----- Original Message -----
From: "Shane G Deemer" <sdeemer@austin.rr.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] The US military is in big trouble!!!! HMMWV hell...
> There are a lot of occasions where soldiers and DRMO employees will
> intentionally sabotage vehicles they turn in. It's sad, but it's true.
>
> I doubt they'd do this to a vehicle they planned to keep.
>
One thing on the HMMWV's and maintenance...
The film outfit I work for has six. I won't go through all the frustrations
I've personally experienced again, but last week really ticked me off.
Had to take a Humvee to thet set of 'Freedom' - really early call quite far
away from where the Humvees live - so I took it home with me the night
before. Well, wouldn't you know it, but as soon as I got it in the driveway
the alternator bearing let go. Grr. Fortunately, I had a spare 151
alternator handy and swapped it out, using two of the three available slots
on the pulley for the two fan-belts of the Humvee. Great. Well...not
really. My 'checked' spare alternator spat forth not an ounce of current,
so that meant a trip back to the farm - some 30 miles away - to rob another
alternator off of another Humvee, seeing as all our available spares had
been used up because the USMC mechanics kept forgetting to reinstall the
rear spacer, torqued up the alternator, and cracked off the damn casting.
So, my call-time's something like 0600, and here I am at 2359 tearing
alternators out of parked Humvees just so I can drive mine. Get to the
shop, take my defective one out, go to the next Humvee in the fleet to rob
its alternator - and the goddamn casting's cracked off on it too! I can
tell you I invented a whole host of newly unprintable ephiphets that night -
and finally wound up installing the damn thing anyway without the front
casting in place - just so I could do my call the next day. No sleep, but a
functioning Humvee no thanks to whoever last swapped alternators out. Five
out of the six Humvees had front or rear alternator mounting castings
cracked clean off, simply because some moron didn't notice the extra-thick
washer drop to the floor when he or she did the component swap.
One Humvee with the problem is a mistake. Two is a bad day at the office.
Three or more? Who knows.
Andy Hill
MVPA 9211
Vancouver, B.C.
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