Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

This course is designed for students that have passed AM 131 and 121.  Students will develop the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to perform, repairs on import and domestic cars and light trucks with limited supervision. This is the skill level necessary for employment at an apprentice level.

The broader purpose of this course is to provide students, at the beginning of their first year in the automotive program, with authentic experience in basic industry skills and concepts, to ensure their success in later courses and on-the-job. These skills include tool use, fastener tightening, ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) style test taking, professionalism and responsible customer service.

The course material will be presented in a lecture/laboratory format and include videos, handouts and hands-on lab experience in the shop on vehicles. Students are required to read assigned materials, take notes and be responsible for the information in the textbooks, lab manuals and electronic service information located at each of the work areas throughout the automotive labs.
 

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

• Perform manual and automatic drive train inspection, maintenance, repair and diagnosis with limited supervision.
• Communicate professionally with employers, customers and co-workers using industry standard language and following industry standard protocols.
• Access and utilize repair information in a rapidly changing technology.
• Develop and implement strategies and processes to solve manual and automatic drive train repair problems.
• Perform manual and automatic drive train repair to professional and ethical standards.
   

To reach these goals, students will demonstrate the course outcomes for AM 132 by completing the following tasks:

• Remove and reinstall transmission/transaxles.
• Complete lab tasks outlined in the AM 132 lab packet.
• Manual drivetrain and axles diagnosis and repair.
• Automatic drivetrain diagnosis and repair.

Demonstrate preparedness for ASE testing by taking all AM 132 ASE style written exams.

•Maintaining good attendance.
•Following safe shop procedures.
•Demonstrating respect for other students and school property.
 

Critical to the effective diagnosis and repair of any automotive system is an understanding of how and why certain components work. On today’s automobile, this is often more useful for the technician than the ability to perform a particular adjustment or replacement. A technician must also have the ability to determine which repairs are in their own best interest. To develop this background understanding of automotive manual and automatic transmission/transaxle systems, students will explore the following concepts:

•Hazards of chemicals used in cleaning and lubrication of the manual transmission/transaxle assembly.
•The importance of shop cleanliness.

Professional business and personal conduct:

•Customer safety.
•Repeat repairs.
•Communication with customers.
•Customer satisfaction as business strategy.
•Teamwork in the work place.
•Cooperative problem solving.
•Work absence and attendance.

Physical laws:

•Energy transfer.
•Heat and friction.
•Hydraulic theory.

Specific system and component operation:

•Clutch assemblies; hydraulic, cable and mechanical linkages.
•Bell housing, clutch cover and clutch disc.
•Flywheel, starter ring gear, pilot bearing and input shaft.
•Transmission/transaxle assemblies, forward gears and reverse.
•Transmission/transaxle shift linkages, bushings, bearings and gaskets and seals.
•Drive shafts, drive axles, universal joints and constant-velocity joints.
•Drive axles (front wheel drive), ring and pinion gears and differential case assembly.
•Limited slip differential, lubrication and theory.
•Four-wheel drive/all-wheel drive component theory.

Skills:

In Advanced Automatic and Manual Drive Train, students will build an inventory of the following repair skills as they are available in the live (customer) work environment of AM 132 to prepare for a career as an apprentice technician.

• Automatic transmission and transaxle diagnosis.
• In-vehicle transmission / transaxle maintenance and repair.
• Off-vehicle transmission and transaxle repair.
• Manual drivetrain diagnosis.
• Clutch diagnosis and repair.
• Manual transmission / transaxle diagnosis and repair.
• Drive shaft, drive axle, universal joint and CV joint diagnosis and repair.
• Drive axle diagnosis and repair, ring and pinion gears and differential case assembly.