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Developer Profile- Eric Renninger

Developer Profile- Eric Renninger

Eric Renninger, 40, has more than 15 years of experience in government, commercial and environmental management. After spending four years in the Middle East on an international federal government assignment, as the director of operations for a large-scale government contractor based in Detroit, Renninger returned to the US in 2013 to implement a business plan he had been developing for two years.

  

Renninger grew up in rural Pennsylvania and joined the U.S. Air Force immediately out of high school, serving internationally and domestically from 1992-1996 before graduating from Penn State with a BS in 2000. He then relocated to Raleigh to work in the environmental engineering industry, working his way up the ranks until he was presented with the life-changing opportunity to relocate to the Middle East.

During his time abroad, Renninger had bounced business ideas back and forth with a good friend, who was also the director of entrepreneurship at a local community college. When Renninger eventually returned to the US in July 2013, his friend had met someone who worked with Honest-1, and noticed how similar Renninger’s business proposal mimicked Honest-1’s.  

 

“The model they had developed was so close to what I had been thinking about for two years; there was no reason to reinvent the wheel,” Renninger said. Within a few months, Renninger attended Discovery Day, hired a lawyer for legal advice, vetted Honest-1’s performance and signed with the brand in December 2013.

Why did you choose to sign on as a regional developer?

As a former director of operations, I am used to working with thousands of people, and I enjoy teaching and helping people become better managers and operate to their maximum potential. I succeeded previously in this type of role, so I thought it would be a good fit.

What type of people are you hoping to recruit?

Ideally, we’re looking for owners who are looking for an executive position and didn’t necessarily grow up with tools in their hands. I’m looking for a business man or woman who wants the opportunity to be their own boss and understands operations and people management.  Ideally, I’d like to have five individuals who want to develop five stores in each of the various markets. That way, we’re not re-teaching from the ground up and we can more easily move from one store to multiple stores. This strategy also allows us to devote our focus on the operational success of the store.

I also hope to tap into the military connections that I have made. The region is home to Fort Bragg, which is one of the largest military bases in the world. We want to become involved in the transition assistance program, and recruit some high level military officers who want to stay in the area in a new career.

Are you involved in charities or community outreach programs?

I’m involved with Wounded Warriors project through my affiliation with the local Trout Unlimited group.

What publications would you like us to focus on?

The Penn Stater, Alumni Magazine and trade magazines.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I’ve always had an interest in automobiles since a young age. I have a small collection of vintage cars that I like to drive in my spare time. 

Blown Head Gaskets on Land Rover V8 Engines

I've got a blown head gasket in my Land Rover.  What will it take to fix it?  That's a question Land Rover service managers hear fairly regularly.  We used to do head gasket jobs all the time, but in the last 5-7 years many of those jobs went bad. Many shops won't even do LR valve jobs anymore.  Why?

This is a big issue for people with the original LR-Buick aluminum V8 engine - all the US market Defenders and Range Rovers to 2002 and Discovery I and II models through 2004.

The engines overheated and failed either right after the head gasket job, or within a few months.  At first I thought the failures were comebacks - errors of workmanship.  But I soon realized the problem was not the workmanship - it was the motors themselves.  They were failing internally, in seemingly invisible ways.

Join me now as we look closely at a seemingly simple head gasket failure, and find there is much more to the story . . . 

This 2001 truck came into Robison Service a few days ago (early 2014) with a noise complaint.  Exhaust gases were blowing out between the head and the block.  It seemed like a classic case of fire ring failure in the head gasket.  In years past, I'd have been right on it with new head gaskets and a cleaned up heads.  Today, not so quick . . . As it happens, our caution turned out to be well founded.

Here are both heads off the motor.  As clearly shown, only one has a blowout (second cylinder from the left, upper head)  So far, it looks like a blown gasket.

OK, now lets look at a closeup of the failed cylinder in that upper head.  The blowout line is in the center.  Look at the holes for the head bolts.  The one on the left is actually facing the front of the engine, as you are seeing the head upside down (we will look at that hole in the block in a minute)   Note how its orange from coolant intrusion.  The one on the right (the rear bolt hole) is clear and that’s what you want to see.

