Day 1:
Today was the first day working at Mountain Mechanical. One of the mechanics Ed asked me if I had 1st day gitters and surprisingly I didn't. Everyone here is really awesome and try to get me to ask questions! I have already gotten everyone's names. Dave, is my mentor and the owner of mountain mechanical; Ed, one of the mechanics and a personal friend of mine; Phil is Daves nephew who has been here since he was in high school. He has been the one to answer all of my questions; Bill he is another person here but I really don't know what to label him as yet.
I now have jobs that I do on my own although they are small they really help everyone out. I check the mail, answer the phone, and wash the cars that are done. I also am observing them working on the cars. For example, right after I got in and Dave introduced me to everyone I went straight to observing Phil do a brake flush. He explained to me that if you do not keep up with these flushes it could get really bad and to clean them out all of the way you would have to pay for more than just a brake flush.
Altogether, today was a good first day at Mountain Mechanical.
I now have jobs that I do on my own although they are small they really help everyone out. I check the mail, answer the phone, and wash the cars that are done. I also am observing them working on the cars. For example, right after I got in and Dave introduced me to everyone I went straight to observing Phil do a brake flush. He explained to me that if you do not keep up with these flushes it could get really bad and to clean them out all of the way you would have to pay for more than just a brake flush.
Altogether, today was a good first day at Mountain Mechanical.
Day 2:
Today was pretty slow compared to yesterday so a lot of the day I was sweeping floors and washing cars because there wasn't much else to do. I am still learning very much everyday. On my free time I was on the computer looking for the parts that I needed to fix my car. Ed showed me this website that they have paid for that has almost every car manual in it called ALLDATA repair. He showed me a couple of things that I could print out to help me fix my car by myself. I am really looking into getting this site myself because it comes in handy working on cars you don't know much about.
I am getting all of my parts to be able to get my car into town and next week I will bring it in for their help with changing my breaks, giving me a break flush, and an oil change. After all of this I will be ready to go and my car should be all ready to drive!
I am getting all of my parts to be able to get my car into town and next week I will bring it in for their help with changing my breaks, giving me a break flush, and an oil change. After all of this I will be ready to go and my car should be all ready to drive!
Day 3:
Today was slow again but like in any business there was a lot to do. I washed more cars and then cleaned out the bay. You would think that most of the dirt and grime would wash down the drain but really it all just sticks to where is falls off the car. Washing cars isn't what I would like to do but as Phil explained to me yesterday, "You can't just start working on cars, there is so much more to this industry than that." He explained how he started working here when he was sixteen and had to learn and move his way up to be able to know what he was doing when working on the cars. "Keep your head up and just keep working hard," he told me, "You're doing a great job." This really gave me the insentive to keep working hard at everything I was doing.
I talked to Dave a little about my project but most of the day he was really busy so I will wait until tomorrow to do that. The days have all gone by so fast that I cannot believe it is already Wednesday!
I talked to Dave a little about my project but most of the day he was really busy so I will wait until tomorrow to do that. The days have all gone by so fast that I cannot believe it is already Wednesday!
Day 4:
I got a visit from Rachael today and showed her around the shop a little. She was really happy with what I was doing and how I was doing it. I explained to her what Phil had explained to me yesterday and she seems to understand. While she was here Ed was doing a Tune up in the back and Dave asked me to go ahead and observe what he was doing. I was able to put in the new spark plugs in a 2000 Toyota Corola. After Rachael left I kept observing what he was doing and he gave me a "mechanics secret". He explained that "Every car, truck, van, etc. works the same way. Sparks, Air, Fuel, and Compression are the four main concepts and after you get those down everything else will fall into place."
After Ed and I were done with the car everyone was having a coffee break in the office. Because I had no other tasks I started to clean. We have a problem with losing pens and while cleaning I found 5 pens behind the main printer! "For now on," I told Dave, "When looking for a pen look behind the printer first." We both laughed and I went on with cleaning.
Altogether today was a good day and I cannot believe it is already going to be Friday tomorrow! I hope this storm that is coming in doesn't stay for long because I enjoy leaving the garage doors open and letting the warm air in!
After Ed and I were done with the car everyone was having a coffee break in the office. Because I had no other tasks I started to clean. We have a problem with losing pens and while cleaning I found 5 pens behind the main printer! "For now on," I told Dave, "When looking for a pen look behind the printer first." We both laughed and I went on with cleaning.
Altogether today was a good day and I cannot believe it is already going to be Friday tomorrow! I hope this storm that is coming in doesn't stay for long because I enjoy leaving the garage doors open and letting the warm air in!
