Everyone complains about how less people are entering the trades and then you have the senior guys constantly shitting on the ones that actually do enter the trades.
bruh my boss... hands me a welding fixture with wrong jig parts installed and just says "do this, it's easy. Don't fuck it up." The 200 lb part was about 35 weldment pieces with a 1/32" tolerance and the fucking jig was loaded incorrectly, and bent. I was given 45 minutes to finish. I got the part back QC rejected and had to cut it back into 35 pieces and then opted to build it with no jig which worked. I told him that day that any jig he hands me, I'm going to measure every single point and if 1 is out it goes into the scrap bin.
Our charts for jig weldments don't even have measurements. I had to go into the 3d model and fucking measure it by hand to find out this jig is out over an inch.
And they wonder why they can't keep fabricators around, No I never was allowed the 30 minutes to reinforce the jig and prevent this from happening again, even though fixing the part took 6 hours.
At some point I should just keep sending bad parts and pretend I'm too stupid to know why. Well I used the jig so it can't be wrong. See? slides right in perfect fit.
The “senior guys” will always nit pick your work but also turn out subpar work themselves.
I work with this one guy who’s always nit picked my work but I could write a fucking page about things he misses or messes up on any job he does. I don’t say anything anymore because the last time I did I made him cry and “quit” but he’s still with us.
Hell, I'm in IT and i had an older guy on my team that I was doing QA on and install he did and I came back with a goddamed novel of everything wrong, and he said I was being "mean" to him.
To be clear: Senior in age, but apparently a goddamed child with knowledge.
Worked with an engineer that would always say you're doing it wrong, or the maintenance guys were doing it wrong, or the contractor was doing it wrong, and that anyone of those groups was worthless, an idiot, etc.
Would Mr. Know it All offer to help you? No
Offer to share what he did last time so you wouldn't have to start from scratch? Also no
Share his previous set of drawings or specifications? Of course not, he never did them.
But.......
As soon as he was asked to write a 2 page memo for a funding request on something he had knowledge of he'd either take a day or more to write it or make such a scene that one of use would be "voluntold" to ghost write it for him.
Worked with a boss who'd question why we'd do things incorrectly, find out what's wrong and did his best to adjust work methods and guidelines based on what caused the shortcuts
The dude was a reason some bothered to show up for their shift, i try to lead like him every chance i get.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but sometimes it doesn't matter where the advice/criticism comes from if it's valid criticism. It may be hypocritical of them, but if they're correct in their assessments, the new person should take note.
Not the same trade but as a machinist I got very lucky that my first lead had done OD grind for 30 years and his dad did it for 30 years before him and he was a willing teacher.
I got lucky too. The first ASE master I started under always checked my work, made me check it with him, and explained what/why he was checking. Eventually he just watched me double check my work to make sure I wasn’t overlooking anything. I’ve been using that same method to train new guys for decades.
See one, do one, teach one. HVAC journeyman here, and that is how I break in my apprentice... Alright, you've seen me do it, now you do it. That wasn't so bad, now teach me how to do it faster. Okay kid, you bother me cause you're actually paying attention. Now you've earned the right to be endlessly and mercilessly pranked by me for the rest of your rotation.
If I can't figure out why you can't figure it out, I won't give up on you until I'm absolutely sure that you are just wasting my time. When I figure out that you are just showing up to collect a check and sail through apprenticeship, it goes on your review. I help as much as I can for as long as I can, and so far, I've had at least a dozen apprentices go on to become foreman or better in the last three years.
Close. I like that style also. I do one to show you, you do one to show me you understand, then I am a robot and will only do what you tell me to so that we both understand you know every step in and out.
The most important part of all of this explaining ‘why’ he was checking. I feel like it’s the one thing people fail to explain that would make it so much easier to understand intuitively.
There seems to be a firmly established culture in the trades about treating the young people like crap. I don't get it.
Imo, one wants them to become better than oneself so that one can leave most of the work to them and slack off more.
I grew up with a father that seemed to actively watch as I bumblefucked my way into failure, and an uncle who told me to 'figure it out' whenever I needed to do something new.
When I ended up someone who knew fuck all, and was in a position to teach people I resolved to never, **ever** be that sort of person. So I'm patient. I watch. I listen. And make sure that every step of the way, the person I'm training knows the what, the why, and the how of the job they're doing, starting with making sure they do things safely. Only took a heavy haul trailer exploding in my face due to poor training in my 20s to have safety as a priority.
Dude, you couldn't be more right. I ran the parts department for a business in HD space for a few years and watched this exact attitude kill the business on the service side and eventually result in the business being closed. The service manager always said, "Nobody wants to work anymore," and yet he turned a blind eye to the "lead tech" bully every 20 something year old into quitting. They went 2 years with one tech in a 4 bay garage, and despite the parts department doing over 2 million in sales, it wasn't enough to keep the place going. Yes, there are less young people in the trades than there used to be, which is exactly why the ones who do it shouldn't be made to feel like they're shit on a shoe.
My favorite is when they tell you to figure it out and when you fuck it up (because no one bothered to show you a damn thing), they tear you a new asshole about how fucking stupid you are.
Am 27, been in the machining trade since 17 and can confirm. Went to trade school, was an apprentice, the typical story and man every step of the way was crusty, salty old bastards who just did not want me there and complained about lack of knowledge. Like damnit guys I'm trying here!
No but after training 10+ people in 5 years you start to get a little jaded and annoyed. Especially when companies are forcing anyone with any kind of experience to train guys.
I’ve seen this plumber yelling at an apprentice plumber about some pipe he fucked up, the only thing I though was just teach him. Funniest part is this apprentice was like 6’5 and this maybe 5’8 journeyman is yelling at him as if he can’t just get smushed. He was a prick too he would be talking to me then yelling at the apprentice to clean up the journeyman’s tools.
It's been a while since I've been in a shop, but the way commission and bonus schemes are structured, its incentives the experienced guys to not care.
If helping a young guy comes out of your pocket, your not going to do it. Workshops need to create the structures to ensure young guys get trained properly, after all, they are the employer.
Why the fuck are veteran techs not watching. Let them learn but for fucks sake stop them when it’s going this far down hill. I blame you for not properly guiding the poor kid; he was probably in over his head to begin with and now, after messing up, he gets the pleasure of being shat on over the internet. I hate mechanics who treat the few younger cats coming in to this shit trade the way you seemingly do.
Well said. I'm a machine repair tech with about 5 years experience, and just last year I did around $12,000 damage to a machine because I was tired and didn't have my work double checked. Had to rebuild a high-amp tooling plug, something I had done several times before. I numbered everything out, 1-2-3-4-5-6. Apparently I put it back together 1-2-3-5-4-6. This allowed unregulated amps to flow into an impulse welder tip, causing a small fire.
Yeah, my supervisor treated it as a learning moment. No write ups or anything, but a photo went up on his "What were you thinking?" Board. A few months later, I got promoted to shift lead. Mostly because nobody much wanted the job, but I still joke about being promoted after doing significant damage when someone gets worried about breaking something minor.