The orange is sedimented Dex-cool.  Sedimentation is a known issue with Dex cool and it's particularly visible here.  It looks very different from freshly spilled coolant, like you get from teardown.  Scroll down the page four more images and you'll see freshly spilled coolant in a head bolt hole.  There's no mistaking the difference.

There are some motors where the head bolt holes go into the coolant galleries.  This isn't one of them.  These holes should be dry.  The fact that they are not suggests a crack or leak somewhere.

The blowout has damaged the head slightly but it's nothing we can't fix with a weld and resurfacing before the valve job.  Right now, that is the least of our worries.

Like I said, that dried coolant is a bad sign.  There are no coolant passages from block to head in the middle cylinders of a Rover-Buick V8.  There is no connection between the head bolt holes and the coolant galleries in the block, either. That area should never show coolant.  It's a bad sign, suggestive of internal failure.  But there's more . . . 

Now lets look at the block on the right side.

The blowout is clearly visible in the bottom of the second cylinder back.  Note the rectangular marks at the left and right edges of the block.  Those are the passages through which coolant flows into and out of the head.  There is no coolant flow through the middle.

The reddish spotting between 1-2 and 3-4 cylinders and the respective lower head bolt holes is even more suggestive of slow coolant leakage.  We will look at that in closeups.  When you look at the second and fourth head bolt holes from the left, those are dark.  The other holes are light, meaning no long term coolant intrusion.

This is a closeup of the lower head bolt hole and the edges of cylinders 1-2 on that side.  Note the pattern of leakage from the liners in toward the head bolt hole. See the “burnt” coolant in the bolt hole.  Those are sings of long term seepage.  This usually indicates a crack emanating from the bolt hole out to the liner faces on 1-2.  Also note the pattern of leakage continues onto the surface of the front piston, which is washed clean of carbon in the same area.  This is a sign of coolant intrusion into the cylinder and its location corresponds to the seepage on the block

For comparison here are the front and rear head bolt holes with a view up to the coolant passages from block to head.  In the rear one you clearly see some coolant leaked in disassembly and the difference between that and what’s dried and hardened in those inner bolt holes in the earlier images  is clear

Here is a top view of the blown head gasket.   There's no damage (other than the blowout) between this gasket and the head.  It's very clean and normal looking.

Closeup of the bottom reveals a different story on the engine block side.  That face makes the leakage pattern strikingly clear, and shows it’s all coming out of the block.  That's not surprising, because it can't come from the head.  There's no coolant in that area!  However, the area between the head bolt bore and the cylinder edges is hollowed out in the casting, for coolant flow.  That is the area that is vulnerable to cracking, and that's what's cracked in this motor.

The leakage traces on the bottom side of the head gasket really tell the story.  The way the gasket is discolored we know the leak has been developing over a long period of time.  What happens is that the crack grows, and as it does, the crack opening relieves the tension on the head bolt. That's probably one of the reasons the fire ring seal blew out.

Here’s a broader view of the bottom of the gasket, where two leaks are visible, to the left and right of the blown fire ring..  

Like I said, five years ago I'd have put head gaskets on this motor and sent it down the road.  And looking at today's evidence - it would have failed because the block was already damaged.  Head gasket leakage was a symptom of that failure, not the actual problem.  It may have lasted a week; it may have lasted six months.  Either way, it would have blown.

Here's a photo of a stripped engine block, after we cut it in half and circled the crack that made it fail.  The coolant passages are clearly visible

What do we do now?

The correct fix will involve removal of the liners, welding the cracks, and then fitting liners with flanges at the top, so that the liners will seal agains the head basket and coolant will not be able to go between block and liner and cause a blowout.

Read more about that in this article from 2012.