Day 5:
Another slow day but before coming to work I was able to get new tires for my jeep and by next week I should be able to bring it into the shop and start working on it. I have noticed that we usually get slow around 2:00pm and so I think that would end up being a good time to work on my car everyday. So lets say it will take 6 hours to work on my car, 2 hours a day (from 2:00pm to 4:00pm) I should be able to get it completely ready in three days. So that gives me extra time just in case we can't work on it one day.
I am really enjoying working here. All of the guys are really fun to be around and they try to bring me into everything they do. Today I helped Ed clean out his specialty tool box one section at a time so that helps with two things; one is cleaning out the tool box altogether is a good thing and the other is I get to see the other tools that many people haven't even seen before and he explained what each one's job was. Another good day at Mountain Mecanical, cannot believe it's already Friday! Another good week will start Monday!
I am really enjoying working here. All of the guys are really fun to be around and they try to bring me into everything they do. Today I helped Ed clean out his specialty tool box one section at a time so that helps with two things; one is cleaning out the tool box altogether is a good thing and the other is I get to see the other tools that many people haven't even seen before and he explained what each one's job was. Another good day at Mountain Mecanical, cannot believe it's already Friday! Another good week will start Monday!
DAY 6: MONDAY
SO HERE AT THE SHOP WE DO EVERYTHING IN THE COMPUTER IN CAPITAL LETTERS SO WE CAN NEVER MISTAKE A LETTER ON ACCIDENT. TODAY I HELPED WITH A COUPLE OF DIFFERENT FLUSHES ON A 90' TOYOTA. I CAN TELL YOU THAT TOYOTA'S ARE VERY DIFFERENT, UNDER THE HOOD WISE. WE DID A TRANSMISSION FLUSH, A RADIATOR FLUSH, AND A POWERSTEERING FLUSH ALL THINGS THAT I WILL BE DOING ON MY JEEP. MY JEEP IS NOW UP AND RUNNING. I WILL BE BRINGING IT INTO TOWN WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND START WORKING ON IT THURSDAY AND FRIDAY. I AM SO VERY EXCITED TO GET EVERYTHING UP AND RUNNING.
DAY 7: TUESDAY
TODAY I REALLY SPENT MOST OF MY TIME IN THE BACK SHOP HELPING ED OUT WITH THE SAME 1990 TOYOTA CAMERY THAT WE WORKED ON YESTERDAY. WE FOUND LOTS OF BROKEN HOSES THAT HAD TO BE FIXED. BUT ALTOGETHER IT WASN'T THAT BUSY OF A DAY FOR ME BUT VERY BUSY FOR DAVE SO I WAS UNABLE TO DO MY MENTOR INTERVIEW TODAY. I ALSO GOT A VISIT FROM ASHLEY AFTER I DID MY VERY FIRST OIL CHANGE BY MYSELF.
DAY 8: WEDNESDAY
TODAY WAS A FUN DAY! I GOT MY CAR IN THIS MORNING AND WE WERE ABLE TO REPLACE THE OLD SPARK PLUGS, SPARK PLUG WIRES, DISTRIBUTOR CAP, AND RODER. I HAVE ALL OF THE OLD PARTS TO SHOW AT THE EXHIBITION SO I CAN SHOW PEOPLE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY AREN'T CHANGED OUT OR TIGHTENED ENOUGH. I THEN HELPED PHIL WITH SOME RODERS AND BRAKES WHICH WAS REALLY COOL TO LEARN. VERY BUSY DAY FOR EVERYONE.
DAY 9: THURSDAY
TODAY WE WERE ABLE TO WORK ON MY CAR AGAIN. WE CHECKED MY BRAKES WHICH SURPRISINGLY ARE IN PRETTY GOOD SHAPE AND DON'T NEED TO BE CHANGED RIGHT NOW. WE ADJUSTED MY ALIGNMENT ON MY REAR TIRES WHICH WERE VERY OUT OF LINE MAKING ME BELIEVE THAT MY BRAKES WERE BAD. I FOUND OUT THAT THE PERSON THAT PUT MY TIRES ON LAST TIME DID NOT PUT THE LUGNUTS ON HAND TIGHT BEFORE USING A POWER TOOL (WHICH IS A BIG TIP TO ALWAYS DO) AND CROSS-THREADED THE BOLT. CROSS-THREADING MEANS THAT A BOLT WAS PUT ON THE WRONG THREADS WHICH WARPED THE THREADS ON THE BOLT. WE REPLACED THOSE AND GOT NEW LUGNUTS. STILL UNABLE TO DO MY MENTOR INTERVIEW TODAY DUE TO DAVE BEING VERY BUSY BUT WILL DEFFINETLY GET IT DONE TOMORROW.
