I told him to jack it back up and let's have a look. I told him something was not right about that and wondered if he had somehow gotten the wheel crooked or I don't know what. The truck looked like it was leaning to the left. I did not see him leave the bar on the axle but after I saw the wheel spin, I walked about 20 feet to the rear of the truck and told him to come look. He puzzles over the problem and is just about ready to pull his hair out when he comes to me and wants some help. In the course of his work, he uses a 1/2" thick piece of steel bar as a drift to hammer on the damaged inner bearing race which is stuck to the spindle.Īfter freeing the race, for some reason he lays the flat bar on the axle beam, right under the axle stop, and forgets about it.Īfter he assembles the new parts and lowers the truck to the ground, the truck will not move because the right drive tire is just barely touching the floor. Mechanic A had jacked up one side of the frame to replace a defective wheel bearing on the right side steer axle end. Their names are Mechanic A and Mechanic B. You have probably heard of them previously. Let me share this tale of 2 incidents that happened in our shop some time ago involving 2 other mechanics. The spinning drive tire might only be a symptom while the real issue may very well be in the realm of frame geometry as the cause.Ībsolutely nothing wrong with yanking the axle shafts out for an inspection, but I offer a few alternative tests, which require the truck to remain fully assembled to accomplish.Īnd you are right about "vague description", but that may be more from his unfamiliarity with fork lift terminology and mechanical testing than being intentionally sketchy.Īnyhow, I'm not trying to one up anybody. It was aimed squarely at getting past the mindset that this is a drive axle issue. Swoop, my dissertation was not aimed at you or anyone in particular. This will not work unless the counterweight is removed. With the counterweight removed from the truck, the drive axle and mast weight dominated the frame geometry thus the drive axle was able to pull because the truck had no tendency to"tilt over" to the side that was missing a steer axle wheel. The truck was driven off the rack like that and parked out of the way, and then I disabled the ignition to ensure no further attempts at using the truck could be made by anyone. The truck was now a driveable (but not useable) 3-wheeler. Then I lowered the jack and the chain became taut, with the damaged end of axle suspended in the air, all the weight of the truck back end was resting on the good end and wheel. finally, the chain went under the damaged axle end and hooked back onto itself, taking up as much slack in the chain as I could. Next, I snaked a length of heavy chain around the frame of the truck above the axle on the damaged end (looping the chain below the radiator). Then, I jacked up the damaged end of the axle high enough to cause the wheel on the opposite end to clear the rack. To make this truck "moveable", I first lightened the truck by removing the counterweight and stowing it outside of the building. So, our rack was tied up and unavailable for other jobs until parts arrived (ETA 3 days). This was a truck sent to us from a different terminal and was not one of our typical trucks, as such, we DID NOT have the needed parts in our stock, and the dealer did not have them either. Doing that will prevent anybody from using the ramp/rack for PM inspections and service.Īn employee placed a truck on the rack and proceeded to remove a king pin and knuckle from one end of the steer axle. We have only one ramp/rack, so it is a sort of shop rule that we don't put a truck on that ramp/rack and disable it so that it can't be moved off again. Where I work, we utilize a "drive on" ramp/rack for most of our scheduled PM work. It will be a rare occasion that this might be needed but if it is ever needed, it might save the day. This is something that might be of help to any of us at some point in time. I know I have hijacked this thread from its original poster and I apologize for that, but I want to add one more off topic item here. The other redemption is that it really did provide some OJT about the principles of weight distribution and traction of a 4 wheeled lift truck. Only redeeming factors I can apply to the incidents are that it is a company fleet shop, so there was not a paying customer being abused by getting billed for the time Technically, our employer was being "billed", but considering how often management gleefully wastes resources themselves, it does not seem so vilifying.
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