The FULL Story..

Yeah guess were all just a buncha parts changers. I was sent to work on a Gradall lift a few months ago, (needs new injection pump I was told), I started digging into and pulling the pump. Something told me there was no problem with the pump I just had that feeling you know, I saw new wires everywhere so I knew somebody has been tinkering with it, so I pull the pump and and get it rebuilt. CAV pump, real nice rebuild from BECS Pacific, looked brand new, with new fuel shutoff, about $700+. I install it, SAME PROBLEM WOULDN'T START. The fuel pump was wired backwards, fuel was pumping the wrong direction. YAY!

LOL>> good one.!!!
Did I ever tell you guys the story about a "co-worker" that got a call in the middle of a Friday nite 10"pmish in the middle of a weekend "bender"??
The BIG BOSS/OWNER wanted to know if "he" could ride 2 hrs 1 way, SATURDAY MORNING to start this jackass' boat under warranty?? Well, being more than half in the bag, SURE, WHY NOT..
6AM comes mighty early when you go to bed at 3am.. & HAVE TO meet Mr JA at 8am..
"This guy" who shale remain nameless.. arrives 2hrs late on account of an accident on the hiway, hung over like nobodys business..
Gets chewed out for another 20 minutes by Mr. JA.. because HE wants to go joy riding in his NEW BOAT & it wont start..
A few checks were made.. no problems.. "The mechanic" walks to the controls, pulls the shifter back into NEUTRAL & turns the key & it roars to life...
Mr. JA is jumping up & down.. get off my boat, I GOTTA GO..
The guy says, not until I get paid.. your not..
The guy says, whatda mean, this is warranty..
The "mechanic" says>> NOT UNLESS YOU HAVE STUPID INSURANCE.. LOL
He left w/o getting any payment & let the boss' sort it out..
OMG> you should have heard THAT conversation on Monday morning!! it was on speaker phone.. about how "he" showed up late & how rude "he" was.. bla bla bla..
After all was said & done> the guy paid the HUGE bill.. cuz he DID NOT have Stupid Insurance & the tech. was never called on a late Friday nite, EVER AGAIN.. Lol

I like that story.......

I gotta MILLION of'um..
A guy drops of an air compressor & says it wont start.. the shop foreman tell a couple of newbies to go snatch the pump & injectors outta it.. {cuz he's smarter than everyone else} WITH OUT even going out to look at the machine!!
Pumps done, injectors are done..1000.00.. still wont start... 5 techs standing around looking at it.. I walk over & within 5 seconds find a broken wire at the shut down solenoid.. a .30 fix..!!
Have I told you how much I hate my day job?? lol

Junkyard said:

I like that story.......

Click to expand...

I got one that's very similar... sort of. Guy calls me up and has to have his John Deere tractor going NOW. So I go 30 miles out of my way, when I get there, there are 12 non English speaking guys with no less than 4 sets of jumper cables hooked to the batteries. THE SHIFTER HAS TO BE IN NUETRAL TO START. I see this stuff once a week.

Eleven years or so back I had a farmer bring in Pete ten wheeler with a BCII Cummins. He was complaining of low power and a lot of smoke. So while he was there
I took a look at it. I noticed something odd where the ether hose was hooked to the intake, someone plugged the hole with a Zerk fitting. The after cooler was
getting greased regularly

Truck Shop

We farmers sure like our grease

Way back when I was a first year apprentice one of the crew pickups was having issues (low power, lots of black smoke). Truck was a 3rd gen Ram with a Cummins. Shop foreman and only other mechanic there (who was an idiot BTW) spent hours and a ton of dollars trying to figure it out. He wouldn't let me near the thing because apparently I'm just a dumb apprentice. One day when he wasn't around I popped open the hood and investigated. Truck ran like a top once I replaced the air filter (which was jammed halfway down the intake pipe). I may be dumb but I'm still a smarter than him lol.

thepumpguysc said:

I gotta MILLION of'um..
A guy drops of an air compressor & says it wont start.. the shop foreman tell a couple of newbies to go snatch the pump & injectors outta it.. {cuz he's smarter than everyone else} WITH OUT even going out to look at the machine!!
Pumps done, injectors are done..1000.00.. still wont start... 5 techs standing around looking at it.. I walk over & within 5 seconds find a broken wire at the shut down solenoid.. a .30 fix..!!
Have I told you how much I hate my day job?? lol

Click to expand...