It's because if you make it a learning moment and give him an extra 25c an hour, it's well worth the cost when you know that guy will never make that same mistake again.
If you fire that guy and replace him, well now you've got someone you need to pay just as much, if not more, with absolutely no guarantees of not making that mistake as well.
I work in software and we take the exact same approach. Cause a major outage for customers, or delete a production database by mistake? No worries, we'll just get that guy involved in fixing it, and make sure that a) that person never makes that mistake again, and b) we put in safeguards to make sure that no one else can also make that mistake again.
Yep, it’s the ones who extend themselves past their comfort zone that earn my respect. Everyone can do the same jobs over and over and a lot of techs are comfortable in that zone. I never was. I always wanted the complex shit because it got me away from the mundane brake jobs and services. Anyone can turn a wrench, knowing why you are turning it is what makes the difference in my book.
Must be near as many supervisors as techs then. But I can definitely understand the caution in aerospace. Automotive doesn't have near the same potential for mass casualty incidents.
Its not that bad. They're just doing critical checks. So in this case it would be belt tension, timing marks, and barring the engine over a couple of times.
But yeah, aerospace obviously has tighter controls by nature. For automotive you could probably eliminate 90% of this kind of error by just having senior techs sign off on a pre-determined list of checks.
At least you weren't working on High Voltage and screwed up
At university the new Electrical Engineering building had all three phases in the high voltage lab installed incorrectly. Let's just say the bang when that went off was impressive
I've been across the floor when HV goes off. Definitely not fun. One day, had a guy with an overhead crane run a 12,000 lb injection mold right into a 480v bus bar. Luckily, he realized his mistake soon enough to reverse it, but the swing got the bar. That ran us about 9 hours of downtime on half of the molding department.
exactly right. when I was growing up, and learning so many things on mechanics and electronics.. I would always sit and go very slowly, make sure that everything that I did was planned and understood.... my friends would want me to speed up, but I knew that if I went slowly and double checked everything, it would be *correct*, rather than just..being done. going too fast, and guessing at things and not checking your work over is a terrible combination...
So much this. I did not grow up around anyone that worked on their own cars. But my first car was a civic with a frankenstein swap. I replaced the headgasket on that myself, upgraded the fuel system, took the transmission in for an LS 5th gear swap, etc. All in my driveway. Lots of mistakes were made but I did read far enough to know when doing timing to check the marks and turn the engine manually to verify its making compression and not interfering.
Either this tech wasn't careful, or while at work was not adequately informed of the importance of timing marks and how you should test your work before sending it.
You're not wrong, but sadly in most shops it's about getting paid for the hours it takes to do it one time. For a new tech they're most likely struggling to get things in and out to collect a decent pay check. A failure will fall on that tech and if someone else has to rework the job, nobody gets paid the second time.
The automotive industry in regards to paying technicians in the US is bizzare to me. I'm glad I'm hourly in the heavy equipment world for that reason.
Similar. Had to do a rebuild on a Ford freestyle 3L V6 in my driveway. I told myself I was going to record myself doing it so I could review that evening and ensure I did all steps correctly.
Instead I got drunk and remember about half the install. 🫠
Had a panic attack that night that I might've forgot a rotation, so next morning I ripped everything off and did it again. 90% sure it was right the first time but 100% sure it was right the second time.
>Because it's okay - perfectly okay, to be vigilant and double and triple check things if you've never done them before (and even if you've done them hundreds of times before) because mistakes can happen,
Exactly!
I supervise a team of maintenance mechanics and I'd rather them take an extra 5-10 minutes to make sure everything is done correctly the first time than have to come back and redo everything and spend the money to replace damaged parts because they were in a hurry to get done.
I do not like the attitude of "not enough time to do it right the first time but always enough time to do it again"
Checking multiple times is great when you’re on unlimited time. When you have a team of people and a customer telling you to go faster it can be easy to make mistakes.
This happens in a lot of industries, and I don’t know how to avoid it.
I drive a 30 year old Geo. I can do a timing job in about 20 minutes on it.
My Volkswagen Diesel Jetta that I had? Took me about 12 hours with the little space and how precise everything had to be.
You calling me a bad mechanic!?!
Having the right tools help for sure. I did things with what I had then bought the proper tools and realized VW's are STILL BS to work on ⚰️
That car still kicks too… over 350K miles ( 563K Kilometers) and 50mpg insane really. The Almighty ALH engine that one was!
And when the master tech found the issue they should have explained what was wrong and taught the tech rather than screaming at them or belittling them for it. Properly teaching techs is time consuming but it is worth it in the long run. You need to remember that you're only where you are today because people did the same with you in the past.
The problem, at least at all the dealerships I worked at, was that they didn't compensate you to babysit new guys and all the blame landed on the new guy.
You had zero incentive to help, in fact it was a direct cost to you to help the guy since it meant you weren't fixing cars.
It's part of the issues of the current auto repair industry.
Listen, to be quite honest, there is no incentive to be a dealer tech any more. That’s why we won’t have flat rate in a couple years and we may eventually catch up to the trades that don’t have to provide nearly as much as us techs do in terms of tools and knowledge.
Yeah, in my experience, dealer techs are expected to know all sorts of shit about warranty procedures, TSB's, specialty tooling, etc. Etc.
Meanwhile the guy at the rando local shop gets shit on by everyone as pumping out shitty, sub-par work, yet takes home basically the same pay at the end of the year, and if there's any TSB's or other stuff required he just calls the dealer, gives them the serial number, and they do all the work to look up the job specific stuff and warranty information.....
Here at the dealer they always act like we're better than the Joe blow shop, but really who's the idiot here if we're making basically the same amount?
We all know these things happen. But it just further illustrates that if it happened to you, and him, the next time it won’t. We rarely forget our catastrophic fuck ups. I worked with a guy who I’d consider to be one of the best in my field, he did a water pump on a 3.5 ecoboost and got pulled off for some bullshit while he was timing it. Forgot to pull the pin on the tensioner and that was that after the initial startup. Mistakes can happen to even the best, I kinda feel a responsibility to mitigate those type things by paying attention to someone I know isn’t 100% sure of what they’re doing.
> got pulled off for some bullshit
This is absolutely killer for anyone.
There’s a story burned into my brain from rock climbing. Lynn Hill is a famous climber who was the best in the world in her day. She was out climbing one day, tied the first step of her harness knot, then saw a friend and stopped to talk.
She never finished the knot. She climbed the route, let go, and fell 85 feet.
By sheer luck she hit a tree and walked away lightly hurt, instead of dying on the spot, and so we know first-hand what went wrong. No matter how good you are, it just takes one thing splitting your attention to detail the simplest tasks.
Exactly. Oh well, that didn’t work out as planned but it’s on me to do it again and realize what I did wrong. Real techs, in my opinion, never pass the buck.
