2021-09-13 — Beat

I’m beat.

I only slept something like 3 1/2 or 4 hours last night, after spending so much time redoing my About Me page on this little blog site thingy and after getting up early so as not to miss the calls that came in (lots of calls came in this morning, thankfully. It wasn’t dead like last week. Nope, not dead at all).

I actually way overbooked the day because I’d been expecting to have Zach start today and to have him do all the jobs down south; but… we all know how that turned out. 😕

Early companion to the overbooked day was the tendency for seemingly everything to go sideways today–at least for the first half of the day. It started when I left the house and called to have parts delivered to me. That was about 9:30. Due to my own error and then AutoZone’s error, I didn’t end up getting my parts until after 10:30, I think.

Then my first job… replacing the canister purge valve on a 2012 Sonata… should have taken 15 minutes, took what… an hour and a half? Two hours? why? Because I’m a blasted perfectionist. Bad part. Fought me getting it off, but then I noticed that the hoses were cracked, and that’s what got me. They probably could have worked for a while longer, but I was already in there, things were already apart, why leave it to be more expensive later? So I decided to replace the hoses.

5 minutes, right? Nope. They wouldn’t come off. I ended up carefully cutting them off. And then? The hose was a different size than all of the hoses I carry with me.

I. carry. every. size. they. offer.

😶

Gratefully, the fuel transfer pump tool I created to help me drain fuel tanks had the perfect size hose (which I figured out after trying and failing multiple times to use other hose that I had.

So… that was frustrating after wasting so much of my morning waiting for parts. Then the hose issue.

The second job was rear drums, shoes, hardware and wheel cylinders on a 1990 Honda Accord (yup, oldy). That went… ok. It kicked my butt at times. Things going sideways pretty consistently, but eventually, I got it done–only to find out that the dealer had mostly misdiagnosed the issue he had because when I finished the job they wanted me to do, the job the dealer told them needed to be done, he still had the same problem, so I looked at it and gave him a tentative diagnosis of a bad master cylinder that ruined his brake booster as well. I didn’t have time to add that repair to my schedule, so I referred him to another mobile mechanic company (Steven’s Auto Repair), which is the one I recommend pretty regularly–the only one I recommend right now.

Third job was a pre-purchase inspection for a guy in Alabama looking to buy a 2008 Toyota FJ Cruiser, so I did that inspection. By that time it was almost 8:30, and I was close to my gas station, so I went and filled up, being close to being on fumes and grateful to find the station had finally received a shipment of CNG, so I could fully fill my tank. 

Fourth job was a… what was it again? …Oh yeah! 2017 Dodge Journey no start. The battery was completely drained down but with no hard evidence as to why. The alternator was acting a little suspect, but the battery was drained down to like 3 volts. That’s not generally an alternator issue. That’s something that would happen if something just drained the battery down while it was sitting (which is what happened. They said it was fine on Friday, but Monday morning when they went to start it up, it was dead). I charged the battery, did a parasitic draw test (passed), the recharged battery tested good, the alternator was giving out borderline voltage, but not bad enough to cause the issues I saw when I got there, so… not sure there. I told them to buy a multimeter and to not do anything until they watch it for a little while.

Last job was a brake issue. She made it sound like it was a master cylinder issue, saying the pedal went to the floor and was squishy. But… it was the exact opposite: The pedal was super hard, which instead of being a master cylinder was the booster/master cylinder, ABS module assembly (all in one on this particular vehicle [2002 Toyota 4Runner], and insanely expensive [like $1000 just for the part]).

So… she thanked me for the eulogy I gave her car (it also had a blown radiator, worn out struts that were ruining the tires, and it was due for a timing belt change).

She’s gonna sell the car and get another. She’d already planned on it in the next couple weeks anyway, and I suggested she not put any money into this one if she was just gonna get another car in a couple weeks anyway. it would have been thousands of dollars to repair and do the maintenance on.

So… that was that. I went to the fuel station one more time to top off, not knowing how long it’ll be before I get down there again. Probably Wednesday, but you never know.

Update on my dad. He’s got some good heart medication that should keep him going okay until he gets the heart surgery he needs in a couple weeks or so. He’s upbeat and feeling much much better. That said, he is getting old. Really old. Not too many years are gonna be left on his clock, even if he does well for a while longer.

Strange place to be. Strange things to think about.

Talked to Thomas again for a good, long while after getting home post midnight, and with me eating while we talked. 

Time for bed. I’m exhausted. Meant to get to bed much earlier (sigh). I’m good though. We’ve got this. 

Onward.

Love to you all.

Lift the World.

~ stephen