This past weekend was spent removing a turbocharger that resigned citing intolerable work conditions during testing at Road America. The turbo had been complaining for a while, but since we closed the complaint department, the turbo's cries were never received. At least that past crisis isn't a current surprise. The situation may change when the repair bill arrives.
Working alone in the garage with your trusted tools can be a great experience. No one else knows when you decide to wear your slippers instead of appropriate work shoes, and no one can hear your screams when the heavy turbocharger slips from your oily fingers and lands on your slipper shod feet. No one can see your tears as you struggle to figure out how to avoid cleaning your hands on your clothes so you can grip the turbo well enough to remove it from your now swelling feet. When the job is done, all you have to do is craft a convincing cover story why you could walk on Friday, but now you can't on Monday. A lot of things happen on the weekends, so it shouldn't be hard to get the story right. I was involved in a pedestrian vs. chicken hawk (they are far more stout than you would believe) collision while walking in the park.
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| Too much heat! No more spool time for us. |
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| This is the inevitable result of too much high boost. Imagine what it would look like if we had installed a TGE™on this car! |
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| It's hard to see in this shot, but there's oil down there. This is not going to make AcMo rich like the Beverly Hillbillies though. |
The removal was simple enough considering I'm an expert at disassembly. The only issue was from
oil spilling everywhere, which happened despite taking reasonable precautions in advance to prevent a mess. I think oil by nature just likes to spill whenever possible. It is also puzzling that there always seems to be more oil coming out than could have possibly been in the system in the first place. How does it do that? I could have let one of the mechanics (not Moe!) handle the removal, but it's good to get my hands dirty so I can remember the process. I need to keep my skills sharp to be ready when the pro teams call. I hope to have this turbo fixed and returned to AcMo soon for reinstallation.
I always get a bit discouraged when something breaks and ends the weekend even though I should be used to it by now. All I ever need to do is watch a professional car race and see teams that spend a few dollars more, and have one or two smarter people on staff than AcMo. When one of those teams has an unexplained failure to end their weekend I'm reminded that it isn't just our bad luck.
Preparation is important to success, but sometimes there are more variables than any amount of prior work can surmount. That is what happens to AcMo on a regular basis. We are ultra-prepared in areas that won't effect our performance while we are not appropriately prepared on the mechanical side. I blame that on a number of factors other than myself.
Since we have an extensive database of failure modes, we are taking steps to eliminate most of them from interfering with our future track days. We are moving our business model to focus 110% of our efforts on customer car failure testing instead of our own cars. This will work out much better for everyone involved, except our customers.
Today was unusual in that the phones didn't ring, and no emergencies occurred. This is not normal for us. I'm a bit concerned now. I did check to confirm we still had working phones--that's part of my daily security sweep. To a master planner, it is almost always the obvious detail that becomes the catalyst for failure when it is overlooked, which is why I always check the phones and the lights.
I may not know what will happen next, but I know whatever it is, I might be ready for it, and it won't be something obvious.
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