tips Archives - Transmission Digest
Simple Tips for Technicians

During certain lessons in our training facility, we impart many tips and tricks to our students. Often simple and always handy, these useful “nuggets” reduce headaches, save money and keep us safer. I’ve accumulated these tips during the 15 years that I worked as a full-time technician as well as during the 14 years that I’ve been an automotive instructor. Over the course of my automotive-service career, I have been fortunate to pick up many of these helpful hints from forums, fellow technicians and publications.

Avoiding After-Overhaul Problems

Being an R&R technician is challenging work. Even worse, you can make the job harder with one little slip or missed step. All it takes is forgetting to disconnect a wiring harness before dropping the transaxle: Before you know it, the transmission jack is coming down but the transaxle is suspended in mid-air by the harness. Once the transaxle is repaired and installed in the car, you have to diagnose and repair some new electrical problems that were not there before the rebuild. You can avoid this mistake and many others by new technicians by providing them with just a little training and a basic checklist of things that have to be done during every removal and installation of a transmission.

Small Tips for Big Rebuilding Headaches

Small things are often the cause of problems that can create grief in our everyday operations. Those seemingly inconsequential items can and on occasion do bring production to a halt. What seemed like nothing of great importance now becomes the stopper.