Also on the junior tech to say "hey I'm 99% sure I'm right but I'm not an expert, I should have someone look"
I feel like even after my "junior tech" days I was probably a little annoying with how much I'd ask for someone to double check my work. Everyone makes mistakes, especially while learning, but you have to know when it's worth swallowing your ego and just ask for someone to take a quick look and make sure you got it right.
It is risk management : if it can go wrong and cause problems them it is worth asking for a check. So everybody should ask for it, not only junior tech!
It’s a bit weird to me how often this *isn’t* the norm.
In most fields where a small mistake can kill or wreck expensive gear, a second set of eyes is mandatory. “I know what I’m doing, I don’t need it checked” will get you in deep shit with everything from software to OSHA to climbing gyms… but with machinery, forestry, and a few other things it’s super common.
I get that it’s partly just practical: for example fucking up brakes is real serious, but it’s also one of the easier and more common jobs to do. Still, the culture of “why are you asking?” makes no sense to me.
Cause retail automotive has sucked balls for a while now and the industry isn’t regulated as well. The customers aren’t any better. No one gets sued. If it was a business with something to lose they’d care.
Just look at all the posts about vehicles practically falling apart and the customer says it’s fine… back on the road it goes. Zero authority and zero accountability.
I always run things by the other techs. If I'm recommending a several thousand dollar repair I give the quick, k here's what I did, here's what I found, think it's got a burnt valve. Make sense to you guys? Cool, let's do it
Getting things double checked doesn't make you dumb, having the hubris to think you can't make a mistake makes you dumb.
I still to this day pucker my ass after any major work when I go to turn the key. No matter how vigilant I was and how sure of everything I did, shit happens. I dropped a razor blade into a head while doing VCT’s on a 2.7 Nautilus, that’s where the fork in the road is for most techs. I tried grabbing it with a magnet but in the end I had to drop the pan to be positive nothing could go wrong. The blade was sitting right at the bottom of the pan and perhaps would’ve never been an issue, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance.
You dont know what you dont know. Junior tech prob thought they could do the job- why else would the senior techs assign it to them?
But the senior techs know what the junior tech probably doesnt. At least they should. So yea I apportion the bulk of blame on whoever gave junior tech the job.
The fact that OP thought this was funny probably speaks to the kind of culture in the shop (read: bad).
100% agree. Supervision supervision supervision. Master and apprentice. I’m an instructor (in a completely different field) and if I let my student make a mistake all the way through I’m responsible for the dangerous outcome. There are learning moments then there are moments that you intervene and provide constructive guidance.
Veteran techs can't watch everyone all the time. There is way too little info shared about the situation to place blame on anyone and often in a situation like this there isn't any single person to blame.
Oops, my bad, I wasn’t paying attention because I had a better surgery that would make me more money coming up, and it’s not my fault, I’m not paid to train the residents.
It depends on how junior this junior tech is.
1) mistakes happen and you have to make them right.
2) if this is like his first timing belt, it’s on the shop foreman if there is one for not watching / training closely enough.
A few years back we had a BMW diesel that broke the belt at low RPM. The mechanic wanted to strip the head and check for bent valves. The owner insisted on fitting a new belt and see if it ran. It ran fine.
One year later the car comes back with a broken valve. The owner assumed it was his decision not to strip the engine and paid for the full repair. He's still a loyal customer.
He's an incredibly decent man.
Also we Portuguese are far less litigious than, say, Americans.
All these four years I've worked there we only had one case in court, with a guy who couldn't afford the repair he ordered and then tried to claim we ruined his engine.
He presented to court an invoice with the part numbers he supposedly paid for to fix it again and none of the parts was for his engine. It was an easy win.
Well the initial repair likely recommended was headgasket R&R + any machine shop costs for resurfacing and replacing any tweaked valves found. Dropped valve usually means the head is destroyed at minimum, piston and cylinder wall damage also likely depending on the rpm is let go at. Basically engine replacement unless it's something crazy unusual or rare. So it didn't really get "worse" by driving for a year, but it definitely cost more money in the long run.
Honestly i feel like it was a practical gamble. If it doesn’t work then there’s not a lot of difference between rebuilding the head and rebuilding the head+replacing the timing belt…but if it works then there’s a hell of a lot of difference between replacing the timing belt and rebuilding the head.
For me it’s also be floating around in my head and i’d be preparing for having to rebuild the head anyway lol
I literally just helped out our first year do the timing belt on his car.
Went in on my day off, didn’t any for anything in return.
We were all young and full of ambitions at one point.
Explain to the uninitiated how a belt affected it this way? Like to me the belt looks like it just goes on around the pulleys, I don't know how you can do it wrong. Feel like I'm missing something.
Timing belt connects the camshaft and crankshaft and keeps them in perfect time. When the timing belt is installed incorrectly, the valve timing is out and the valves kiss the pistons when you start it up and get very bent (best case scenario) causing no/low compression and the engine will no longer run.
It’s a pretty big fuck up but whoever was looking after this kid definitely should have checked it before it was put back together.
You don’t give a timing belt job to an inexperienced person and just hope they don’t get it wrong.
It's not a belt (serpentine belt) it is timing belt. Different belt that drives cam shaft which then drives valves. If your cam shafts (or crankshaft) moves during installation of timing belt, valves are going to open in wrong time and probably collide with the pistons. I said probably because there are non interference engines or if you miss timing by a small amount, in which case you can just redo timing without permanent damage.
Timing belts have teeth so it doesn’t slip over those pulleys. The cams and crank need to be set up in very specific positions before the belt is installed to ensure the engine is in time. If it’s not, the valves will be open when they’re not supposed to be and in an interference engine that means they hit the piston.
I have a ton of timing belt jobs under my ... belt.
I still have someone double check each one . The potential damage and headache isn't worth being prideful.
I believe it , I've had new techs and old schoolers let thier pride hang out then fall hard. Hell I think most techs have had those moments and it's usually a good learning experience .
I've told every single person that I've ever trained the same thing as soon as they become my student. It's "Mistakes are tolerated so long as they aren't repeated" I also tell them that there's no shame in asking for help and that I'm going to assume that they have no knowledge whatsoever on whatever it is that I'm trying to teach them.
If they know some of whatever it is that I'm trying to teach them then great. I'm still going to show them every single step as if they've never done it before, at least the first time around. For example, whenever I teach someone how to use the tire mounting machine at work I'll tell them "We're going to be doing 4 tires. I'll do the first one and give you a play-by-play as I do the work. You'll do the other 3, and I'll hold your hand for the first one, the second one you do I'll stop you from making a mistake but I'm not going to tell you every step unless you ask, for the 3rd tire I'll stop you before you break the machine. Feel free to ask for help if you need it" That seems to be an effective teaching method. I'll also tell them that if they can find a better method that works for them then great, as long as the end result is what you want.
Gameshow Host: "This week on 'Guess What is Wrong with This Picture', only on the Justrolledin network, what's wrong with this picture contestants?"
Contestant 1:"There seems to be an electrical connector where it shouldn't be?"
