So over the years….now decades you guys have read here about the good, the bad as well as the ugly here on the Daily Pose…….. it’s been fun and here is a recent story that proves the point that to play with these old coaches you must be committed:
It was on the occasion of delivering a coach after about 6 months of mechanical work. Some of the talking headcs and other Trilibites….that”s a really petrified organism……said that was way too long. It seemed the more we did the more we found and that was about the time we were in our FiTech fuel injection learning curve.
So the delivery seemed to go well, along with a quad bad system bearings and brakes it also sported our new toy….fuel injection!
The coach headed out to Texas and my new crew was proud of their work. I say new crew in that when moving into the new “big house” I found that most of the folks I had working wanted to steal my business but that’s another sorted story.
These guys had been with me about a year each, one maybe a little less and like good type A malliniels they were sure they had a grasp on on reality…… I was never told about it fully but somewhere around Tallahassee a rear wheel bearing failed. In having the local bearing specialty shop look at the BCA A35 bearing set when it came back told me there was a race defect…. I’m not that smart to truly know but the week before there had been a thread about issues with other bearings and that Temkin bearings A45 set was not only matched, bearing and race and made in Canada. I had ordered up a set of those bearings and seals from Kanomata so the guys, I’ll give them credit they grabbed those bearings, a spindle, a complete hub and backing plate and headed west.
They not only changed the spindle , their first time, they replaced everything from the spindle out on the side of the road. Then they of course rebleed the brakes but before that changed out the others 3 bearing in the other wheels then drove the coach to Texas to be sure there were no other issues.
The customer, while not happy about that happening, we so impressed that 6 month later brought the coach back for a dash, paint, upholstry, Serpantine belt system, 3 process chrome bumpers and the Yukon radiator fan upgrade….oh yes and the new in dash ac/heat system totalling over $200,000.
I’d call that a win/win. For whatever reason, we have never lost a rear or front wheel bearing for that matter after that.
And my new crew, since COVID I have this new team of malliniels who swear they want to do this got trial by fire recently. Another delivery of a coach with all of what the other coach got….maybe more was delivered a couple of weeks ago but this time we have what I named “take a tech” where a fresh coach is delivered with a tech to ride along with the owner home to be sure there are no issues and that all the new stuff was understood.
Boom, a perfect example of why they do it! I wasn’t in town, Jason said go soak your head at the beach…… I found out afterward that a bolt from the CVF Racing Serpantine belt system holding the main plate lost its head and made a mess. The guys grabbed a complete Serpantine belt system and headed west to near Tallahassee. Maybe we should go to Texas by Tennessee…… So Robert and Scarlett as sidekick brought Jason the parts and they all investigated the murder and replaced everything making sure that new bolt was for sure tightened well.
Then the weary recovery team headed home and Jason rolled that ball all the way home to Texas as planned.
This is the calibre of commitment that’s needed to do this work. No matter why we need to perform…… And if that’s called lack of experience….ask the customer!
Drop the keys…again
Tomorrow’s story will ‘ve about our discover desighing 8 iterations of fuel tanks only to find there’s no way to stop fuel tank slosh for fuel injected coaches.. ..see ya rhen
Thanks for the explanations and backstory!