So who paid the $1,000.00 + $0.30 ? ? ?

when working for cat dealer used to get called out every three weeks to the docks for machines not starting after being off loaded from ships. the fix was always the same, flick ground level shut down switch to on and away we go. it was always the same dock worker and always every three weeks and 1 o'clock in the morning .told the boss at the time but was told not to worry about as it was easy money. minimum call out fee of 4 hours, plus travel, plus allowances, plus penalty's . all this at cat rates

Hoss> I;ll give you a hint.. it wasn't us.. The paperwork read, "system was "contaminated" w/ rust & mud".... {yeah, right}.. more like, system was surrounded by dumb ass's..lol

Mark, that happens to us EVERY YEAR.. the Coast Guard puts their life boats in storage for the winter & pulls them out at the beginning of EVERY season.. We've been doing their life boat work for ever & have seen it all..
Got a call afew seasons ago.. boat wont start.. they cranked it so much it drained ALL the batteries.. LOTS OF 'UM.. I get there, put fresh batteries in, do some checks, TRY to bleed the fuel system & theres no fuel anywhere..WTH??
I go to the fuel tank & its BONE DRY.. I yell to the mate, hey theres no fuel in this tank..
He yells back>> I know, we drained it last season.. LOL.!!!!!!

Not tryin to top anybody, but my buddy, who had a starter/generator/battery shop had one come in, while I was there. Sold a guy a battery, after testing the old one. Car comes in on a rollback, won't start, wants it fixed, or replace the defective battery you sold me. There it was, brand new interstate battery, still in the shrink wrap, with the top post terminals still covered in the HD shrink wrap, with the car's cables, clamped over the plastic. And the guy thought it would work, thattaway...

Okay so heres a full story. I call this one "KARMAS PAYMENT PLAN", So I get a call recently from an old friend of mine at around midnight, I'm like what the hell it 's midnight and I'm in bed, I don't answer...he calls again...and again..so I answer. Basically the conversation went like this.

Hello?
Hey Brodie it's Little John
I know, hows it goin?
Not good, were stuck in Florida and our diesel Dodge Sprinter Van is broke down, I think we bought some "bad gas."
Bad gas? What do you mean?
Well everything was going good until we got some diesel from this gas station then our van made a couple miles down the road and died, won't restart.
Hmm, that sounds weird, are you positive you bought diesel and not gas?
Yep positive.
Hmm I need more details, somethings not right here, really, what gas station did you go too?

THEN THE TRUTH COMES OUT.

Okay so we ran out of money and we siphoned diesel out of a bulldozer at a construction site.
What?! Hahaha, you probably siphoned out of the wrong tank...
No were sure we siphoned the diesel tank.
Oh like you were sure you bought bad gas from a gas station? Theres several tanks on some machines and some times the caps look the same, diesel, coolant, hydraulic fluid.
We're sure we siphoned diesel.
Oh yeah? Ok well I can't really help, I have to go back to bed, I will call you tomorrow to confirm you siphoned the wrong fluid.
No, were sure its diesel.
Ok goodnight.

I found out the next day they filled their entire fuel tank up with coolant, hahah, I guess karmas a biotch!

I think with all this this talk we should start a thread with all the best MISTAKES we have made, hahaha. Yeah?

Had customer bring in their 89 Volvo for drive shoes. He comes back six days later complaining of a air leak that wasn't there before I worked on it. I noticed the air leak
was at the back of the cab and it had a newly installed fire extinguisher hanging on the back of the cab. he had drilled a hole dead center of the supply hose going to the
pressure protection valve mounted inside of rear cab. It had a 1/4" bolt going through it with a nut on the inside of cab interior.

Truck Shop

Had a complaint of a boom lift that had no drive function. Walked around the machine, checked a few things. Couldn't really find anything. Looked a little harder in a mess of hoses around the hydraulic tank. Noticed the ball valve supplying the drive pump was closed. Opened valve and now we have drive functions. Lucky they didn't burn the pump out of it lol.

Got called on my way home from work to go to plant loader an hour and a half away that wouldn't start.....fuel gauge was on E and the worst part is it was within reach of the fuel pumps. Drug the hose over and filled the tank, hit the primer switch and called the operator an idiot......at least it was overtime lol

Also been called out more times than I can remember to a machine with dead batteries that turned out to be a master switch that was never turned on, or a machine that wasn't in neutral.

Was changing a rad on a machine at a site with multiple companies working on the project. Had to move out of the way so another company could swap out a big welder that wouldn't start. Because of the location they needed to use a knuckle boom. Not 5 minutes later I get a call from the boss: "There's a welder down out near you that won't start. Can you take a look at it?" Oh you mean the one they just made me pack up and move out of the way so they could lift it out? Walked across the jobsite, flipped the lockout switch on and started the welder. Best part was not 30 seconds later some guy walks over and tries to start the already running welder. Twice.

Facepalm