During this last week of class one of my main focuses has been on preparing a drop axle to be able set on stands similar to the picture below. At first I thought it would be rather quick and easy and in the end it didn't take me to long. However I did run into a few issues.
The first issue I ran into was someone had welded the axle itself to the frame with the airbags. I noticed this after cutting the U bolts off one side and nothing happening. After realizing that the axle had been welded I tried to grind the weld out but was unsuccessful.
The next plan of attack was to cut the air bags and as much of the assembly away from the axle making it as light as possible. I began by making cuts on either side. This is when I ran into my next little problem, a little thing called rust. The inside of the frame was so rusty that I was having to blow the molten metal out of my cut line and come back and burn away the rust. After spending about 15 minutes on a cut that should have taken 2. I grabbed the biggest hammer in reach and set out smacking the rusted steel off the inside of the other half of the frame, my next cuts went a whole lot faster.
Another one of my tasks last week was to remove everything from the cab of the truck so it could be sent to scrap. This was actually a very interesting day, I have never taken the air-conditioning out of a vehicle and that was just one of the things I had to remove from the cab.
In the end it was a lot of little screws,nuts and wiring connectors. Plus some added patience and a big chisel for all the fasteners that were so rusted I couldn't get them apart.
The next thing I started on was the sorting out of all the wiring for the engine, and the coolant lines so that we can hopefully in the future here have a running engine that we and future classes may be able to work with.
There was a lot learned for me this last week, from locating and sorting out the main wiring harnesses needed for an engine to run, to the removal of the AC unit out of the cab of a heavy duty truck. I would say the thing I ended up learning and appreciating the most was how bad rust can really affect the cutting of steel with a torch. I have always known rust is bad wherever it may be but definitely didn't know it could make cutting with a torch so difficult. Lesson learned!
Week #3
Shop Hours 16
Total Hours 23
Running Hours 60ish
IT RUNS!
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