mini lever hoists are the ****. I use them as big clamps welding too.

JLarson said:

Those 1/4 ton mini lever hoists are the ****. I use them as big clamps welding too.

Click to expand...

One use I found the one I have good for was holding tension on the fan belt idler on a Komatsu WA600 while replacing the belt. Not really sure I would trust many humans to do that while I had my hands in there working the poly-v belt around the pullies!

Oh yeah, any time I can use a lever hoist or come-a-long to do big belts or drives I take it. Makes it much easier then a bunch of bars.

Not much to report today. I did get the fan assembly back in the dozer today just to fire it up and find there is no blade hydraulics. I needed to get the blade up to hook-up the gas assist cylinder rods at the bottom of the fan frame. Looks like I'll have to correct another problem I didn't know about before I can finish this up. TNH did start but was gone when I got to the equipment yard this morning and I never saw him today. I'm sure I will run into him over the next 2 days..........the Cat rubber track changeout didn't get done. No surprise there

But HEY! I want all of you to have a Great Thanksgiving, eat turkey and take a few naps for me..........I have a feeling I will be having a long week like usual

Keep it up, it's entertaining as hell so far.
Surely they can screw stuff up faster than one man can fix?
Joe H

I got some well needed info so I can do some proper troubleshooting on this 700 blade issue this morning. If I can get this corrected early enough today I could possibly be finished with it today outside of checking the fan speeds. HNC told me late yesterday he will be gone for the rest of the week and asked if I would be on call while he is gone. .......of course I am! I have no idea if he lined out TNH with things to do or if he just left him blind on his 2nd day. I thought if I ran into TNH today and he looked bored or wasn't doing anything.........I would point at the Cat 299 and the new rubber tracks lying next to it. I would be willing to assist (or lead) getting that done but only after I have the 700 done. I'm wondering if he will take the initiative to start on it by himself.

HNC informed me also that the company will be closed up Thursday thru Sunday. I do not have access to the equipment yard so getting anything done past Wednesday won't happen with them. Could I get access if I asked?....yeah, I'm sure I could. Am I going to ask? ......NOPE! Am I going to go try and figure out the S125 Genielift electrical problems for another customer that has been waiting for me for over a month? Nah, they already told me to do it at my convenience so no hurry. Am I going to travel an hour away to check out the JD 200 excavator that won't go into fast track travel that has been waiting on me for over a month? Nope.....they aren't in a hurry either. Am I going to possibly eat turkey, take a crap load of naps, rest all my aches and pains, watch football, play with the wife , and just generally be a lazy ass? OMG I hope so!!!!

This thread really hits home with me. You see a company that has arse hat mechanics messing up the simplest of repairs and you just can’t help yourself. You want to get in there and show them how it’s done! Then reality sets in and you think why did I open my big mouth?

I'm old enough now that i try to keep my mouth shut unless somebody asks me for advice or its a safety issue plus, i knew more about stuff when i was younger

I am not very technical and hate all that fussy stuff. I see some opinions about mechanics I dont totally agree with in the sense that,,,, a guy asks about a small garage and doing some side repair and there is always "that " guy tells yus how many flag hours he gets fixing fussy problems others cant and on and on. (That is not the case in this thread, its good) but a guy should could learn, I estimate to make up for lack of math,,, but I tell young sprouts its not always the technical crap but being willing to do a good job even when you dont feel like it.
There is some human error, I can be fussy and still miss and find some of my own but its not cause I dont care or hide shate, you name it.
Shop down the road can weld but they cant fix much.

YES...this is a very entertaining thread!! I can NOT believe how a seemingly "profitable" construction company can be sooooooo stupid when it comes to repairing their stuff!!!

Hang in there Vtech....bill'em high & bill'em often....they deserve it.

At least today was productive. I jump on the 700 first thing this morning and get the monitor in service mode so I can figure out why I didn't have any blade hydraulics. As I'm scrolling through the menu which took a minute to get my bearings, the blade comes to life and the right angle immediately goes hard right and stays loaded once it bottoms out. Surprised the hell out of me, I'm dam glad I didn't have something or someone right there in the way. I was able to use the thumb control to override it to the left but as soon as I let the button neutral it took off and buried itself to the right again. Through the service menu in the monitor, I was able to determine that the angle CW was stuck at 100%.....meaning the input was constant and never zero'd out when the switch was in neutral. I replaced the handle assembly ($700 for a plastic handle with 2 covered switches) and that corrected the problem. Now it works as it should, nice and smoothe. I got her all serviced up (not done since July 2018) and now I am waiting for the weatherstripping that goes behind the fan guard that seals off the side airflow so everything the fan draws comes through the radiator.

I did have their truck mechanic stop by and in the conversation he mentioned that when the dozer came to the yard the blade would move on its own.......nice of HNC to inform me of that beforehand . I should have this dozer wrapped up tomorrow if it passes the fan speed test. If not.........oh well, more work for me!

I didnt see TNH this morning but I did see him come back this afternoon as I was getting ready to leave. I have no idea what he was doing today but he didn't have a speck of dirt on him. He looked as clean as I do when I go to church.........and I look like I have rolled in grease, dirt, and fuel all day.....which I actually did! How do you guys repair this stuff and not get dirty? Tell me the secret and my wife would greatly appreciate it

Oh, I went looking for that missing hood. I did find it........can you? This is my version of a "Where's Waldo"

It was at the back fence, and some of the construction crew had thrown crap all over the top of it............and then threw out a bunch of crap in front of it. Don't ask me how it got back there.......we will never know. The fact that it hadn't been run over or damaged is a miracle.

Hang in there Vetech63,
It only gets worse.
At least your time will be well compensated for and appreciated. The silver lining is. As long as those guys are turning wrenches you will never go broke.

Unless the customer goes broke.

John C. said:

Unless the customer goes broke.

Click to expand...

That can be remedied easy enough. Just follow those incompetent mechanics to their next place of employment and hand out business cards.

I don't know if it applies to everyone, but you have to enjoy what you do, and be interested in what you are doing to be good at it You might hate where you do your thing, or who you do it for. I was always told that back in the day, that there was no one around like my father when it came to gas engines, and later on diesels and trucks. He really enjoyed his work, and he was a problem solver, not a parts thrower. When the time came that he was not happy anymore, he took a different route. I know guys that can't get enough highway miles as a truck driver. Love what they do. I can't get any better than I am now on an excavator, and I'm not very good. I hate it, and don't want to learn. I love grading, strange as it sounds, I don't always like the situation, or who I'm with, but I look forward to it. Any chance I can get to pick some old timers brains on something new, or read something interesting on here....bang

Paul Council said:

Hang in there Vetech63,
It only gets worse.
At least your time will be well compensated for and appreciated. The silver lining is. As long as those guys are turning wrenches you will never go broke.

Click to expand...

"appreciated" That is yet to be determined.

As I read this thread (have bin following along) I've bin thinking if this customer was mine and didn't "appreciate" what I (or vetech63 in this case) was doing we would be parting ways. Money alone would not motivate me to help right this ship.