2021-07-27 — Dog Days of Summer

Drip, drip, drip.

It was so hot today. So hot. Gonna be even hotter tomorrow. I think it’ll be 96 or something, plus all that humidity.

Can we say sauna? 🙃

Groceries came this morning. I’m still grateful for delivery. It’s fabulous. Save me time. Give someone a job. No additional gas expended. Wonderful.

After grocery arrival and breakfast, I went to work for the day, and I did another six cars today. On the same pace as last week. 😶

First job was helping a kid whose friend had accidentally chewed through the main part of the vehicle wiring harness with a drill bit, and that in such an awkward place that it was pretty much impossible to repair where it was, so I had partially dismantle the dashboard and other things, disconnecting enough of the wiring harness as to allow me to pull the massive bundle into a workable area where repairs could be made. Gratefully, the customer, once I’d gotten it to that point, decided he wanted to finish the job to save money, and I was all for it because I didn’t want to finish the job. 🙃

Second job was… oh yeah, diagnostic on a 2007 Jeep Wrangler that had an awful misfire because an injector was stuck open and dumping so much fuel that it literally ran down the exhaust pipe. 😶

There’s another first for me, fortunately of the less intense variety.

I’ll go back tomorrow or another day to do the repair.

Third job was a guy whose interlock was malfunctioning, or something like that. He wanted me to replace his ignition switch, so I did, and that seemed to get him going.

Fourth car was supposed to be a ball joint job, but it wasn’t a ball joint: it was a tie rod issue, and so I came prepared with the wrong part–the right part needing to be ordered from out of state I think it was, so I just charged him $69 for coming by, and I’ll be back tomorrow or another day to do the repair.

Fifth car was an ’06 Accord. Firestone told him he needed rear pads, rotors, and calipers. Of course you know what that means. It doesn’t need nearly that much stuff. What did it actually need? A brake caliper bracket, guide pins, pin boots, and pads. Half the cost, or less.

Gotta love those chain stores. I don’t know how they stay in business, ripping so many people off again and again and again. Good gravy. Amazingly, after saving him hundreds of dollars, my customer is still unhappy with my price. That’s one of the challenges of the Indian culture, always trying to bargain, always telling you your prices are too high, always trying to get discounts. It’s… not sure what the right word is. It gets rather tiresome to deal with. It really is funny how people’s of a given culture really can be so predictable. My Indian customers will stand around and watch every little thing I do, they want to get discounts, bargain, never pay the stated price. Wonder what cultural things Americans bring that are so typically American? I want to say I remember eating massive portions at meals was a typically American thing.

Anyway… sixth car was a fuel pump job. It was scheduled for tomorrow, but I have so many cars on the schedule for tomorrow, some that are big jobs, so I hoped to get a big job off the schedule for tomorrow. And? Gratefully, I accomplished it. In the process, I managed to create a tool that will help me in future jobs. I used the old fuel pump, which was sketchy, as an electric fuel transfer pump to more quickly pump the old fuel out of tanks to prepare to clean them and reinstall them. I clamped a fuel line to it and spliced in longer wires, and boom, an electric transfer pump. No more spending gobs of time and energy hand pumping the fuel out of tanks.

Wahoo. 😁

Paid my business property tax bill that came. Not sure if it was just the 2020 or the 2021 or both. I guess we’ll find out.

Crazy busy day on the schedule for tomorrow. Bring it on. Let’s see what we get.

Lift the World

Buenas noches!

~ stephen