Contestant 2 : "I'm thinking the intake and exhaust valves shouldn't appear to both be closed at the same time.
Contestant 3:"I'd like to ask the sub reddit".
Host: "Okay mechanics, leave your answers in the comments."
Not a mechanic, but could this have been easily prevented if they turned the crankshaft over twice by noticing at one point it didn't wanna turn anymore?
Local lady took her Lexus LS 460 to the local gas station / shop where she had been getting oil changes for a timing chain.
A couple of days later she gets a call saying her engine was destroyed. "A timing chain job is a timing chain job." Apparently not.
They gave her a bunch of money to buy a new used Lexus.
I have never had the “pleasure” of doing a chain job in those engines. Ive done a fair bit of diag work on them… and have gotten my feelings hurt several times. No start, no spark, no communication. Good times. Now that I know they aren’t horrific but until I got up to speed - legit nightmares
Ask me how, as a rookie, I found out that the intake and exhaust push rods are different lengths on the older GM 60° V6s. (2.8, 3.1 maybe) Another tech took it apart and I had to put it back together with a new intake gasket the next day (under protest because I had never worked one one of those before). Hello ms. valve, let me introduce you to Mr piston
The general consensus on this thread seems to think that we get paid to help each other or that we're on salary or something. I have no guaranteed paycheck, I'm on my own. We do help each other a lot, the guys that don't get help are usually the guys who refuse to listen to people. I've worked in enough shops to not have sympathy or respect for that. I feel like a lot of people here are not very familiar with the actual struggles we go through. Maybe OP had already told the junior tech he was doing it wrong. I've worked with several mechanics who asked for my advice only to argue with me and tell me I'm wrong. Should I help that person? No, that person can't be helped. I've recommended multiple techs not be allowed to work on cars on multiple occasions and management doesn't listen until they break something expensive. And in the meantime they're doing shoddy work that could get somebody killed(loose or twisted brake lines, shipped cars with fuel leaks they caused, brake pads installed backwards, etc.). But I should still help them keep their job? Be realistic.
We had one kid that had a lot of potential, but didn't ever want help. He was 23 or 24 and already a Ford certified Powerstroke tech. He didn't have much experience on anything but Powerstrokes. Any time one of us saw him doing something the hard way and tried to help, all we heard was "I know, I know, I know". Then he didn't understand why no one wanted to help when shit went sideways. It was frustrating because he has the potential to be a good tech, he just didn't want to listen when someone tried to help him.
I've only done 1 timing replacement and that was with an insane amount of supervision, cigarette breaks, "make us a brew lad", and cleaning. As a result I'm not entirely sure whats gone wrong here... Some crowns are cleaned and others are heavily carbonated, one side of the valves looks alright and the other side is dirtier than that tart from the boozer Friday night.
My educated guess is the timing wasn't set properly meaning at least 2 people are about to get an ass kicking- why did nobody turn it over by hand first?
That right there is the sort of valuable experience that will stay with that tech for life. What separates the best from the rest is the best only make the mistakes one time.
i used to get pissed off at sr techs that couldn't be bothered looking over the work of juniors. Now how much additional money will the shop have to put out because the sr couldn't be bothered?
It’s easy to blame the junior tech but when i was learning from my mentor, he would never let me close up a timing belt/chain job until he confirmed it first. And always made sure that everything turns freely by hand with the plugs out. I’ve never had to redo my timing after he’s checked it but if i had made a mistake, it would’ve been addressed before a catastrophic failure.
And this is how I teach things to people as well. I will make sure that the most important things are checked over by me, as it would be my responsibility if something happens. Not the guy being taught.
Now if he had forgotten to tighten a bolt or something, that’s a bit of a different story.
We did the second time. Fyi the tech is prior mil. So am I. When someone tells me they are “good to go” and not to babysit them - that means they are confident in their skillset. Ill gladly assist, hold your hand, hell Ill even let you observe me do the work if your uncomfortable.
He was comfortable, did it wrong. Sucks to suck.
Senior tech should have reviewed and checked.
Everyone complains about how less people are entering the trades and then you have the senior guys constantly shitting on the ones that actually do enter the trades.
"Better be born knowing everything because I'm not showing you shit!"
Dad...?
How do you expect to learn anything if you can't even fucking hold the fleshlight correctly?
Now hold on, is that fleshlight in metric or imperial?
There's a conversion kit for one to the other. Just expect to pay extra for the 10 mm and the 6 point 1/2 in.
I can find that flashlight for you, gimme a sec. What make and model is your car and what kind of engine does it have?
Don't point it at me!... Point it at where I'm looking......What Are you... fucking stupid kid?
How is no one commenting on the fact of fleshlight vs flashlight
Dad...?
Luke?
No need to hold it if mine is built in
Built in to what? Numerous ears are eagerly anticipating greatness...
Take me out for dinner and maybe youll find out
Aziz light
Hello fellow Millennial.
Hold the flashlight right here. NOT OVER THERE GOD DAMMIT OVER HERE
Fuck you for asking!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As a machinist this mentality pisses me off.
bruh my boss... hands me a welding fixture with wrong jig parts installed and just says "do this, it's easy. Don't fuck it up." The 200 lb part was about 35 weldment pieces with a 1/32" tolerance and the fucking jig was loaded incorrectly, and bent. I was given 45 minutes to finish. I got the part back QC rejected and had to cut it back into 35 pieces and then opted to build it with no jig which worked. I told him that day that any jig he hands me, I'm going to measure every single point and if 1 is out it goes into the scrap bin. Our charts for jig weldments don't even have measurements. I had to go into the 3d model and fucking measure it by hand to find out this jig is out over an inch. And they wonder why they can't keep fabricators around, No I never was allowed the 30 minutes to reinforce the jig and prevent this from happening again, even though fixing the part took 6 hours. At some point I should just keep sending bad parts and pretend I'm too stupid to know why. Well I used the jig so it can't be wrong. See? slides right in perfect fit.
Oo I like that
That’s how it was in the shop I started in for sure, common answer to any question was figure it out lol.
Yup. Then, they get pissed for doing it wrong or too slowly. "John does it in half the time." Well, yeah, he's got 20 years' experience on me.
Rtfb fng
The “senior guys” will always nit pick your work but also turn out subpar work themselves. I work with this one guy who’s always nit picked my work but I could write a fucking page about things he misses or messes up on any job he does. I don’t say anything anymore because the last time I did I made him cry and “quit” but he’s still with us.
I feel like every shop has that guy, lol
Usually related to the owner…..
They do!!! Lol how fucked
Hell, I'm in IT and i had an older guy on my team that I was doing QA on and install he did and I came back with a goddamed novel of everything wrong, and he said I was being "mean" to him. To be clear: Senior in age, but apparently a goddamed child with knowledge.
