Simple Fixes For Bad Battery Connections

Protect Your Fuel Tank and Pump With Delphi Technologies 

Misfire Codes After A Spark Plug Replacement (Video)

FRAM® Provides Next-Level Engine Protection for the Summer

Auto Value, Bumper to Bumper Tech OTY Finalists Named

Simple Fixes For Bad Battery Connections

Protect Your Fuel Tank and Pump With Delphi Technologies 

Misfire Codes After A Spark Plug Replacement (Video)

FRAM® Provides Next-Level Engine Protection for the Summer

Auto Value, Bumper to Bumper Tech OTY Finalists Named

Sponsored By Carter Fuel Systems

Sponsored By NGK Spark Plugs

Smooth Roads Ahead: Making Wheel Bearing Jobs Work for Your Shop

Sponsored By BCA Bearings by NTN

Wheel bearings are safety-critical components which feature precision engineering, robust construction, and a long service life. However, all wheel bearings will eventually need to be replaced. Wheel bearing or hub assembly replacement can present a number of challenges to technicians. This could be due in part to bearing design, construction, corrosion buildup, and/or replacement parts selection.

During this 45-minute webinar we will discuss:

Speakers Matt Gorski, Manager of Product Development, NTN Bearing Corporation of America Divjot Singh, Applications Engineer, NTN Bearing Corporation of America Brian Sexton, Automotive Technical Writer, Babcox Media

Sponsored By BCA Bearings by NTN

Sponsored By Carter Fuel Systems

ShopOwner includes technical and management content and is free to download and read.

The knock sensor is not the only sensor responsible for detecting engine knock.

Throttle-by-wire systems proactively manage the air and fuel going into the combustion chamber.

Underhood Service targets repair shops that derive 50 percent or more of their revenue from the service and repair of under-the-hood systems. The expanding amount of knowledge and capital needed to keep up with technological advances has led these shop owners to concentrate on underhood systems, while also offering preventive maintenance services on most major vehicle systems. By subscribing, you’ll receive the ShopOwner digital edition magazine (12 times/year) featuring articles from Underhood Service and the Underhood Service eNewsletter (twice weekly). Access to digital editions, contests, news, and more are ready for you today!

Underhood Service targets repair shops that derive 50 percent or more of their revenue from the service and repair of under-the-hood systems. The expanding amount of knowledge and capital needed to keep up with technological advances has led these shop owners to concentrate on underhood systems, while also offering preventive maintenance services on most major vehicle systems. By subscribing, you’ll receive the ShopOwner digital edition magazine (12 times/year) featuring articles from Underhood Service and the Underhood Service eNewsletter (twice weekly). Access to digital editions, contests, news, and more are ready for you today!

ByUnderhood Service Staff Writers on Jul 18, 2022

High underhood temps, increased power demands and vibration can damage alternators or starters. Sponsored by ACDelco.

Don’t settle for “almost” - it matters where the engine is manufactured or remanufactured. Sponsored by ACDelco.

Brake pads are thoroughly developed to produce the best result. This video is sponsored by ZF Aftermarket.

Click here  to view past issues.

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Experts discuss the catalytic converter development process from start to finish. Sponsored by AP Emissions.

Hi, I’m Clint Cooper. I’m the emissions expert at AP Emissions. I’m here with Ryan McDonough, our product development expert, and we’re going to talk a little bit about how we develop catalytic converters, how we go about developing that brand new aftermarket catalytic converter part. So Ryan, what’s the first step? How do we come up with a new part?

First thing we do is identify our need through customer requests, inquiries through our website, or phone calls through the tech line.

Okay, V.I.O. Data. Okay, so also we look at this V.I.O. data? What’s V.I.O.?

It’s Vehicle in operation, so it lets us know how many of a certain type of vehicle are in a geographical area.

Okay, great. So you can just find out how many Camrys are in Albany, New York, for example.

And so from that information, we can then decide if a part needs to get built because there’s a lot of demand for it. There’s just a lot of people need that part.

So once we’ve identified that part we want to build, what’s the first step? Do I just go out and buy the [OE] and we copy that, or how do we go about this?

We do that, but we also bring in the vehicle to our tech center.

We’ll throw it up on the lift, get our technicians to rip the car apart, bring the exhaust system down, and from there we start our process to develop a new part.

So what’s the process? Do I go under there with a tape measure and start figuring out, okay, I need a tube this long and a bend at 45 degrees? How do our techs go about doing this?

So they’ll just take the original off the car.

Build a fixture around it that allows us to lock in locations.

So describe this fixture to me.

It’s a steel… See, this is where it gets complicated.

This is cool. Complicated is great, man.

This is a steel structure the employees use.

So it’s got like these… I’ve seen it before. It’s got these bolts that come up out of it, and it’s parts where you can put the metal into it and lock it down so it’s all in a spot that you can weld together, right?

Yeah, it’s a steel structure that holds all the components in place to guarantee fitment.

All right, sometimes we call it a jig. So they go about developing this new jig so that they can basically develop a new part for this car.

So they develop the parts and from those parts, they develop the jig.

Right, so we’ll put the original in the jig.

We’ll fixture around it.

And then that’ll allow us to be repeatable to the [OE].

Okay, so once we’ve prototyped it, we’ve gone through, it almost sounds like an artisanal process where we develop that part, and then once we’ve got that master jig or fixture made, we put the [OE] back in the fixture to make sure that the fixture’s accurate.

And so then we can now start just assembling new parts? Is it time for production or is there more steps involved?

There’s a few more steps. So we will make a sample. We’ll put that sample on the car to document the fitment.

Oh, so we don’t just check it against the jig that we made, but we then go put it back on the car and make sure it fits?

What happens if a model year is slightly different? Will we modify that [OE] part so it’ll extend coverage to those other model years, or do we just make a new part for every time that we need an [OE] copy?

That’s a great question. So we will bring in vehicles to test fit and hopefully extend our model years or carry over or carry up…

And use the same design. If a modification needs to be made, where we can carry up with a small modification, we’ll do that, as well, so the warehouse only has to stock one part instead of two.

Nice. Oh, so that’s less inventory in the shelves for our customers, which is terrific. And that single part is going to fit multiple vehicles just by sometimes adding a hanger or a slight bend on it, where it will still fit the original purpose, but it also now fits that extended coverage.

Awesome. So at that point in time, you’ve got a jig fixed, a fixture setup, and we’re then basically ready to start production. We’ve put it back on the car. We’re ready to go?

So we’ll have a few other processes first, like getting the part in the catalog…

And out to all of our partners and to our customers.

An NPI notification, so everyone in the field knows about the new part.

Then we’ll flip it over to the production team at that point.

And at that point, it’s time to start producing the part.

Excellent. Well, this has been a terrific video. We’ve learned about how we go about developing new parts. In our next video, what we’re going to look at is how we go about actually manufacturing those parts, so stay tuned. Thanks for watching.

This video is sponsored by AP Emissions.

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Technical resources to help diagnose and repair engine-related service issues.