>> I'm Chad.
I'm a second-year student here at DCTC.
I've been an apprentice at ABRA in Bloomington for just about a year, now.
Doing some frame damage, here, repair on a 2005 Ford.
>> Focus.
>> Focus. Three door, got hit here, and this here was the main impact.
We've already cut the reinforcement and impact bar off.
Now, we're going to be pulling on this frame here, to get it straight,
using the three-dimensional measurement system to make sure
that everything else is in line where it should be.
>> I'm Gerry Rainford.
I'm a second-year instructor here, at Dakota County Technical College.
Chad's a typical second-year student, where we get into different levels of repair needs,
from just simple door repair to, well, you can see here, is a full unibody reconstruction.
Mechanical aspects, as well.
Getting into the air conditioning and other mechanical systems on the vehicle.
Suspension, driveline.
This is kind of the way that once we have the vehicle anchored on our frame rack.
We come through and we can actually do pull out.
We're going to be doing a light pull, this morning on the unibody structure.
We're going to see if we can't repair the rails.
Typically, when they're kinked to this point, we would do a replacement procedure.
But we're going to see if we can't repair them, today.
So, we'll just kind of talk as we go through it.
And we'll see if we can get the rails to come out.
So, Chad, please take over from here.
>> All right.
I'm going to be using these towers, here, that are capable of pulling 10,000 pounds apiece.
Try to get this mash come out on this left frame rail, here.
>> So, once again.
Keep pulling.
We're going to be pulling at a constant level that's going to be straight out,
to try to replace the height, the length, and width of the rail.
So, we're going to keep the direction straight and at a straight pulling distance.
>> And all I'm doing here, now, is just watching as I'm pulling, going slowly to find
out how the metal's going to react.
Everything reacts different, not any accident is the same.
Everything needs to be taken on with a different viewpoint.
What I'm going to do now, is just hit this metal, here,
to try to relieve some of this stress.
[ Hammering Sound ]
And always while you're pulling, what you're going to want
to do is check your anchoring points, again, to make sure that the car is not going anywhere.
Make sure all your chains and clamps are still tight.
As you'll notice, I'm staying above, not standing behind these chains,
just in case anything would happen to let go.
[ Hammering Sound ]
>> Let's work the backside of the rail through here a little bit, as well.
[ Hammering Sound ]
[inaudible] target.
One of the things we don't want to do,
is we don't want to do additional damage as we're pulling.
Looks like we're pulling more from the bottom of the rail.
>> Yeah.
>> Than we are from the top.
So, at this point in time, I think we should stop, rehook, and grab a hold of the top
of the clamp support and pull more on the top of this rail.
>> All right.
Both these dozers here are run by the same pump.
So, as I pull it's going to pull them equally.
>> Okay. Let's get some pressure on there.
[ Inaudible Comments ]
[ Hammering Sound ]
>> Just trying to relieve this stress.
Move the metal where I want it.
>> So, let's get a couple of hits with this on the backside.
[ Hammering Sound ]
Right now, we're concerned with overpulling on it.
And so, I think we're going to stop.
And we're going to regrab onto the rail at a different location.
Once you've overpulled and it distorts the rail, then we've got an issue.
>> We're going to cut this outside of this rail, here off, this cap.
Just a piece of the sheet seal, here, out of high strength steel.
We're going to pull this out here, so that way we can get inside here, too,
and make proper welds and get this metal straight, again.
I'm just going to be countered along, drill out these spot welds, here.
And then, cut it here at the seam.
I'll run a line, section it out.
>> Why don't you show them how we know how far we need to pull by using the measuring system?
Then, to explain the measuring system, real quick?
>> All right.
As we pull out on this stuff here, to get this rail out to where it should be,
these targets here measure with this beam underneath the vehicle, measures the vehicle
at all kinds of different points.
Four in the middle of the vehicle, two at the rear of the vehicle, and then,
these here in the front closest to the damage.
This vehicle, this chart here for the vehicle is specific for this vehicle.
What this does here, is it hangs targets from the vehicle at specific manufacturing locations.
It measures the vehicle throughout there.
You can tell that our center section here, is good.
And the back of the vehicle is good.
But up here, we're dealing with off measurements on the front end from the impact.
>> We're going to take and when we get the rails pulled back into a location
by the manufacturer's specifications, we'll take, we'll hammer and dolly all this straight.
And we'll take, we've got new components.
We've got a new reinforcement bar that we'll be welding into place,
to replace the structure of the vehicle.
But we'll come through, replace the.
You want to come around over here.
You can see that the radiator condenser has been damaged in this accident.
And it's completely, we've lost all the Freon.
So, we'll be doing an R and R procedure on the condenser assembly.
Then, we're going to evac and recharge the air conditioning system.
And then, move forward with the rest of the mechanical repairs at this time.
In some situations, when you get composite intake manifolds, like this,
components can come back and do damage to the intake manifolds,
starters, alternators, AC compressors.
We have additional damage deeper in the vehicle.
And this one, we've simply got a condenser to replace.
What's so, how long will it take you to do this repair?
>> This repair here, will take me probably about two weeks to finish, to complete.
Done quite a bit already.
Already had all my parts ordered.
Those have already been checked in and identified,
and made sure that they are the right parts, so I'm not scrambling at the end
of the project to find the correct parts.
I'd say about two weeks; two to three weeks would be a good timeline for this vehicle.
>> Well, thank you, Chad.
I appreciate it, taking your time with the students and this is what we do here
at Dakota County Technical College.
It's a two-year program.
We try to get you ready with the latest technology and the latest equipment to make sure
that they're ready for the industry.
And so, they can be productive and profitable in today's unibody reconstruction world.
Thanks, very much.