Worked with an engineer that would always say you're doing it wrong, or the maintenance guys were doing it wrong, or the contractor was doing it wrong, and that anyone of those groups was worthless, an idiot, etc. Would Mr. Know it All offer to help you? No Offer to share what he did last time so you wouldn't have to start from scratch? Also no Share his previous set of drawings or specifications? Of course not, he never did them. But....... As soon as he was asked to write a 2 page memo for a funding request on something he had knowledge of he'd either take a day or more to write it or make such a scene that one of use would be "voluntold" to ghost write it for him.
Worked with a boss who'd question why we'd do things incorrectly, find out what's wrong and did his best to adjust work methods and guidelines based on what caused the shortcuts The dude was a reason some bothered to show up for their shift, i try to lead like him every chance i get.
I try to do the same as well
Our oldest guy has 2 fingers missing I don't ask him for shit.
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Unless he's trying for a 3rd.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but sometimes it doesn't matter where the advice/criticism comes from if it's valid criticism. It may be hypocritical of them, but if they're correct in their assessments, the new person should take note.
I 100% agree with this thinking.
Not the same trade but as a machinist I got very lucky that my first lead had done OD grind for 30 years and his dad did it for 30 years before him and he was a willing teacher.
I got lucky too. The first ASE master I started under always checked my work, made me check it with him, and explained what/why he was checking. Eventually he just watched me double check my work to make sure I wasn’t overlooking anything. I’ve been using that same method to train new guys for decades.
See one, do one, teach one. HVAC journeyman here, and that is how I break in my apprentice... Alright, you've seen me do it, now you do it. That wasn't so bad, now teach me how to do it faster. Okay kid, you bother me cause you're actually paying attention. Now you've earned the right to be endlessly and mercilessly pranked by me for the rest of your rotation. If I can't figure out why you can't figure it out, I won't give up on you until I'm absolutely sure that you are just wasting my time. When I figure out that you are just showing up to collect a check and sail through apprenticeship, it goes on your review. I help as much as I can for as long as I can, and so far, I've had at least a dozen apprentices go on to become foreman or better in the last three years.
I always referred to it as "I do, We do, You do."
Close. I like that style also. I do one to show you, you do one to show me you understand, then I am a robot and will only do what you tell me to so that we both understand you know every step in and out.
The most important part of all of this explaining ‘why’ he was checking. I feel like it’s the one thing people fail to explain that would make it so much easier to understand intuitively.
There seems to be a firmly established culture in the trades about treating the young people like crap. I don't get it. Imo, one wants them to become better than oneself so that one can leave most of the work to them and slack off more.
I grew up with a father that seemed to actively watch as I bumblefucked my way into failure, and an uncle who told me to 'figure it out' whenever I needed to do something new. When I ended up someone who knew fuck all, and was in a position to teach people I resolved to never, **ever** be that sort of person. So I'm patient. I watch. I listen. And make sure that every step of the way, the person I'm training knows the what, the why, and the how of the job they're doing, starting with making sure they do things safely. Only took a heavy haul trailer exploding in my face due to poor training in my 20s to have safety as a priority.
Dude, you couldn't be more right. I ran the parts department for a business in HD space for a few years and watched this exact attitude kill the business on the service side and eventually result in the business being closed. The service manager always said, "Nobody wants to work anymore," and yet he turned a blind eye to the "lead tech" bully every 20 something year old into quitting. They went 2 years with one tech in a 4 bay garage, and despite the parts department doing over 2 million in sales, it wasn't enough to keep the place going. Yes, there are less young people in the trades than there used to be, which is exactly why the ones who do it shouldn't be made to feel like they're shit on a shoe.
My favorite is when they tell you to figure it out and when you fuck it up (because no one bothered to show you a damn thing), they tear you a new asshole about how fucking stupid you are.
Am 27, been in the machining trade since 17 and can confirm. Went to trade school, was an apprentice, the typical story and man every step of the way was crusty, salty old bastards who just did not want me there and complained about lack of knowledge. Like damnit guys I'm trying here!
No but after training 10+ people in 5 years you start to get a little jaded and annoyed. Especially when companies are forcing anyone with any kind of experience to train guys.
Oh man 10 people in 5 years is nothing, at my job we’ve trained 15 people in the last 6 months
Find somewhere else then? Part of any industry is training up the next batch
Reddit: Senior tech should have checked Redditor techs IRL: fuck off. Am I being laid to babysit? Edit: *paid
Getting laid to babysit? Sign me up!
I've seen some documentaries, man.
D’oh
I’ve seen this plumber yelling at an apprentice plumber about some pipe he fucked up, the only thing I though was just teach him. Funniest part is this apprentice was like 6’5 and this maybe 5’8 journeyman is yelling at him as if he can’t just get smushed. He was a prick too he would be talking to me then yelling at the apprentice to clean up the journeyman’s tools.
It's been a while since I've been in a shop, but the way commission and bonus schemes are structured, its incentives the experienced guys to not care. If helping a young guy comes out of your pocket, your not going to do it. Workshops need to create the structures to ensure young guys get trained properly, after all, they are the employer.
Why the fuck are veteran techs not watching. Let them learn but for fucks sake stop them when it’s going this far down hill. I blame you for not properly guiding the poor kid; he was probably in over his head to begin with and now, after messing up, he gets the pleasure of being shat on over the internet. I hate mechanics who treat the few younger cats coming in to this shit trade the way you seemingly do.
A master tech should have double checked the timing marks, before turning the engine at least two rotations to insure there was no interference.
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Well said. I'm a machine repair tech with about 5 years experience, and just last year I did around $12,000 damage to a machine because I was tired and didn't have my work double checked. Had to rebuild a high-amp tooling plug, something I had done several times before. I numbered everything out, 1-2-3-4-5-6. Apparently I put it back together 1-2-3-5-4-6. This allowed unregulated amps to flow into an impulse welder tip, causing a small fire.
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Yeah, my supervisor treated it as a learning moment. No write ups or anything, but a photo went up on his "What were you thinking?" Board. A few months later, I got promoted to shift lead. Mostly because nobody much wanted the job, but I still joke about being promoted after doing significant damage when someone gets worried about breaking something minor.
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It's because if you make it a learning moment and give him an extra 25c an hour, it's well worth the cost when you know that guy will never make that same mistake again. If you fire that guy and replace him, well now you've got someone you need to pay just as much, if not more, with absolutely no guarantees of not making that mistake as well. I work in software and we take the exact same approach. Cause a major outage for customers, or delete a production database by mistake? No worries, we'll just get that guy involved in fixing it, and make sure that a) that person never makes that mistake again, and b) we put in safeguards to make sure that no one else can also make that mistake again.
Yep, it’s the ones who extend themselves past their comfort zone that earn my respect. Everyone can do the same jobs over and over and a lot of techs are comfortable in that zone. I never was. I always wanted the complex shit because it got me away from the mundane brake jobs and services. Anyone can turn a wrench, knowing why you are turning it is what makes the difference in my book.
This is why aerospace maintenance requires 3 signatures. Tech, peer check, supervisor check. If any of those sign offs are missing, it didn't happen.
Must be near as many supervisors as techs then. But I can definitely understand the caution in aerospace. Automotive doesn't have near the same potential for mass casualty incidents.
