It started out as a simple exercise. Dennis Madden, then CEO of ATRA, walked around the office with a ruler. He asked every employee to tell him what the markers meant. As he walked around the office, he found that less than one-quarter of the staff knew how to identify the markings on the ruler correctly.
He found that reading a ruler is no longer taught in school. This goes for the automotive and skilled classes as well. Transmission operation is not taught in most public schools, and unless you are a gearhead, there are no fundamental approaches to teaching transmission operation to the industry.
So, we created a Back to Basics column. In these articles, we’ll cover the fundamentals of transmission operation, making it fun and simple to understand. Hopefully, you can pass this on to your newbies coming into the shop. We’ll also have instructional videos and podcasts to help those who need a visual learning tool as well.
That said, I need to take you back a few years when this started getting off the ground. Dave Wilkes, a shop owner and current ATRA President, struggled to hire new staff. Sound familiar? While going through these growing pains, he approached us with a challenge: Come up with a fundamental program that shop owners can use to assist new hires and maybe even teach an old dog new tricks.
Here’s Dave’s Vision.
From the beginning of my career in working on transmissions, finding and training technicians has been the issue for maintaining and growing a company. I started in a multi-shop operation with three shops and grew to a 6-shop operation in the late 1980s. I started as an installer, then moved to builder, shop foreman, shop manager, and general manager. I became a shop owner when I bought my current shop in Ventura, CA.
When I started in the business, the most common transmissions had no lock-up converters, overdrives, or electronic controls. In 1980, the first lock-up converters were with the 350C, then in 1982 was the 700-4R. That was the beginning of “always something new.” My approach to learning new transmissions was to find out how they worked. What was the same, and what is new? I knew the earlier transmissions because they were mostly the same, with a few variations. My go-to was principles of operations, like the Hydramatic and Mitchell books, which have principles of operation and specifications.
In my previous areas of auto repair (brakes, suspension, engines & general repair), I would always want to know how things work. Diagnostic chains have yes/no choices, but what do you do when you get to the end and it’s not fixed? Plus, diagnostic chains have a lot of extra things that take longer. When you know how things work, you can work through the problem and figure it out.
The number of new 8 & 10-speed domestic and import transmissions today is incredible. I worked in a shop in the early 1970s where the attitude was, “If I have to buy metric wrenches to work it, I’m not working on it.” Well, that ship has sailed a long time ago.
That said, today’s transmissions have been developed using past systems. Learning how a transmission works and its principles allows you to compare it to others. You must understand the differences between the old and new principles used.
A fellow shop owner has said more than once that general repair technicians are sharper than transmission guys. General repair guys can figure out transmission problems. I’m afraid I have to disagree. Experienced transmission guys are every bit as sharp as any diagnostician out there, especially on transmissions. I know many top-of-the-line general repair shops in my area that I will go to for help or recommend customers. But on transmissions, not so much.
The structure, historically, in transmission shops are as follows:
- The shop foreman evaluates the car and gives recommendations to the manager/service advisor to get authorization for the job.
- The installer is assigned a job that has been diagnosed and authorized, usually removing and installing a transmission. Or maybe a transmission service or in-the-car repair.
- The rebuilder does the rebuild or bench repairs.
The structure for general repair is:
- The service advisor takes in the car and then assigns it to a technician
- The technician will do the evaluation and then give the findings to the service advisor. Once authorized, they will perform the repairs.
The difference is that the general repair tech does his own diagnostics. In the historical transmission shop, only the shop diagnostician does the evaluations. Although the builder and installer are familiar with transmissions, they typically have different skill sets.
The need for more focus on in-car diagnostics and operation fundamentals has to focus on the initial in-car evaluation. For some time, ATRA has been focused on internal rebuilding knowledge. When I attended my first board meeting, I brought a copy of Hydramatic’s “Understanding the Electronic Controlled Transmission,” which I think was published in 1997. I thought this was an example of teaching fundamentals.
Today, I see that the need is greater than ever. In the past, almost all the control systems were in the transmission. Now, many controls are not in the transmission but affect the operation. They have more principles of operation to learn than ever before. There’s a severe shortage of technicians. Transmission shops are closing because they can’t find new owners willing to take on transmissions. More general repair shops are doing transmission work and would be interested in training. Every existing transmission shop needs to train its techs to do evaluations so there can be more than one diagnostician in the shop. Installers/ chassis technicians and rebuilders also need to be trained to do evaluations so they have more than one area of expertise.
My vision is to have global areas of the principles of transmission operation. What I see now that needs to be addressed are the following:
- Throttle & Speed Inputs to Transmission & Module.
- Power flow: Clutches, Bands, and Gear sets
- Hydraulics: Valve-Bodies
- Electronic Control Inputs to Transmission & TCM/PCM
Then, describe what systems a transmission uses in each of these areas. Once defined, transmission operation can be taught using a baseline to compare to others. Then, teaching the differences can be done more easily, by having defined areas that can be searched when working on a transmission that a tech is not familiar with.
Look for Back to Basics in every issue of GEARS, along with Virtual Training Videos, Podcasts, and Social Media Posts. Now’s the time to get back to basics, bring in new blood, and make our industry great again!
