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.
At 20:49 12/4/00 -0800, you wrote:
>Some things really irk me! Morale must be at an all time low in the USMC
>(no, I'm not intending to start another political discussion here...).
>
>So far on my 1985 M998 HMMWV I have found the following amazing acts of
>ignorance, stupidity, carelessness, and laziness:
>
>1. I just removed the oil filter from my 1996 USMC overhauled 6.2 liter
>diesel only to discover a USMC issue green earplug lodged between the block
>and the filter. The ONLY way this could have gotten in there is if it was
>placed there intentionally! Luckily Gomer Pyle placed it on the filter inlet
>side where it couldn't really plug anything up.
>2. A missing washer on a tie rod causing the cotter pin to not engage the
>castellated nut. This allowed the nut to back off a few turns causing the
>front suspension toe-in to be random and variable. This, combined with a
>worn drag link and steering arm (probably never lubed since new) added up to
>about 3 inches of toe-in/toe-out slop between the two front wheels.
>3. No lubricant packs for the runflats in two of the tires....
>4. A missing cotter pin on another steering component.
>5. One out of three bolts missing on each and every exhaust joint.
>6. Disabled neutral start switch...I discovered that one accidentally!
>Although I can't run very fast, a HMMWV doesn't idle away from you very
>quickly...luckily nobody got run over. Of course they cut and spliced the
>body harness wires instead of the neutral start switch wires to bypass the
>unit, so you can't just replace the neutral start switch, now you have to
>fix the harness too.
>7. A metric bolt forced into place to hold on the transmission oil pan.
>Naturally the head snapped off as I removed it. Some cuss words and an
>easy-out later I was able to successfully chase the threads and complete the
>job.
>8. One of the wheels had the O-Ring cut into two pieces, yet the excessive
>grease slopped around the O-Ring area kept it from leaking. About a 2-inch
>long piece of the O-Ring was floating around loose inside the tire.
>
>Thankfully some ground pounder wan't forced to drive this crate into combat
>in some foreign land (at the direction of some misguided politician trying
>to make a legacy for himself), only to be further at risk when his HMMWV
>craps out due to malicious pranks and negligence by his own "comrades."
>
>I'm not sorry I bought the HMMWV (yet), but frankly I am quite surprised
>that the military takes such poor care of their (our) vehicles. I realize
>that these vehicles are used in an extreme environment, but there is no
>excuse for a lack of preventative maintenance. When I was inspecting
>vehicles at the time I purchased mine, I was shocked at how many trucks had
>blown engines (and other serious maladies) with under 15,000 miles on them!
>
>With all the manuals that the military publishes, you would think that they
>would require people to read them! Your (at least the US list members) tax
>dollars at work! Semper Fi????
>
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-- -ShaneP.O. BOX 81, McNeil, TX 78651-0081
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:20 PST