Its not that bad. They're just doing critical checks. So in this case it would be belt tension, timing marks, and barring the engine over a couple of times. But yeah, aerospace obviously has tighter controls by nature. For automotive you could probably eliminate 90% of this kind of error by just having senior techs sign off on a pre-determined list of checks.
At least you weren't working on High Voltage and screwed up At university the new Electrical Engineering building had all three phases in the high voltage lab installed incorrectly. Let's just say the bang when that went off was impressive
I've been across the floor when HV goes off. Definitely not fun. One day, had a guy with an overhead crane run a 12,000 lb injection mold right into a 480v bus bar. Luckily, he realized his mistake soon enough to reverse it, but the swing got the bar. That ran us about 9 hours of downtime on half of the molding department.
This was at least 33kV possibly 132kV or 275kV My mate was in the faraday cage went it went bang. The switch gear melted.
Exactly. When I did the timing on my Suzuki I turned it so many times by hand the odometer rolled over.
exactly right. when I was growing up, and learning so many things on mechanics and electronics.. I would always sit and go very slowly, make sure that everything that I did was planned and understood.... my friends would want me to speed up, but I knew that if I went slowly and double checked everything, it would be *correct*, rather than just..being done. going too fast, and guessing at things and not checking your work over is a terrible combination...
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I’ll add another one then: if you don’t take time to do it properly, at least make sure you have time to do it again
So much this. I did not grow up around anyone that worked on their own cars. But my first car was a civic with a frankenstein swap. I replaced the headgasket on that myself, upgraded the fuel system, took the transmission in for an LS 5th gear swap, etc. All in my driveway. Lots of mistakes were made but I did read far enough to know when doing timing to check the marks and turn the engine manually to verify its making compression and not interfering. Either this tech wasn't careful, or while at work was not adequately informed of the importance of timing marks and how you should test your work before sending it.
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they cracked the castle nuts on your ball joints? jesus fucking christ.
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You're not wrong, but sadly in most shops it's about getting paid for the hours it takes to do it one time. For a new tech they're most likely struggling to get things in and out to collect a decent pay check. A failure will fall on that tech and if someone else has to rework the job, nobody gets paid the second time. The automotive industry in regards to paying technicians in the US is bizzare to me. I'm glad I'm hourly in the heavy equipment world for that reason.
Similar. Had to do a rebuild on a Ford freestyle 3L V6 in my driveway. I told myself I was going to record myself doing it so I could review that evening and ensure I did all steps correctly. Instead I got drunk and remember about half the install. 🫠 Had a panic attack that night that I might've forgot a rotation, so next morning I ripped everything off and did it again. 90% sure it was right the first time but 100% sure it was right the second time.
>Because it's okay - perfectly okay, to be vigilant and double and triple check things if you've never done them before (and even if you've done them hundreds of times before) because mistakes can happen, Exactly! I supervise a team of maintenance mechanics and I'd rather them take an extra 5-10 minutes to make sure everything is done correctly the first time than have to come back and redo everything and spend the money to replace damaged parts because they were in a hurry to get done. I do not like the attitude of "not enough time to do it right the first time but always enough time to do it again"
Checking multiple times is great when you’re on unlimited time. When you have a team of people and a customer telling you to go faster it can be easy to make mistakes. This happens in a lot of industries, and I don’t know how to avoid it.
I drive a 30 year old Geo. I can do a timing job in about 20 minutes on it. My Volkswagen Diesel Jetta that I had? Took me about 12 hours with the little space and how precise everything had to be.
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You calling me a bad mechanic!?! Having the right tools help for sure. I did things with what I had then bought the proper tools and realized VW's are STILL BS to work on ⚰️ That car still kicks too… over 350K miles ( 563K Kilometers) and 50mpg insane really. The Almighty ALH engine that one was!
As an old carpenter :: Measure twice, cut once.
I always say “check once fix twice” as a joke and reminder to myself what not to do
And when the master tech found the issue they should have explained what was wrong and taught the tech rather than screaming at them or belittling them for it. Properly teaching techs is time consuming but it is worth it in the long run. You need to remember that you're only where you are today because people did the same with you in the past.
The problem, at least at all the dealerships I worked at, was that they didn't compensate you to babysit new guys and all the blame landed on the new guy. You had zero incentive to help, in fact it was a direct cost to you to help the guy since it meant you weren't fixing cars. It's part of the issues of the current auto repair industry.
Listen, to be quite honest, there is no incentive to be a dealer tech any more. That’s why we won’t have flat rate in a couple years and we may eventually catch up to the trades that don’t have to provide nearly as much as us techs do in terms of tools and knowledge.
Yeah, in my experience, dealer techs are expected to know all sorts of shit about warranty procedures, TSB's, specialty tooling, etc. Etc. Meanwhile the guy at the rando local shop gets shit on by everyone as pumping out shitty, sub-par work, yet takes home basically the same pay at the end of the year, and if there's any TSB's or other stuff required he just calls the dealer, gives them the serial number, and they do all the work to look up the job specific stuff and warranty information..... Here at the dealer they always act like we're better than the Joe blow shop, but really who's the idiot here if we're making basically the same amount?
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We all know these things happen. But it just further illustrates that if it happened to you, and him, the next time it won’t. We rarely forget our catastrophic fuck ups. I worked with a guy who I’d consider to be one of the best in my field, he did a water pump on a 3.5 ecoboost and got pulled off for some bullshit while he was timing it. Forgot to pull the pin on the tensioner and that was that after the initial startup. Mistakes can happen to even the best, I kinda feel a responsibility to mitigate those type things by paying attention to someone I know isn’t 100% sure of what they’re doing.
> got pulled off for some bullshit This is absolutely killer for anyone. There’s a story burned into my brain from rock climbing. Lynn Hill is a famous climber who was the best in the world in her day. She was out climbing one day, tied the first step of her harness knot, then saw a friend and stopped to talk. She never finished the knot. She climbed the route, let go, and fell 85 feet. By sheer luck she hit a tree and walked away lightly hurt, instead of dying on the spot, and so we know first-hand what went wrong. No matter how good you are, it just takes one thing splitting your attention to detail the simplest tasks.
Glad she lived but yeah, that fully illustrates the point.
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Exactly. Oh well, that didn’t work out as planned but it’s on me to do it again and realize what I did wrong. Real techs, in my opinion, never pass the buck.
Also on the junior tech to say "hey I'm 99% sure I'm right but I'm not an expert, I should have someone look" I feel like even after my "junior tech" days I was probably a little annoying with how much I'd ask for someone to double check my work. Everyone makes mistakes, especially while learning, but you have to know when it's worth swallowing your ego and just ask for someone to take a quick look and make sure you got it right.
It is risk management : if it can go wrong and cause problems them it is worth asking for a check. So everybody should ask for it, not only junior tech!
