My name is Colby L. Steele. I really find it interesting and satisfying on how things work, and how to fix it. I started learning about how auto mobiles work through my father ever since I learned to walk. Many years later when i got into high school, I perused my mechanical interest further by attending the Chesapeake Career Center. I would study my electives in high school for half the day, then I would drive between bells to my local career center (votech) to learn and study automobile repair. I studied here between bells for 2 years. Automotive 1 was my Jr year. I studied how engines and most combustion engines operate. We were tasked with disassembly and re assembly of a combustion engine, followed by a compression test to determine our final grade of the final semester of automotive one, and I did great at the age of 17. Automotive 2 was my senior year study. I studied how steering and suspension worked and how to generally repair most vehicles of light/medium duty nature. Using these skills at a young age, I quickly joined the work force of the automotive field with an advantage. I gained my first work place experience at Priority toyota as a lube technician by quickly understanding my job and performing it well. After a year of working at Priority Toyota, I was given a position at Cavalier Ford as a lube technician at first, and then transported to the Lincoln department as a full technician on high end vehicles. I found it so fascinating to see my self progress to a more advanced level of repair. After working at Lincoln for some time, a dear friend recommended I should take an opportunity at advancing my career to become a school bus mechanic with him at Chesapeake Public Schools. I took the opportunity and I have gained much more mechanical knowledge, especially with the heavy duty/diesel field at the age of 21 currently where I am employed.
I am currently a P.M. technician at Chesapeake Public Schools transportation shop. Here, we service school busses and diagnose any issue wrong with a bus. I am trained to service the entire length of the bus from rear axle, to the motor itself, and interior work. Air brake systems repair and simple hydraulics. While working on my bus, we are dispatched frequently to road calls. I drive to multiple schools a day to repair an immobilized or damaged bus, rain or shine. I also perform Virginia State Inspections, depending upon if the inspection sticker is due by the PM service interval. The list below is a regular process of what some of the many skills, practices, and procedures I go by when a bus is assigned to me for its regular P.M. service.
Usually during the weekends, I work in my father's garage behind my house to make some extra profit. I do not advertise any of my work, most of the time its just friends and word of mouth from them onwards. I do from basic tune ups, tires, and brake jobs to entire engine and transmission replacements just from the back garage.