Rigging A Rig

This week in class my team was responsible for rigging several different engines to have "issues." It is the responsibility of the other teams to successfully diagnose those issues and get them running again. All of these engines were confirmed to run before we rigged them.

Cleaning up the Jake brake connectors on our Series 60 dyno engine, as the engine brakes will not be put back on for now.

Another interesting development of the week was an in-class presentation. No, I don't mean power point slides. The team working on the no-start condition experienced by the Series 60 in the FLD Freightliner was asked to present their findings, in their own words, to the instructor and the rest of class. So far we have determined that the starter relay may have an issue, and they swapped another one in.

I removed this starter relay off one of our stand-engines for the other team to put on the FLD.

This engine started, but now won't. I wonder why? Well, that is for the next team to figure out.

Finally we hooked up a clear plastic hose between the fuel filter and the transfer pump.

Why would we do this? What don't we want in the fuel system after the filter? This is for the next team to answer, or perhaps a class demonstration.

Reflection:

Instead of solving problems, my team has been causing them. But we did not just rip and tear, we strategically bugged these engines. In order to do that, we need just as much understanding of the system's operation as a technician fixing the problem would.

We could fix what we broke in a few short minutes, but it may take another team 30 minutes or an hour or more to even find where the problem is.

Diagnostic time, that is finding where the problem is in the first place, can be the vast majority of the time it takes for a repair. The actual fixing, part replacement, etc. etc. can be a tiny fraction of the work done.