THE ADVENTURES MK III - Still doing it my way

Back at it today, was home for a bit and got caught up in taking care of some stuff I needed to take care of but had been putting off. Glad to be on the move again.

 

I worked at a independent shop for a year. I got the job through a cousin's-friend's-dad type deal, had no real official "training" from school or anything, just what I had learned myself and from my dad over the years. There were a few really knowledgeable mechanics that worked there (some that had been doing this for 30+ years) that took me under their wing and I learned a ton from them. The nice thing about it being a smaller shop was that it was OK if things went a little slower, it wasn't like we were in a rush to get warranty work done. So, a lot of the time I got to see how something was done, and then do it myself. I started out doing the usual services, etc., and as I learned more, got to get my hands dirty with more stuff. I did a lot of clutches, suspension work, and air brakes. I could go the rest of my life without touching another transmission, leaf spring, or s-cam. I got to work with one of the guys that used to be a fleet mechanic on an in-frame which was really cool - he'd show me how to do one thing, then I'd get to do it the next time - we did this all the way through on an N14. I was pretty good with electrical so did a lot of that.

One thing I didn't get to do much of was diagnostic stuff - since most of the mechanics there had been doing this for so long, and since we worked mostly on older equipment, a lot of the time these guys could tell you what was wrong just by knowing the symptoms. So my job a lot of the time my job became "the issues are this, which is caused by this this and this, so you need to replace this this and this."

The good thing is with all the resources available to us today with the internet and other electronic tools, even with just very basic knowledge you can save yourself a lot of money by fixing small issues yourself. You just have to be willing to learn, and sometimes that means getting dirty.

I have no clue how the T680s that SNI leases are set up. As far as I know they have a double bunk. My T600 is older and has a much different setup with the studio sleeper. If I folded down the couch I could probably fit a queen mattress on top of that. I would ask Dougal or ew about the lease T680s, I'm sure they could tell you about the bed size.

Suns still out... back to sleep!