Heya, folks, my eyes are tired. It’s just after 1:30 a.m. I’ve been burning the midnight oil again on the finance stuff, a smaller project that seems to be following the inflationary trend and about doubled in size. Maybe not that much, but definitely became a lot bigger than I expected it would be.
But… I’m getting there… whittling it down.
I’m taking tomorrow off of fixing cars, as it’s going to be a miserable, cold, snowy day (miserable for working on cars, lovely for the beauty, and needed for the moisture). So I’m going to push hard hard to get through all of the use tax stuff and resubmissions of all the sales tax for the last three years. That’s project number 1 for tomorrow, and I will not hit head to pillow tomorrow night until that’s done.
I had hoped to be done by this Monday, but that’s not going to happen, I don’t think. Hiccups are a bit big for that, unfortunately, but I’m still moving forward, making progress–good, solid progress.
Five cars today. First one was replacing belts on a 2003 Honda Civic in the Honda dealer’s parking lot. They gave her some really big quote, I think, as the AC compressor was locked up, but she said she was fine without AC, so I bypassed the AC compressor using the belt for non-AC civic versions (crazy they even had non-AC Civics.
Second car was a 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe that the owner wanted me to put a new alternator in. As is most often the case, instead of just putting the alternator in like they originally asked, I tested it first, and no, the alternator was just fine. He’d just drained the battery way way down from letting the car sit for months. So… that saved him a good deal of money, though I would have made a good bit more had I just replaced the alternator like he wanted. But… yeah… so many people think they know, and they often don’t, so… don’t like letting them hurt themselves.
Third car was an Acura TL… 2007, I think. Wasn’t starting, and his breathylizer thingy wasn’t getting any power. I cleaned off the ignition wire, and fiddled with the breathylizer able, and boom, car started. Starter didn’t sound so good, though. It was strong, but it sounded like the bendix wasn’t disengaging like it should, so I keeps grinding on the flywheel for a brief moment before fully retracting.
Fourth car was finishing up the job with the Subaru Forester that needed a radiator. You know, aftermarket radiators regularly give me a heck of a lot of trouble. They’re just… poorly built. They aren’t precise in their molding, so the little holes to line up the fans and the brackets, so often they don’t line up. It can be a major pain, trying to jimmy rig the setup to make it work.
Cheap parts, but a heck of a lot less money than dealer parts, and generally much more available. So… that’s what you go with because it’s convenient and cheap, and that’s often what people want.
Fifth car was a belt replacement. The lady was wanting to go on a trip in the morning out of state, I believe, and she’d gotten new tires and wanted me to put on a new belt, but then she realized that they put on the wrong new tires, so when I was supposed to be putting the belt on, she had to take it back to Walmart to get the new tires. So I met her there, and I did a little shopping while I waited for the tires to be put on, and then when they were finished, I put the belt on. Only took maybe 5 minutes to put the belt on–one of the easiest cars ever to put a belt on. Tons of room in the engine bay, no fans in the way, spring loaded tensioner. Piece. of. cake.
I’m grateful for that. Seems like so many things have been going sideways. The last two days have been better on the car front, and that’s nice with things on other fronts going sideways.
Anyway, it’s time to sleep. Almost 2. I’m grateful to be taking tomorrow off. My love to all of you.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
p.s. A hearty thanks to my mother. While I’m fixing cars and muddling through paper work, I hired her to gather info I need to finish up the rest of my finance projects. Today she got equipment rental prices from three local rental places, so that will be really helpful in helping me figure out a pricing structure for renting out my equipment. Thanks, mom!
Lift the World 