Basic Vehicle Maintenance

[Sharpey]

Just curious to see if other units are in the same boat as us...
We use the pretend Coyote Iltis in our regiment. Our wheels pretty much make us what we are. If there is a defect with our vehicles, do you think we are allowed to fix it? NO!
For some reason, our regiment is deprived of the ability to do basic driver maintenance. Change the oil? HA, can‘t even do that. As a driver, I am responsible for my vehicle, if it goes done in the field for a reason that I could have rectified but not given the authority to do, well... thats just stupid!
Any other Regiments out there with this same problem or are we just getting the shaft?

 

[rceme_rat]

Unbelievable.

As a maintenance officer, I would have loved it if the troops really wanted to do their driver maint! For example, there was the M109 that came in with both filter/separators filled with water -- and more water backed up in the lines. The gunners didn‘t know it wouldn‘t start ... . Turns out, they hadn‘t drained the water off in weeks.

Perhaps the reason your regiment has pulled back on this is that you don‘t have a QL5 qual 411 to watch over things -- sort of a prevention against troops going too far in what they think is driver maint. But really, any section comd should be able to monitor the basics.

Good luck in getting this one changed. There are too few 411s out there these days to have them doing driver maint instead of actual repairs.

 

[JRMACDONALD]

Gonna jump in here. the young fella brings up a good point. do you know how long it takes a Res F soldier to get Qual‘d to QL5? and when he/shedoes get Qual‘d, what type of and quantity of tools is their unit allowed to have? We had an ex Reg F QL6 411 who finally quit because he had NOTHING to do the work with!!(it‘s not a unit problem, it‘s a supply
problem!)

 

[Sharpey]

I can fully understand the above two statements. But does an oil change need to be supervised or changing a light bulb? I mean supervised above and beyond normal chain of command (ie MCPL etc...)

 

[JRMACDONALD]

Sharpey- here in 41Bde, we are NOT ,even , allowed to look at the oil!!!

 

[Sharpey]

So I see that our problem is across the board. Sad isn‘t it.

 

[rceme_rat]

Sharpey -

Just to clarify, I‘m not arguing that troops need to be supervised by maint pers in dvr maint. I am suggesting that someone might be making policy based on such an idea. Perhaps there have been problems at res units in the past resulting from poor dvr maint.

 

[armd_recce]

Hey Sharpey... We did a dvr maint trg night, one of the other Tp Sgt‘s organized it and put on a great show. I walked into the armoury and there were 4 Iltis in various states of assembly, including some up on jack stands. He covered basic dvr maint, a little bit of field expedient maint knowledge, etc.
Basically, the thrust was what dvrs can do in the field to keep the ride running.
Anything can be done with the right chain of comd, forget the "but we can‘t do that" spirit. Screw that, go ahead until told to stop or until you get caught.

 

[Sharpey]

Well, I know our unit‘s situation now. It‘s a stepping on toes thing. I think that‘s all I should say about that! But it‘s completly riduculous! And now, for CRE, I will be walking because my vehicle came back to me with the same problems I sent it out for! OK, I vented enough, time to start my day

 

[rceme_rat]

Some problems take a while to figure out:

:warstory: Imagine the pressure involved when the CO has an intermittent problem on his jeep. Sounds like vapour lock, a common enough problem on the Iltis. The boys look at it - they can‘t even determine that there is a problem, let alone that it is vapour lock.

Jeep goes back to CO - who has the problem again within hours. Back to maint. Same thing happens two or three times. CO calls up the Tech Adjt (i.e., Maint O) directly. Tech Adjt (i.e., me) takes jeep for test drive -- no problem. So I give my jeep to the Co and keep his longer, just to be sure. Problem finally happens - seems to be same as what CO was saying, and the solution seems obvious.

Fix jeep. Go for test drive again. No problem. Back to CO. He‘s back a few hours later, pissed as **** . It begins all over again. Eventually, we‘ve replaced damn near the entire fuel system, except for the tank. Problem keeps happening.

Drop the fuel tank - find out there is naptha in the tank -- it floats on top of the fuel. All those test drives? They started with filling the tank - and the jeep always went back to the CO with a full tank. It took a lot of use to get down to the naptha level.

Who would have thought of checking for naptha in the fuel tank??? Well, we might have if we had known that the CO‘s driver had refuelled at midnight without using a flashlight to see what he was putting in the tank.

Here‘s hoping your maint problem is resolved a little more quickly. If you can talk directly with your maint pers, it will help them immensely - but this is hard to do if you work nights/weekends and they are on a base during the weekdays.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I know where Sharpey‘s going here. We have an ASU mech type here that‘s into empire building. I‘ve retired more eqpt than this guy has worked on, and I‘m not even allowed to change a signal light bulb. The iltis has to be recovered from our hanger (when they get to it), go downtown to his garage, sit there for two weeks while he gets to it, then I wait for it to come back for another week. All for the sake of a light bulb. We‘re going on CRE this weekend, and we‘re down 5 iltis. Two or three are still grounded in the hanger compound. Any bets on them getting fixed. They CTO every Monday so he won‘t be in till Tues, the vehs are being flatbedded thurs am for Meaford. Bet we go short.

 

[McG]

I find this very intresting, especially in light of the fact that ASU London will not touch any of my vehicles until ALL the driver maintenance is done. At least we can ensure that the driver maintenance is done quickly and properly . . . cannot depend on either when we send the trucks in to the "experts."

 

[rceme_rat]

Sad.

I had problems with one of my section commanders -- he was an excellent technician but he had no concept of customer service.

His approach was to work on each item until it was at least as good as new, if not better. He had no tolerance for tolerances, so to speak. The problem was that while he worked on one item, another dozen would backlog.

He just couldn‘t understand the concept that at the unit, if they could do the job well with 80% functionability, then the soldiers would be happier with everything working at 80% than with two at 100% and the rest on a workbench.

Ideally, a vehicle will NOT be left for maint without the dvr maint having been done. In fact, the best scenario in the reg force is that the vehicle will have a dvr with it until the maint staff dismiss him. There are a multitude of jobs that, once diagnosed by the veh tech, the actual repair can be done by the dvr with minimal supervision.

After all, if a bunch of young officers on can change a Leopard power pack with minimal tech guidance and a couple of manuals, then any dvr should be able to change his own oil, replace light bulbs, pull wheels, drop a drive shaft, etc.

 

[pat 39]

Hey Sharpie I'm a veh tech in the reg force. Driver maint done in reserve units doesn't happpen. I have had a driver that went to far trying to help me out and caused me more problems. The old Maint O in Toronto decided that all Maintance will be done by us. So if your not sure of what u are doing don't try and do it. As for as QL5 tech (reserve) unless they are  a civie mechanic the think they know more than what they know and need to be looked after. I have been on both sides of the fence. ex reg force in a reserve unit and i'm back in the regs