Auto Diagnosis

What is step 1 in diagnosing a customer complaint on their car? Confirm the complaint. This sounds simple, but, in the real world, if you take your car to a shop and tell them "It does X when I drive Y" they can't really fix it if they drive it and after doing X the Y part doesn't happen. So, like it or not, the mechanic really is supposed to verify the complaint. 

I think the top spark plug might have burned up JUST A LITTLE! The 4th plug from this 4 cylinder engine didn't want to come out, it was cross-threaded. Since this is diagnosis class, I think that's about as far as we got on this one, and let the customer know. It was driving very rough to say the least. Yes, we replaced these old ones with new plugs. 

Also, we had an oil leak to address. Here's inside the valve cover, with a pretty new blue gasket. We also replaced the four grommets that help seal the spark plug tubes, where the coil packs go in. Those gaskets were not soft rubber that sealed the hole, they had aged-out and graduated to hard-as-a-rock plastic that leaked. 

Maybe this is a weight rack in the shop? Not quite, just a supply of rear axles and differentials ready for the next Suspension class to tear down, diagnose, and rebuild this fall. 

Ford F350 back in the shop for some trouble codes on the transmission we rebuilt. It is driving OK but slipping in 2nd gear. At first we thought it was 2nd and 3rd gear problems, and since those are the only ones that use the 2nd gear shift solenoid, that was our first culprit, but wait, there was more. 

 The 1st thing we found is this ground wire that was frayed. In this photo we've stripped the bad part off, and are about to put a new connector on it, so that it connects to the bolt in the upper red circle.  

The new connector was put on, shrink wrapped, and bolted back on to the housing. This eliminated the trouble codes! However, it is still slipping, only in 2nd gear, so, we have to remove the transmission and investigate further.