The matter had already been discussed, and she had finished visiting her uncle. Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly remembered what she had seen in the open yard earlier and casually asked, “Uncle, did the factory change its rules? When I passed by just now, I saw a truck from the motor transport section unloading industrial waste. They said the truck had broken down and was being repaired there.”
Shu Huairen’s eyes immediately flickered when he heard this. What was going on? How come he didn’t know that the schedule for transporting industrial waste had changed?
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Seeing that her uncle’s expression was off, Shu An described in detail what she had just seen.
After listening, Shu Huairen began thinking. Logistics, industrial waste, the motor transport section…
It seemed he would have to check the accounts from the past few months.
Everyone said that the logistics department was full of opportunities to make extra money, but few people realized that the industrial waste from the production workshops could also be quite valuable. Normally, every shipment of waste required someone from logistics to sign off on it.
It looked like he would also have to find out who had signed the paperwork and issued the authorization slip.
But he couldn’t tell his niece these things, so he simply said, “Mm, Uncle understands.”
Shu An keenly sensed that something was probably wrong. Knowing better than to ask further, she said, “Then, Uncle, I won’t bother you anymore. You should get back to work. I’ll be going.”
“Mm, go ahead. Be careful on the way, and don’t mention what you just saw to anyone.”
“I know, Uncle. I’m not a child anymore.”
Shu An smiled after saying this, then turned around, hopped onto the bicycle, and headed straight for the vehicle factory.
After greeting the guard at the entrance, she obediently waited nearby according to the usual routine for someone to come and get her.
When Zhao Ming heard that his cousin had arrived, he immediately hurried out. After meeting up with her, he said, “An’an, I’ll take you to Master Gou in a moment. Remember what I told you yesterday—be sweet with your words, okay?”
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, I will. I will.”
Zhao Ming led her through several workshops, taking a winding route, before finally finding Gou Deshun in an office.
“Master Gou, my cousin is here.”
Zhao Ming knocked on the door.
Gou Deshun was staring grimly at the blueprint in front of him. Several people stood trembling in the corner, and the entire room was deathly silent. It was obvious they had just been given a thorough scolding.
When Zhao Ming saw the scene, his heart sank.
Oh no. We came at the wrong time. This is bad. I’m definitely going to get yelled at later.
Unexpectedly, when Gou Deshun heard the knock, he turned around with an extremely unpleasant expression. But the moment he saw Shu An standing behind Zhao Ming, his attitude changed completely.
“Oh! Little girl, it’s you? Come, come over here.”
As he spoke, he waved Shu An over.
“All right, Master Gou.”
Shu An walked over without changing her expression.
“Come here, girl. Take a look at this blueprint. Can you see what the problem is?”
Unexpectedly, Gou Deshun casually placed the blueprint in front of Shu An and asked her to examine it.
The several technicians standing nearby immediately became nervous.
One of them even spoke up, “Master Gou, how can you let an outsider look at our blueprint? Besides, this involves…”
“Involves what? With this pile of junk you’ve made, you’re still worried about someone looking at it? Do you really think anyone cares? If one day a spy actually stole this pile of junk from you, I’d have to thank him for taking it off our hands.”
Those words immediately turned the technician’s face pale, then red. He was so embarrassed that he didn’t dare say another word.
Shu An finally understood why her cousin had said that Master Gou had quite a temper.
He could insult people without using a single dirty word.
But when she noticed Master Gou looking at her, she lowered her head and examined the blueprint.
It was a design based on the GAZ-51 truck.
In her previous life, this truck had been phased out long ago. It was an old relic that could only be seen in museums.
Back when she was studying, one of her veteran instructors had even used it as a negative example when teaching.
Soviet vehicles were known for being sturdy, durable, and easy to repair, but they also had quite a few shortcomings at the time.
Although she had never personally worked with this particular type of truck, automotive technology in her previous life was far more advanced than what existed now, so she could still draw on some of that knowledge.
However, she couldn’t say anything that was too far ahead of its time. So she decided to focus only on the problems visible in the blueprint.
“Master Gou, shall I tell you what I see?”
“Go ahead. It can’t possibly be any more foolish than what these idiots came up with.”
“Ahem.”
Shu An cleared her throat and glanced at the technician who had just been called an idiot.
“Master Gou, I think there’s a problem with the segmented design of this drive shaft.”
The moment she said this, the technician who had just been insulted jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
Because he was the one who had drawn it.
“You, you…”
He was just about to say, What do you know?
But Gou Deshun shot him a sharp look, and the words immediately got stuck in his throat. He could only stammer incoherently.
Seeing that he had been silenced, Shu An continued.
“And the angle of this universal joint is wrong. It says fifteen degrees here, but at this angle, the drive shaft will have balancing problems when running at high speed.”
“If the operating speed exceeds 3,000 revolutions per minute and the universal joint angle is greater than twelve degrees, the wear rate of the cross shaft and bearings will increase several times over. The vehicle will start shaking before it even reaches 2,000 kilometers.”
“If this blueprint is for the same vehicle I saw yesterday, then the reason it was shaking might not just be the clearance problem. This could be part of the cause too.”
The moment she finished speaking, the room fell silent.
But the technician who had been silenced could no longer hold himself back. He sneered, “Yesterday’s problem with the component clearance—you could still say you were just a blind cat that happened to catch a dead mouse. It’s mentioned in the textbooks. Anyone who gave it a little thought could figure it out.”
“But this… You’re saying there’s a problem when the angle exceeds twelve degrees? That’s complete nonsense! We all studied mechanical engineering properly. Are you saying we could get such a technical design wrong?”
“The original GAZ-51 specifications call for fifteen degrees. We used those specifications directly, and we’ve been using them for more than ten years. How could there possibly be a problem?”
“Then tell me, why does your vehicle shake?”
Shu An knew she couldn’t possibly be wrong about this, so she looked at him with complete confidence.
“I… I…”
The man was once again rendered speechless by Shu An’s question.
Seeing him shut up, Shu An continued.
“Have you noticed that the GAZ-51’s drive shaft is nearly forty centimeters shorter than the one you designed?”
“At the same angle, increasing the length causes the amplitude of the oscillation to increase geometrically.”
As she became more engrossed in explaining, she instinctively picked up the pen on the desk, pulled out a sheet of white paper, and began rapidly sketching a diagram.
As she drew, she explained, “Look. The total length of the drive shaft is 1.8 meters, and there’s only one supporting shaft assembly in the middle. With a fifteen-degree universal joint angle at this length, it generates a lateral periodic force.”
“The frequency happens to fall within the natural frequency range of the cab suspension. Put simply, once the vehicle speed exceeds forty kilometers per hour, the entire cab will start shaking.”
“But it won’t actually fall apart. It’ll just shake terribly.”
“Of course, if you happen to have kidney stones, you could take two rides and maybe shake them loose.”