Shadowing Journal

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Kaiden Goehring

Mr.Rudebusch
02/12/2024
English III-Capstone Project

- Shadowing Journal -
Time:

Date:

Place: Brookings SD, FMS Army National Guard, / Colman SD, Ustanko Services LLC

Total Hours Spent Shadowing: Chris Fistcher: 7 hours/ Michael Ustanko: 13 hours

Mentor’s Signature _____________________________________

Observations
Some observations I have made: When I arrived at the field maintenance shop for the army national guard
in brookings sd I was very excited and a little nervous. When we walked into the front door of the shop I
immediately saw a soldier taking the wheel and tire off of a semi. Chris introduced me to the shop chief
and some of the mechanics there. I was paired off with Jack, a soldier who had been doing 91 Bravo for
almost 20 years. He showed me the military fleet semis and what time of engines and such powered them
in order to accomplish the missions at hand. I got to sit in the seats of the newer one and the older one.
The older semi was a darkish green camo livery which had a detroit v8 14 liter engine with a 6 speed
automatic transmission Allison transmission. I learned that instead of being manual transmissions the
military semis automatics rather than manual transmissions in order for a successful mission.

At Ustanko Services I learned how to pull a motor and a transmission. Michael Ustanko has been
wrenching on engines since he was 14 years old, but he started his small business at his farm out of his
newly built shop just a couple years ago. At his shop we started at about 9 a.m. We had a customer have
an appointment for an oil change along with a fuel pump leak problem. It was a 2015 chevy tahoe. The
engine was a 5.3 liter v8. First we changed the fuel pump. We had to put the tahoe on a lift then get under
the car to get access to the fuel pump. We changed the fuel pump. Michael told me what to do and how to
do it and I did it. He was very informative and helpful. I changed the oil mostly by myself as I needed
insight to where the oil filter was. He double checked everything to make sure everything was tight and
correct as it was a customer's car and we didn't want to mess it up.

Day 2: the next day we had to pull the motor and transmission out of a 1995 3500 chevy
duramax. His old engine blew up from miles and miles of rough working. He got the 6.6 duramax engine
out of a 1998 gmc duramax. It had somewhere around 80,000 miles. That may seem like alot but for an
engine that's built for hauling stuff for long distances this is a relatively healthy engine mileage, especially
for the year.

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