2021-07-24 — Double 8s

8 more cars today. 37 cars this week. I’m sure it’s a personal record. Been crazy. 😶

The cars were mostly quickies today, but the days are blending together, and I can’t even remember clearly what I did… Let’s see… First one was a battery in a 2013 Infiniti JX35. Second was… oh, a weird transmission issue in a 2009 Mazda 5 that I believe is an issue with the transmission control module. Third… was… what was it… oh, right, tire repair on an ’07 Camry. Had a puncture/gash. It actually kicked my butt because it was so hot the plugs turned into goo and wouldn’t let themselves be trimmed off. It probably took 20 minutes longer than it should because of that. 🙃

Fourth car was a 2013 Dodge Avenger with a coolant leak. Apparently, another mobile mechanic had done the same repair a year ago, and it was done with gasket sealer on rubber coolant gaskets.

If you’re not aware, that’s a no no. You don’t put any sealer on rubber gaskets in cooing systems. That’s one of the things that’s so great about the rubber gaskets! No sealer needed. Nothing to clean off, nothing to put on.

Except, they’d slathered it all with sealer, which then baked onto the engine, and took 45 minutes to get off, and would only come off after scrubbing wit sandpaper on the aluminum head!!!

Goodness. And they’re one of my main competitors. 😶

Fifth car was 2001 Lexus LX470 that had a floppy ignition lock cylinder. Turned out to have a busted internal piece between the ignition lock cylinder and the ignition switch. I was grateful I found someone online who had the exact same issue which sped up the diagnosis rather significantly. The hardest part was fishing the broken piece out of the way because there was a spring-loaded door-ish thing six inches deep inside the ignition housing that had to be held out of the way at the same time the broken piece was fished out. It was… a challenge, but I finally managed, and I was grateful.

6th car was a 2011 VW Jetta that had a misfire, but it wouldn’t recreate while I was there, so I swapped coil #3 to cylinder #1 and spark plug #3 to cylinder #2, and I taught him how to fix it himself from there once it started having issues again.

7th car was… oh yeah, 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 4.8… no start. Turned out to be just a bad battery.

I love battery jobs. Wham. Bam. Next.

I thought I was headed home after #7, but as I was going through my texts, I realized there was one more I’d promised to do back down south that I’d forgotten about, so I drove back down to Fayetteville from Springdale and put a spare tire on a car for someone. That was #8–2017 Chevrolet Tahoe that they’d hit a curb or something and popped the bead on the tire, and they couldn’t get their spare off the truck, so they called me, and I took care of it for them and finally headed home.

I was grateful I made it to the gas station. I think I pushed it super far today. When I filled up, I’d been on empty for a while, and it filled up to 19.6 gallons, or something like that. With CNG, running out of gas means getting your car towed, so… that would be no bueno.

Gratefully, I made it.

So yeah, 8 cars again, and I diagnosed our lawnmower first thing this morning before heading out (bad starter switch), and I diagnosed our vacuum when I got home tonight (bad starter switch as well. Hmmm….)

I’m completely exhausted. So ready to crash, but I’m also feeling accomplished. It’s really cool, honestly, to go from barely knowing anything about cars, to deciding one day to be a mechanic still without knowing much of anything, but learning on the job all day every day, and now… I just… I figure cars out and fix them. It’s cool.

I’m tired. Exhausted.

I said that already.

I’m grateful to Jim for working on the driveway today. It’ll be a mess in the rain for a few days because the gravel I got out of the fields also has a healthy amount of topsoil in it, so it’ll be a big muddy mess for a while after it rains… until the topsoil washes off the road anyway.

I’m still just sort of existing right now. I’m feeling accomplished, but I’m still trying to find my way.

Loves and hugs to all.

Good night 🙂

~ stephen