DAY 10: FRIDAY
Today was a full day of craziness. We were jam packed and finishing cars here and there. I have really just been following Phil around a lot today. We had to change an ABS sensor today. Unfortunetly, we did not know that we had to replace the entire hub for the sensor to work. But this just proves that you really do learn something new everyday! I have learned a lot from them and cannot wait to show everyone at the exhibition next week.
Day 11: Monday
So today was VERY interesting. My mom and I took my Jeep to get my other tires put on. Unfortunetly, I had to wait 2 hours before the car could even get into the bay because apparently only one mechanic showed up for work that day. So that was a lesson all in itself; If you don't show up to work it's not only on you but on your co-workers as well. I called Rachael and Dave to let them know and they both said that was fine.
So after the 2 hour wait my mom and I walked back to the mechanic part of the store. I was excited to see that my jeep was pulled in and they were putting it on the lifts. I thought it was a little odd because another man was in the back working on my car but it wasn't the mechanic. At first I blew it off thinking that the other mechanics showed up finally. The guy working on my car comes in about 10 minutes later, he explained that he was having trouble getting a lug-nut off. Now as you remember from my Thursday post that I had already taken all of my tires off and fixed the bad lug-nuts so I thought something was up so I asked what he meant. He explained that their are different sizes of lug-nuts on my jeep. This I already knew the ones with the caps on them were 19mm, the ones without caps were 18mm and the spare ones that the previous owner put on were 13mm. He told me it was one without a cap. I told him that it was 18mm. He then proceeded to tell me that he didn't have an 18mm. At this point I knew something was up and so I wanted to be sure I was right to think that things weren't adding up. So I call the shop.
Phil answered and I told him what was going on. He was there Thursday when we took my tires off and looked at all of the lug-nuts to make sure that they were okay. He told me to ask to go out to the bay and go take a look at it. So I got off the phone and went to the bay and asked to look at it. The guy was obviously annoyed which kind of amused my mom and I because we knew he was getting upset because a 16 year old girl was telling him things he didn't know. After looking at it I could tell that the impact gun (power tool) was not catching the lug-nut. You will learn this when you learn to change a tire. Sometimes you just have to use your own body strength and do it the old fashioned way. I asked for a breaker bar -- a type of wrench that is used for tight lug-nuts-- and he said that we were not allowed to use one. I was obviously confused because they are a tire shop why can't they use a breaker bar?? He then proceeded to blame me for this going wrong saying that I torked it too much. When you tork something it means that it will only go that tight. So on my tires I used a tork stick on the impact gun that was for 100 ft/lbs. Meaning if I got stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire I can get it off because I'm about 100lbs. Also when you use a tork stick you cannot go past that tork. It is impossible to do so, that is the point of it.
Anyways, I knew something was up and I didn't want to be one of those freak out customers if I was wrong. So I called Phil back and he told me that things weren't adding up. I told him they didn't have a breaker bar and he knew he couldn't do anything from there so he told me he would be right over. The guy working on my car then began to look surprised that I actually was calling a certified mechanic over to help.
Phil showed up and walked right into the bay and asked him what was up. He explained to Phil that he couldn't use a breaker bar in the bay for liability reasons. Phil was then getting annoyed and asked for the manager and the guy said he was the manager!! I was so upset that a manager that is not even a certified technician was working-- touching my car! So Phil tells them to back up the jeep 5 feet so he can break the lug-nut out of the bay and pull it back in to get the tire on.
So that's what he did. Phil then went to push the breaker bar and said that the lug-nut came out no problem except for a little stretching at the end. This means that it was tightened too much and it stretched the threads out. I then asked Phil how that could have happened. I expressed that the only way I could think of that would make that happen was if he were to accidentally tighten it with the impact gun then realized he was going the wrong way, tried to fix it and was too late.
The main lesson that I learned today was that when you even slightly think that something is fishy catch it fast before it is too late and you cannot pin it on them and you could be out a lot of money. I was so lucky today that I had Mountain Mechanical to count on. I was completely amazed that Phil came all of the way across town without me asking or paying him. If he wasn't there today I would have been out a couple more hundred dollars. So very thankful and even after that when we got back to the shop he helped me work on my jeep some more. Almost done! Just a gasket and a radiator flush and all done! So very excited. I am really curious if they would keep me on for a summer job because these guys are so awesome and I have learned so much in just a couple of weeks and I used that knowledge out in the real world today. I can very much say I got props from many people today for doing that.
