5 Lessons Learned the Hard Way When Working on Machinery

Jun 18, 2023

It's much easier to remember my successes as a mechanic, the times when skill and cleverness saved the day for a customer, versus the times I screwed up. But my mistakes were learning experiences that taught me as much or more about success. Some of my best learning experiences include:

1. As a young penny-pinching mechanic, I chose to use whatever lubricant I found on my workbench to lubricate my air wrench, air hammer and other pneumatic tools. I learned WD-40, even engine motor oil, doesn't have the unique properties required to lubricate the fast-spinning components in air tools. Rebuilding or buying new air tools was WAY more expensive than spending $25 for 16 oz. of Snap-on air tool oil.

2. Exceeding the recommended torque of tractor, combine or self-propelled sprayer wheel bolts to help them resist loosening didn't make them "tighter." It just stretched them past their carefully calculated stretch-to-maximum-tension, and they broke. Either during installation, or several days later.

3. A Scotch Brite surface conditioning pad, used aggressively on an air-powered die-grinder, removed not only gaskets and corrosion from the mating surfaces of a gearcase, but thousandths of an inch of metal from those precisely machined surfaces.

4. After replacing a diesel fuel injection pump, I learned it doesn't pay to get in a hurry and forget to remove the pin used to lock the flywheel in place to maintain timing. In that same vein, if, after replacing an injection pump, the starter doesn't want to turn over and acts like something is blocking rotation of the flywheel/crankshaft, DO NOT repeatedly key the starter until the engine finally starts with a lunge.

5. I learned to always double-check, no TRIPLE-check, which way the paddles are facing on a clean grain elevator chain, tailings elevator chain or feeder house conveyor chain before tensioning the chain and replacing all the shields and accessory components. The same applies to the gathering chains and the direction of the spirals on stalk rolls on corn heads.