Took longer to get the Mini Excavator over to the renter this morning than I wanted. Looks like it’s got some issues that I don’t remember it having before the first rental. 😕 Hopefully, I can make my money back out of it sooner rather than later. I guess we’ll see. 🙃
First job went sideways. Bad part out of the box. Ugh. Water pump had a scratch right across the gasket mating surface deep enough for my finger nail to catch on it. Not gonna risk that. Probably would seal fine, but for how long? When the gasket starts to deteriorate, it might well start leaking right there when it would have otherwise lasted a good bit longer. Anyway, long story short, needed to get another part and put off finishing the job for another day.
Second job was a breakdown on the side of the road. Hyundai accent with a jumped timing belt that ruined the motor. They were from out of state and decided just to leave the car. I told them I’d take care of it. Have it towed and junked.
Third job was a wheel bearing replacement on a boat trailer. He’d been waiting for another mechanic for weeks, I think, and they kept saying they’d do it and then wouldn’t, so I did it.
After that, I had my lunch meeting with my potential new guy. He’s an older gentleman, 50s. I guess we’ll see how it goes? He’s lacking in some knowledge, so we’ll see if it works out. I had a phone interview with the other guy. He would have been a lot more promising, but he had major schedule and geography restrictions. I needed to pick his daughter up from school every day at 2:30, and he didn’t want to work outside of Rogers, Bentonville, and Lowell.
That’s… not gonna work. I need someone who can cover the entire service area right now, and having to leave wherever you are and whatever you’re working on every day… doesn’t work so well as a mobile mechanic. Maybe there’s a work around, maybe he can just work mornings, but it’s gonna be hard to keep him busy in his preferred geographic location.
I realized a long time ago how much of a catch David was, in terms of willingness to just go out and do the work. If only his quality had been better, he’d still be out there working for me.
So hard to find good people. So so so hard.
Anyway, last car was a 2001 Tahoe with multiple issues, HVAC issues with the front air only blowing through the defrost vents (bad mode door actuator). Rear air was only blowing hot (bad temp door actuator, I think), and the headlights didn’t work. They weren’t getting ground for some reason. Supplying ground to the bulbs directly, and boom, the worked just fine. I think it’s the multifunction switch that’s bad.
Had an issue with that last car. Spent about three hours there. Huge time sucker. The worst part was when the car went from being a headlight/HVAC issue to all of the sudden not starting and locking me out thinking I was trying to steal the car.
Doesn’t look so good when the car seems worse off than when you got there. Fortunately, after some very discouraging stressful minutes (maybe an hour, honestly), I managed to figure out the issue and get it started again.
That was a win. A big win. After having been there for hours and feeling only like I’d made it worse, and now it was going to need a tow and likely some dealer bills, I was at a point where I would have paid to have the car out of my hair, but then I finally figured it out, got it going again, explained what was wrong, and I was able to actually charge something, so that was nice. I only charged an hour after being there for three, but one of those hours was my fault for tripping the security, and… I just couldn’t charge more than an hour. Didn’t feel appropriate.
After that, I went and prepped the timing belt car to be hauled off. Hopefully, they can haul it off right there from the side of the highway. Then I went over to Stevie’s and looked at their car. Brenda was hit by a young driver who just didn’t see her and pulled right out into the front right corner of her car (think side of the front bumper). She’s okay, gratefully, and the car will get fixed.
Time for bed. G’night.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 