2:07 a.m.
Just got home from the last job (which, incidentally, happened to be identical to last night’s last job–a 2006, silver, Honda Civic starter. Can’t say I’ve had that happen since I’ve been a full-time mechanic.
Long day. Nice not to have the stress of trying to get David taken care of. Nice to be able to sleep in a bit. Was a very busy day today.
Up, study time with mom, and then breakfast.
1st job, starter on 2002 F350 7.3 diesel (same type of truck one of my sisters just bought. He also is a horse person, like my sister. Cool.
2nd job, rear drum brakes on a 94 something ‘r other. Remind me next time. Whenever I have drum brakes to do, just watch the YouTube videos that someone somewhere has undoubtedly made. There’s always like one way to put the darn things back together, and if you don’t know the sequence, you spend… hours… like I did, until I remembered YouTube for drum brakes.
Then… it flew by. 🙃
Then… I got my butt handed to my by a 2006 Ford Ranger that wasn’t getting fuel. Fuel pump wasn’t kicking on. I jumped the relay, nothing.
Pulled the tank off, dragged it to the driveway, and tested the pump.
Worked fine. 😶
Right.
Dragged the tank back under the truck, redirected the fuel lines, so they could reach a tank that’s sitting on the ground, hooked up all the wires, and… nothing.
Checked the voltage. was getting voltage, just no fuel. But it was just getting fuel with the voltage from my jump box.
Then, suddenly, it was getting constant voltage, which it shouldn’t be getting, but that voltage was still not enough.
😶
?!?!?
Stumped.
I found that I’d blown the fuel fuse, probably accidentally touching the jumper wires together. Replaced the fuse, and… guess what… started working out of the blue.
Truck fired right up.
😶
Well… nothing more to diagnose if it’s working perfectly. Can’t find something that ain’t wrong.
So… I put the tank back in (parts of the job were quite the nightmare), and it kept working fabulously.
Go figure.
Then it was a radiator job in Fayetteville (going all the way from the far north end of the area I cover to the far south end. I pressure tested the system, but it didn’t leak. Didn’t see anything wrong there. There was oil in the coolant, though, so… that’s super bad. And the heater heater hose plastic connectors were disintegrating, so I messed with those to try to make them work for her (one of them shot off the heater core, spraying coolant/water everywhere). After about 2 hours of going through things and thinking I was done, the radiator finally did start to leak. 🙃 By this time it was like 10 p.m., and I still had one more job to go to, but I stayed and got the radiator put in, everything back together to the point that it’s ready to fill, but I’d emptied it out with a very hot engine, so I didn’t want to fill the engine with cold coolant with a very hot block. Risk cracking the block.
So… I’ll come back, fill, and bleed the system another day. Maybe tomorrow (which is also going to be a really really really full day). 🙃
After that, it was on to the Civic repeat. I’m getting pretty good at putting starters in those little things, including in my own Civic last year.
Well, folks… I’m exhausted. Running on fumes. 2:28 a.m.
Tomorrow, I have a job all the way out in Decatur. They still want me to come even though I’m charging them roughly full price for drive time (It’s gonna be like 40 minutes each way to get there to put an alternator in a Lexus RX350, which is probably the same as doing one in a Sienna. We’ll see, though). So… I’ve got that. I’ve got Heater hoses to do for a Mountaineer, heater hoses to do for a Silverado, perhaps a power steering leak on a Cadillac, hood release cable on a Kia Rio… I’m missing something…
Whatever.
Sleep time!
#1. I’m grateful that I’m not way over the edge. I’m not great, but I’m not terrible.
#2. I’m grateful to be able to go to sleep now.
#3. I’m grateful that though I’m working my tail off, I am making really good money right now. Money isn’t really important, obviously, but it’s helping me get where I hope to go for the moment
#4. I’m grateful that I was able to not have a breakdown when cars were really… not kind. I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t my worst.
#5. I’m grateful for indoor plumbing.
Thought of the Day: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” –Wayne Gretzky
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 