Hola, queridos amigos!
Happy Monday. 😊
Been a busy busy day. Didn’t get much sleep last night, as I got to bed rather late. Then I tossed and turned all night, and then I finally got up and pretty much headed right out to fix cars. Ran pretty much the full geographical gamut today–Bella Vista down to Fayetteville.
First car was someone who broke down at a gas station in Bella Vista as she was trying to drive to… Mississippi, I think? Her tensioner blew apart and shredded her already very old and cracked up belt, so I managed to find a tensioner and a belt, slapped them on, and got her going.
First car, down.
Second car was someone who’s been waiting for me to be available for a little while now, another car in Bella Vista–a Lexus SUV that was leaking coolant. I got there and found that someone had slid the clamp for the coolant bypass hose off the area it was supposed to be clamped.
🤔
Not sure who or why or when, but I put the hose back in it’s place, and put the clamp where it was supposed to be, and that was it. Job #2, in the books.
Job number three was a no start in Centerton (yeah, I drove all over today. 🙃) It was an ’06 Nissan Altima, I believe, and it had a bad starter, so after doing the diagnosis to figure it out, and after getting approval from the owner to do the repair, I got him fixed up and going.
Boom. Job #3. Done.
Job #4 was a brake job in Fayetteville. He wanted pads and rotors on the front of his 2013 Dodge Charger, but when I got there, the rotors looked great, and the pads were getting a bit low but not to the point of needing to be changed yet, so I asked him what he wanted to do, and against my recommendations, he had me replace everything anyway. I told strongly recommended probably three times to not do it, but he wanted it all replaced, so… oh well. Do as the customer asks, right?
Job #4. Written. Done.
Job #5 was in Johnson. It was an coolant leak job and a power steering leak diagnosis. He said he needed a water pump, and I didn’t come prepared with one because… well… I didn’t remember to pick one up before heading over there. Luckily, his self diagnosis was incorrect. The leak was caused by the fact that he’d replaced his own thermostat (pain in the tail on the GM 3100 motor, by the way), and he’d forgotten to put one of the clamps back on, and another one of the clamps was on diagonally. So… I put the one clamp that was off back where it was supposed to be, and I straightened out the other.
Unfortunately, the one that I straightened out was still leaking a bit (a really old hose that probably will just need to be replaced, but I put a screw clamp on it instead of the spring clamp it had on it, so maybe it’ll hold. We won’t know until I go back because I realized he was running his engine without any fluid in the power steering pump.
😶
Whoops. So I put some in, fired up the car, crawled under it, and found the power steering fluid leak. In addition to having one section of the return line pretty smashed, another section had been rubbing up against the engine block for so long that the block was worn away in that spot, and the line was worn through, such that it was leaking power steering fluid rather quickly.
Power steering fluid leak diagnosed.
The part to fix the power steering was special order, which was nice because it made it really easy to be able to call it a night for that job and move on to my last one. Oh, I also found that they forgot to put a clamp back on one of the power steering lines, and they broke their throttle position sensor doing the thermostat job, apparently.
Normally, I’m a big proponent of DIY stuff. I even teach my customers how to fix their own cars, but careful. Don’t brake stuff, and make sure you put everything back that you took off. If you need to, take pictures or take step-by-step notes, and go back through the pictures to make sure you get everything.
🙃
Last car was in Springdale (6 cars, five cities, 11ish hour day, 8+ billable hours completed). It was a Honda Pilot that had been sitting for a while. She said it had been running funny when she parked it, and then it sat for a long time and wouldn’t start. It also had a flat tire, etc.
So I got there, the battery was drained down to under two volts. The negative battery cable was nasty–corroded severely for more than half the cable length.
Yeah, it was bad. I tried to splice a new cable piece in, but it fought me and fought me. I only had 4 gauge butt connectors as my biggest butt connectors, and the ground wire was 2 gauge, so… that didn’t work, and I didn’t really want to splice the main ground wire, but i did want to fix the mess, so I ended up getting a 72-inch cable that I had, pulled it out of its packaging, cut off the end that I needed, and used that instead. Wasn’t as good as the original, but it was super solid and much better than trying to splice the leftovers of the old cable with new cable.
So… that was the day. I came home, I ate some dinner–veggie stew with avocado chunks in it–so good.
Got my customer stuff organized, chatted with mom a little bit (not in that order), and now… it’s after 2 a.m., and I’m getting ready for bed.
Been looking at houses to buy… been looking at the news… thinking a bit more seriously about heading over to help in the efforts in Ukraine. Trying to take care of my responsibilities here as quickly as I can, so I don’t leave anything hanging that would be a pain in the butt for family to have to figure out, should that be necessary.
Have a friend with good friends in Ukraine. They were living in Kyiv but have since fled to Poland as refugees. The wife and kids are in Poland, and they’re spending their savings to try to help other people get out and get safe and get taken care of. The husband I think went back into Ukraine today to try to get more people out.
It’s a mess over there, an absolute mess. The humanitarian crisis is huge. Not enough money to buy what’s needed. Not enough stuff to buy even if money were available. Both problems. Grateful to have enough means to help. Thanks, to all you who have sacrificed something you might have wanted in order to give to those over there in need. I had another opportunity to send a few pennies over today, and I was grateful to have connections to where I know the full 100% of my donation will go right to the people. If you’re able to donate more, please do. 🙂
Huge shout out to the Russian news editor who might well have given her life to go on live State TV in Russia and call out the war, the propaganda, the lies, and the awful invasion. She was arrested, and has since disappeared. Her attorney can’t find her.
Hero. That’s a hero right there. I believe that she knew full well what could happen to her, what she was risking. Courageous hero. I hope she’s alive and safe somewhere.
Well, folks, time for bed. Just about 2:30 now.
My love to all of you.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 