Just a Glitch

[Satans_Chariot]

How many times is something passed off as just a glitch before you really dig in to your power plant to find the root cause?

What are some of the different excuses a mechanic has given you for why something has happened?

Ever feel like you've had smoke blown up your ass?

[gottaflylee]

My favorite, we ran a computer analyst on it and it did not show any faults...
Then why does it still cut off when I go from forward to reverse...

[Robja]

Or like I heard. You must have the wires crossed on the trim tab pump. There can't be a problem with the new pump we sent you. DUH

[Storm]

My favorite examples of back peddling;

Milton Cat salesman blames my aftercooler defect on the engine getting insufficient air. That; after an eighty percent failure rate on approximately four thousand engines.

Or, the time Milton Cat's Marine Engine Service Department Supervisor suggested the propeller and not the aftercooler was responsible for lack of engine performance. The engine was relatively new and the prop performed perfectly during sea trials.

Do you really think I'm that stupid Caterpillar??

Thanks for yet another opportunity to blow off steam!

[seapower]

I for one pratice "troubleshooting", it's becoming a lost art.Frank

[JD5652]

..... "troubleshooting", it's becoming a lost art.Frank

Couldn't agree more!...however there's no shortage of parts replacers....on the customer's nickle nonetheless! .....that's one reason I've spent a considerable amount of time trying to learn about my engines...

[Satans_Chariot]

with a company paying a shit ton a day for your equipment to be running properly and working efficiently, you would think someone would be able to give you some straight answers...


"Where did you say you got your electrical engineering degree again?"

[Surfergirl]

You know I seem having the "fed up's" this morning.

My respose to this is ... We need to fire the government AND everyone needs to own up to screwing up... it's simple.

[backman]

A pair of 3 year old electronic engines. 2+ years no problems; then I start noting the computers say 1 is burning 10% more than the other one. No one listens; I'm just a dumb user.

Winter time we pull the injectors to look at the nozzles and find a manufacturing/tooling flaw. Its bad; but the vendor steps up.

Engines all back together;new injectors and new heads, all free of charge and I'm still 10% higher on one than another. No one believes me till I get the vendor down (again) and we sit at the dock for a long, long hour burning fuel from a 5 gallon jug. At the end of it; surprise; they believe me.

I'm a software guy so I push them hard on the SW - surprise - we have a versioning problem on one side. Problem solved?

Nope; we download proper versions to each and still see the 10% overburn. They give me the data dump; I tell them what's wrong - no answer.

turns out the SW for the engines is OEM'd by my vendor as well as others and is an embedded control system not much different than ones I have worked on in the past.

1 year later we are now at the impasse of me talking SW design and architecture to the engine vendor who has no clue because they took someone else's SW; jammed it into their electronic engines and surprise; surprise; there are bugs.

Just a glitch in electronic engines is not a good thing!

[seapower]

Like the old saying goes, Garbage in, Garbage Out. I trust the "old" mechanical engine's myself. Those system's have worked for a long time. Frank