As a footnote to this story, when told about these issues, the owner of the truck told me he'd been adding coolant for a while for a period of months.  Now we know where it was going.  The coolant was getting burned in the cylinders as it leaked from the cracks behind the liners.  The fire ring blew out because the block cracks caused the head bolts to lose their clamping force.  We have an explanation for the whole thing, disagreeable as it may be to the one who has to pay the bill.  Still, I contend it's better to know the bad news up front than to discover it after a $3,000 valve job and head repair goes bad.

John Elder Robison is the manager of J E Robison Service, independent Land Rover specialists in Springfield, MA.  Find him online at www.robisonservice.com or on the phone at 413-785-1665

Honest-1 on FOX & Friends

Honest-1 on FOX & Friends

Honest-1 was included in an “On The Job Hunt” segment during this morning’s FOX & Friends that also included Amazon, ZocDoc, GYMGUYZ, and Microsoft. Cheryl Casone from The Casone Exchange mentions that Honest-1 is looking to hire 50 jobs and the average salary is between 40 and 75K.

You can view the full segment here.

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A review of car wax over sealant

Most of the car detailer advice to wax over to a sealant, is this really a need to do so?  Some detailer may deny this in some forum we read through. Here I’m going to put this into a real action, in order to tell what the need to do so.

I assume readers reading my article here had been went through the information I shared here before about, wash, clay and wax. Hence I would like to jump into the pictures of car been applied with sealant and wax-ed

The sealant used was PG sealant which is the most common to get in our local hypermarket store. After laying 2~3 coats of sealant in this car, I go for a nano wax of bullsone. Do remember the wax over sealant might need to apply only after a few days in between. In order to make sure the sealant is fully cure and lay on top of your car. And for sure we need to go through the whole process again for : wash, clay. Add in the process of polishing and compounding if you need to.

You will see like a coat of plastic laminated into your car surface and sure I’m not meaning a real plastic surface…. Just look like.

You will notice this clearer for a solid color or plain dark car. Forget about white car, you will hardly notice it.

while from the back.

Ok. after afew days, wash and clay. Then follow with a wax of nano over whole car. And how to know whether it is really helps? And why to do so?

Overall, the sealant we can get in market is actually a cheaper brand which also serves the purpose of an almost similar product which may price higher. Hence the motive of sealant is durability. Another layman term, to stay longer than wax to end user car. So if I’m a person use to wash my car for 2 to 3 weeks once, it doesn’t make much different to me to wax or sealant, I rather go for carnauba which may lay a deeper shine probably.

So if we are to discuss about whether to lay a topping coat of wax over a sealant, is this a must?Or I will rather say this is just a consumer preferences at the end. We might need to consider how frequent we are going to wash our car. And what shampoo we are going to use? Is it harmful to pain as well?

And what to do with wax over a sealant ? The normal brand that we can get a sealant in our local store normally has less power to bead water, if the surface is less defensive over water rain which shown us its lack of beading water function will mean one thing…..the dirt, tar and mud will be easily to stick over your car surface even you had been covered with a layer of sealant.

To speak honestly and more clearly as I knew not everyone catch my word here. Refer to below diagram:

YES! Wax stay on sealant! But not your expensive coating, but the cheaper sealant! Watch the picture!

There are dusts on top of the car. After washed and waxed for a few days.

And surface still bead nicely, whichever is not able to perform by normal sealant but wax can do.

See the dusty, but nice water bead in placed.

Let see how the sealant can reflect. And the most important, wax do bring it a deeper shine.

Picture tells thousand words. Let’ see more:

There are scratches/swirl and dusty surface. But they are all still under protected under the wax surface. Your choice to think of coumpounding the surface?

This article is not to argue how nice the car surface can maintain. Not to argue to compound a surface for swirl/scratches removal.

But to discuss 1 thing, is the surface of sealant can be applied with another layer of wax?

The answer is yes. And it was nice than just a single sealant layer. By the way the picture of this car I shown here is lay more than 1 layer of sealant. Which means you still can put a wax on top of your sealant, no matter how hard/how many of your sealant staying there.