So after the 2 hour wait my mom and I walked back to the mechanic part of the store. I was excited to see that my jeep was pulled in and they were putting it on the lifts. I thought it was a little odd because another man was in the back working on my car but it wasn't the mechanic. At first I blew it off thinking that the other mechanics showed up finally. The guy working on my car comes in about 10 minutes later, he explained that he was having trouble getting a lug-nut off. Now as you remember from my Thursday post that I had already taken all of my tires off and fixed the bad lug-nuts so I thought something was up so I asked what he meant. He explained that their are different sizes of lug-nuts on my jeep. This I already knew the ones with the caps on them were 19mm, the ones without caps were 18mm and the spare ones that the previous owner put on were 13mm. He told me it was one without a cap. I told him that it was 18mm. He then proceeded to tell me that he didn't have an 18mm. At this point I knew something was up and so I wanted to be sure I was right to think that things weren't adding up. So I call the shop.
Phil answered and I told him what was going on. He was there Thursday when we took my tires off and looked at all of the lug-nuts to make sure that they were okay. He told me to ask to go out to the bay and go take a look at it. So I got off the phone and went to the bay and asked to look at it. The guy was obviously annoyed which kind of amused my mom and I because we knew he was getting upset because a 16 year old girl was telling him things he didn't know. After looking at it I could tell that the impact gun (power tool) was not catching the lug-nut. You will learn this when you learn to change a tire. Sometimes you just have to use your own body strength and do it the old fashioned way. I asked for a breaker bar -- a type of wrench that is used for tight lug-nuts-- and he said that we were not allowed to use one. I was obviously confused because they are a tire shop why can't they use a breaker bar?? He then proceeded to blame me for this going wrong saying that I torked it too much. When you tork something it means that it will only go that tight. So on my tires I used a tork stick on the impact gun that was for 100 ft/lbs. Meaning if I got stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire I can get it off because I'm about 100lbs. Also when you use a tork stick you cannot go past that tork. It is impossible to do so, that is the point of it.
Anyways, I knew something was up and I didn't want to be one of those freak out customers if I was wrong. So I called Phil back and he told me that things weren't adding up. I told him they didn't have a breaker bar and he knew he couldn't do anything from there so he told me he would be right over. The guy working on my car then began to look surprised that I actually was calling a certified mechanic over to help.
Phil showed up and walked right into the bay and asked him what was up. He explained to Phil that he couldn't use a breaker bar in the bay for liability reasons. Phil was then getting annoyed and asked for the manager and the guy said he was the manager!! I was so upset that a manager that is not even a certified technician was working-- touching my car! So Phil tells them to back up the jeep 5 feet so he can break the lug-nut out of the bay and pull it back in to get the tire on.
So that's what he did. Phil then went to push the breaker bar and said that the lug-nut came out no problem except for a little stretching at the end. This means that it was tightened too much and it stretched the threads out. I then asked Phil how that could have happened. I expressed that the only way I could think of that would make that happen was if he were to accidentally tighten it with the impact gun then realized he was going the wrong way, tried to fix it and was too late.
The main lesson that I learned today was that when you even slightly think that something is fishy catch it fast before it is too late and you cannot pin it on them and you could be out a lot of money. I was so lucky today that I had Mountain Mechanical to count on. I was completely amazed that Phil came all of the way across town without me asking or paying him. If he wasn't there today I would have been out a couple more hundred dollars. So very thankful and even after that when we got back to the shop he helped me work on my jeep some more. Almost done! Just a gasket and a radiator flush and all done! So very excited. I am really curious if they would keep me on for a summer job because these guys are so awesome and I have learned so much in just a couple of weeks and I used that knowledge out in the real world today. I can very much say I got props from many people today for doing that.
Tuesday
Today we were able to finish my car! I am so excited to show everyone at the exhibition how much work I did to it. I kept most of the old parts to show at the exhibition why you have to service your vehicle. I am so grateful for this internship, I have learned so much.
I was also able to finish my mentor interview and got great information from Dave with it! Today was slow so not too much more than that.
I was also able to finish my mentor interview and got great information from Dave with it! Today was slow so not too much more than that.
Wednesday
Today I really just watched Phil replace the driver-side ball joints on a dodge pick-up today. I got an early lunch because we weren't busy and came back to Phil finishing the ball joints. While I was eating my lunch a woman came in because she was leaking transmission fluid from her car. She stood out to me because she was trying to get to Colorado Springs because her daughter had an medical emergency. I felt really bad that we couldn't fix her car that day and she couldn't drive it either. But all together it was a slow day again so we really just putts around.
Thursday
We really are slow these past couple of days. Today I really just cleaned windows because there really was nothing else for me to do. It really didn't feel like my last day but I was pleased when Dave told me to come by every once in a while and let them know how we are doing. I learned something today though; Under promise Over deliver. Its one of Dave's motto's at the shop. For example, if you give someone an estimate of $1200 and end up getting it cheaper, the customer is going to be very happy. Dave said that I can use that in any industry and even during the day. Exhibition tomorrow and then spring break! So excited!