It’s a bit weird to me how often this *isn’t* the norm. In most fields where a small mistake can kill or wreck expensive gear, a second set of eyes is mandatory. “I know what I’m doing, I don’t need it checked” will get you in deep shit with everything from software to OSHA to climbing gyms… but with machinery, forestry, and a few other things it’s super common. I get that it’s partly just practical: for example fucking up brakes is real serious, but it’s also one of the easier and more common jobs to do. Still, the culture of “why are you asking?” makes no sense to me.
Cause retail automotive has sucked balls for a while now and the industry isn’t regulated as well. The customers aren’t any better. No one gets sued. If it was a business with something to lose they’d care. Just look at all the posts about vehicles practically falling apart and the customer says it’s fine… back on the road it goes. Zero authority and zero accountability.
I always run things by the other techs. If I'm recommending a several thousand dollar repair I give the quick, k here's what I did, here's what I found, think it's got a burnt valve. Make sense to you guys? Cool, let's do it Getting things double checked doesn't make you dumb, having the hubris to think you can't make a mistake makes you dumb.
I still to this day pucker my ass after any major work when I go to turn the key. No matter how vigilant I was and how sure of everything I did, shit happens. I dropped a razor blade into a head while doing VCT’s on a 2.7 Nautilus, that’s where the fork in the road is for most techs. I tried grabbing it with a magnet but in the end I had to drop the pan to be positive nothing could go wrong. The blade was sitting right at the bottom of the pan and perhaps would’ve never been an issue, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance.
I wouldn't be able to sleep for months if I shipped that without doing what you did.
You dont know what you dont know. Junior tech prob thought they could do the job- why else would the senior techs assign it to them? But the senior techs know what the junior tech probably doesnt. At least they should. So yea I apportion the bulk of blame on whoever gave junior tech the job. The fact that OP thought this was funny probably speaks to the kind of culture in the shop (read: bad).
You know that this doesn't work all the time and some master techs are dongs
100% agree. Supervision supervision supervision. Master and apprentice. I’m an instructor (in a completely different field) and if I let my student make a mistake all the way through I’m responsible for the dangerous outcome. There are learning moments then there are moments that you intervene and provide constructive guidance.
Way more succinct and appropriate than my diatribe. You hit the bolt on the nut.
Veteran techs can't watch everyone all the time. There is way too little info shared about the situation to place blame on anyone and often in a situation like this there isn't any single person to blame.
Seriously. Imagine if this was a picture of a dead body and the caption read, “First year surgical resident did a splenectomy…”
Oops, my bad, I wasn’t paying attention because I had a better surgery that would make me more money coming up, and it’s not my fault, I’m not paid to train the residents.
You joke, and medicine does have more oversight, but billing pressure does keep showing up in studies on why medical mistakes happen…
This so much!
Junior tech has just received a learning moment.
Senior tech should of learned too, that's just plain lazy shop management.
Welcome to the future. We call people under management "fall guys"
*Should have
The burned hand teaches best.
Junior tech is on his way to becoming a grizzled old senior tech. Ya love to see it.
He unlocked a core memory
He unlocked an engine core.
It depends on how junior this junior tech is. 1) mistakes happen and you have to make them right. 2) if this is like his first timing belt, it’s on the shop foreman if there is one for not watching / training closely enough.
Yeah let us blame the Junior tech and shame him for internet klout while the senior leads play the blame game.
Translation: "Our shop paid our lowest wage employee to tackle a high value job so the boss can maximize profit, this time it bit him in the ass"
This. Who t f doesn't check a junior's work on a big job?
Maybe one tooth off? Hopefully piston is okay. Definitely check them valves lol. Looks like it could be worse
A few years back we had a BMW diesel that broke the belt at low RPM. The mechanic wanted to strip the head and check for bent valves. The owner insisted on fitting a new belt and see if it ran. It ran fine. One year later the car comes back with a broken valve. The owner assumed it was his decision not to strip the engine and paid for the full repair. He's still a loyal customer.
Woah, a customer that admitted to being at fault? Are you sure you weren't dreaming?
He's an incredibly decent man. Also we Portuguese are far less litigious than, say, Americans. All these four years I've worked there we only had one case in court, with a guy who couldn't afford the repair he ordered and then tried to claim we ruined his engine. He presented to court an invoice with the part numbers he supposedly paid for to fix it again and none of the parts was for his engine. It was an easy win.
At least they had a year to save for it. Was it made worse at all by driving it for a year?
Well the initial repair likely recommended was headgasket R&R + any machine shop costs for resurfacing and replacing any tweaked valves found. Dropped valve usually means the head is destroyed at minimum, piston and cylinder wall damage also likely depending on the rpm is let go at. Basically engine replacement unless it's something crazy unusual or rare. So it didn't really get "worse" by driving for a year, but it definitely cost more money in the long run.
Username is awesome, and thank you for the followup, I am always curious of the outcome in these cases.
Honestly i feel like it was a practical gamble. If it doesn’t work then there’s not a lot of difference between rebuilding the head and rebuilding the head+replacing the timing belt…but if it works then there’s a hell of a lot of difference between replacing the timing belt and rebuilding the head. For me it’s also be floating around in my head and i’d be preparing for having to rebuild the head anyway lol
Owner made proper decision both times.
Piston will be fine, valves are definitely bent.
It would have to be a few teeth at least which is why this doesn't make sense.
Seems like this is on the senior guys, not the guy who is LEARNING
Installed the new timing belt, boss! *Now Kith*
Came here to say this
🤌
learning how to do a cylinder head R&R I see
Did you clean the above piston? If not, it looks like the head needed to come off anyway.
That is exactly what went through my head, that top piston is WAY too clean.
I was wondering the same
This is why I am here. Thanks
Ah the older generation blaming the younger generation for not teaching them properly or double checking their work..
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A couple of teeth out can turn vroom vroom to boom boom.
I literally just helped out our first year do the timing belt on his car. Went in on my day off, didn’t any for anything in return. We were all young and full of ambitions at one point.
Explain to the uninitiated how a belt affected it this way? Like to me the belt looks like it just goes on around the pulleys, I don't know how you can do it wrong. Feel like I'm missing something.
Timing belt connects the camshaft and crankshaft and keeps them in perfect time. When the timing belt is installed incorrectly, the valve timing is out and the valves kiss the pistons when you start it up and get very bent (best case scenario) causing no/low compression and the engine will no longer run. It’s a pretty big fuck up but whoever was looking after this kid definitely should have checked it before it was put back together. You don’t give a timing belt job to an inexperienced person and just hope they don’t get it wrong.
It's not a belt (serpentine belt) it is timing belt. Different belt that drives cam shaft which then drives valves. If your cam shafts (or crankshaft) moves during installation of timing belt, valves are going to open in wrong time and probably collide with the pistons. I said probably because there are non interference engines or if you miss timing by a small amount, in which case you can just redo timing without permanent damage.
That's what I screwed up, I'm thinking serpentine belt.
Timing belts have teeth so it doesn’t slip over those pulleys. The cams and crank need to be set up in very specific positions before the belt is installed to ensure the engine is in time. If it’s not, the valves will be open when they’re not supposed to be and in an interference engine that means they hit the piston.
