Working at the DOT was an invaluable experience.  The guys taught me more than I thought I could, challenged me beyond my limits, and most importantly showed me how to keep that shovel from falling over.  Total hours for March are a whopping 48.  Been spending the last few weeks working back some of this intern debt I've accrued this quarter.  My PC is kind of on the fritz right now so I can't post pictures, but we had quite the incident with one of the drivers not doing a very thorough walk-around on one of the sanding trucks.  He failed to notice one inch rust streaks going outwards from the lug nuts on the driver side rear wheel.  However, he didn't fail to notice the wheel go past him on the freeway when the bolts broke off.  Pretty interesting there.  I don't imagine I will ever forget to look at and check the torque on my wheels if I start driving truck.

I went back into the shop yesterday to make sure everything hadn't fallen into chaos in my absence and received an update on the Broce sweeper.  After I had the rear brakes all put back together they were still quite tight.  We went ahead and replaced the emergency brake pedal on my last day because it was binding up.    I left with the sweeper still hanging from the lift.  Apparently what had happened was that Broce sent us the wrong shoes.  They were not quite the right curve angle for our drums.  Took them awhile to figure that out.  I guess what led them to that was that the top and bottoms of the pads themselves were shining after installing and spinning the wheel.  Indicating the obvious:  wrong curve.  That will always be something I check.  Just simply putting the shoe into the drum is all that's needed that would have saved hours of headache.

Broce Sweeper

Today I ended up working on the Broce sweeper again.  All the parts for the drum brakes came in as well as both tie-rod ends.  Had a ton of fun with it as the guys let me tackle them (the brakes, not the guys!) without bothering me all day.  I learned a lot of new things; so much sometimes it's hard to remember it all.  I think the biggest thing (as well as most likely the most simple thing) I figured out when putting these drum assemblies back together was it is WAY easier to put all the springs and cylinder back together the opposite order they came off.  Right now, it seems stupid that I even have to put that down as a big thing; but it was.  The first drum took me upwards of an hour and a half, almost finishing right before lunch.  I couldn't get it and couldn't get it.  Took lunch and thought about it.  Came back with my new found approach.  Finished it up in about 15 minutes, then went to the next one and that one only took about 45 minutes.  Next one went even quicker.

1 down

1 of 4 Drum Brakes for
 Broce Sweeper

It was very satisfying being able to get all 4 back on there with little to no help. However, I should probably clarify that since we are replacing the king pins, bushings, and throw-out bearings on the front that I really only have the 2 rear drums actually on the vehicle.  The next step is getting those front steering knuckle assemblies (not sure if steering knuckle is the proper term, gonna have to ask the bossman on that one) and get the tie-rod straightened and installed.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow for sure!

  Here's a little generalized bonus for you guys out there.  Feel free to criticize this as I haven't fully verified the validity of the information.  However, I have found it very useful taped to my tool box for quick reference to the vehicles in our fleet.

Dirty little sweepers

  Pulled in the Broce sweeper this week to get an annual done on it.  What happened from there turned out to be so much more.  As I was greasing it up, the zercs in the front right and left lower kingpin bushings wouldn't take any grease.  I took the zercs out and cleaned up inside as much as I could until I noticed the grease hole in both bushings weren't lined up at all.  Took the caps off the bottom of the kingpin and the bottom was just brick hard and dry.  The boss man let me loose the next day to get new kingpins, bushings, L and R tie rod ends.  That was pretty cool to let him have me take time and try and figure out best pricing and availability.  Was a great exercise for me.
  Since everything is still pretty new to me in this field, I have to ask a ton of questions.  Even the simple ones.  Last week was extra challenging for me in that regard.  I've never taken brakes off, let alone apart before.  I've never come close to taking any part of any suspension apart.  On the other hand, I feel like my brain is stretching so far my skull's gonna burst with how much I get to learn from this time as an intern.
  Waiting on parts for the Broce, they should be in Tuesday for me to start throwing it back together.  This will be the first job they've put me on solo.  Pretty exciting times for me.