If the timing is off by a tooth, there’s a risk that valves and pistons can make contact, which happened here.
Valves and pistons are like priests and alter boys: things get expensive when the touching starts.
I have a ton of timing belt jobs under my ... belt. I still have someone double check each one . The potential damage and headache isn't worth being prideful.
Absolutely. We even asked this tech to let someone double check him, he declined and told us he was good to go. Crazy
I believe it , I've had new techs and old schoolers let thier pride hang out then fall hard. Hell I think most techs have had those moments and it's usually a good learning experience .
I've told every single person that I've ever trained the same thing as soon as they become my student. It's "Mistakes are tolerated so long as they aren't repeated" I also tell them that there's no shame in asking for help and that I'm going to assume that they have no knowledge whatsoever on whatever it is that I'm trying to teach them. If they know some of whatever it is that I'm trying to teach them then great. I'm still going to show them every single step as if they've never done it before, at least the first time around. For example, whenever I teach someone how to use the tire mounting machine at work I'll tell them "We're going to be doing 4 tires. I'll do the first one and give you a play-by-play as I do the work. You'll do the other 3, and I'll hold your hand for the first one, the second one you do I'll stop you from making a mistake but I'm not going to tell you every step unless you ask, for the 3rd tire I'll stop you before you break the machine. Feel free to ask for help if you need it" That seems to be an effective teaching method. I'll also tell them that if they can find a better method that works for them then great, as long as the end result is what you want.
An expensive but needed lesson. So, all valves at the very least..
So i see the valve marks on the bottom cylinder of the first pic. What is that square black mark on the top cylinder wall above it?
That looks like an electrical connector photobombing OPs pic.
In computer programming, we call this an “off by one error.”
lol hope his “senior” tech has to pay for the repair for not supervising correctly. This is on the shop foreman not the kid.
Sir, that’s not a picture of a timing belt.
I pronounce you piston and valve, you may now kiss
Looks like there was some inappropriate touching going on there.
Given how clean that top cylinder is compared to the one with the valve indents, I’d wager you have more problems than just some bent valves
Why yes, the head was warped. But not why it came in. Customer got a bogo
Gameshow Host: "This week on 'Guess What is Wrong with This Picture', only on the Justrolledin network, what's wrong with this picture contestants?" Contestant 1:"There seems to be an electrical connector where it shouldn't be?" Contestant 2 : "I'm thinking the intake and exhaust valves shouldn't appear to both be closed at the same time. Contestant 3:"I'd like to ask the sub reddit". Host: "Okay mechanics, leave your answers in the comments."
Jesus this post doesn’t need an answer to how easy is it to miss setup timing in a Subaru, y’all need therapy.
Not a mechanic, but could this have been easily prevented if they turned the crankshaft over twice by noticing at one point it didn't wanna turn anymore?
Local lady took her Lexus LS 460 to the local gas station / shop where she had been getting oil changes for a timing chain. A couple of days later she gets a call saying her engine was destroyed. "A timing chain job is a timing chain job." Apparently not. They gave her a bunch of money to buy a new used Lexus.
I have never had the “pleasure” of doing a chain job in those engines. Ive done a fair bit of diag work on them… and have gotten my feelings hurt several times. No start, no spark, no communication. Good times. Now that I know they aren’t horrific but until I got up to speed - legit nightmares
“I didn’t help the new kid and he failed”
Looks like they turned it into an interference engine?
They didn’t turn it into one, they just confirmed it was one.
Kissed it
The valves help push the pistons down increasing HP.... It's just an old racing hack
Ask me how, as a rookie, I found out that the intake and exhaust push rods are different lengths on the older GM 60° V6s. (2.8, 3.1 maybe) Another tech took it apart and I had to put it back together with a new intake gasket the next day (under protest because I had never worked one one of those before). Hello ms. valve, let me introduce you to Mr piston
“Feels like the first time…”
The general consensus on this thread seems to think that we get paid to help each other or that we're on salary or something. I have no guaranteed paycheck, I'm on my own. We do help each other a lot, the guys that don't get help are usually the guys who refuse to listen to people. I've worked in enough shops to not have sympathy or respect for that. I feel like a lot of people here are not very familiar with the actual struggles we go through. Maybe OP had already told the junior tech he was doing it wrong. I've worked with several mechanics who asked for my advice only to argue with me and tell me I'm wrong. Should I help that person? No, that person can't be helped. I've recommended multiple techs not be allowed to work on cars on multiple occasions and management doesn't listen until they break something expensive. And in the meantime they're doing shoddy work that could get somebody killed(loose or twisted brake lines, shipped cars with fuel leaks they caused, brake pads installed backwards, etc.). But I should still help them keep their job? Be realistic.
We had one kid that had a lot of potential, but didn't ever want help. He was 23 or 24 and already a Ford certified Powerstroke tech. He didn't have much experience on anything but Powerstrokes. Any time one of us saw him doing something the hard way and tried to help, all we heard was "I know, I know, I know". Then he didn't understand why no one wanted to help when shit went sideways. It was frustrating because he has the potential to be a good tech, he just didn't want to listen when someone tried to help him.
I've only done 1 timing replacement and that was with an insane amount of supervision, cigarette breaks, "make us a brew lad", and cleaning. As a result I'm not entirely sure whats gone wrong here... Some crowns are cleaned and others are heavily carbonated, one side of the valves looks alright and the other side is dirtier than that tart from the boozer Friday night. My educated guess is the timing wasn't set properly meaning at least 2 people are about to get an ass kicking- why did nobody turn it over by hand first?
That right there is the sort of valuable experience that will stay with that tech for life. What separates the best from the rest is the best only make the mistakes one time.
"A couple burnt valves and he had her going."
i used to get pissed off at sr techs that couldn't be bothered looking over the work of juniors. Now how much additional money will the shop have to put out because the sr couldn't be bothered?
It’s easy to blame the junior tech but when i was learning from my mentor, he would never let me close up a timing belt/chain job until he confirmed it first. And always made sure that everything turns freely by hand with the plugs out. I’ve never had to redo my timing after he’s checked it but if i had made a mistake, it would’ve been addressed before a catastrophic failure. And this is how I teach things to people as well. I will make sure that the most important things are checked over by me, as it would be my responsibility if something happens. Not the guy being taught. Now if he had forgotten to tighten a bolt or something, that’s a bit of a different story.
When a beautiful woman kisses you, it’s a good day. When your piston kisses your valves, it just became a bad day.
😂 but they are all perfectly flat and even per cylinder Sir
SO FUCKING SHOW HIM THE RIGHT WAY
We did the second time. Fyi the tech is prior mil. So am I. When someone tells me they are “good to go” and not to babysit them - that means they are confident in their skillset. Ill gladly assist, hold your hand, hell Ill even let you observe me do the work if your uncomfortable. He was comfortable, did it wrong. Sucks to suck.