Buenas noches, peeps. 🙂
Happy Wednesday!
It’s been a pretty crazy one over here because I seemed to forget everything I learned last year and have been saying “yes” to way too many people. 🙃
What that resulted in today was getting to the first car around 8:15, I think and finishing the last car about 10:30, p.m., I think–something like that anyway. The biggest regression today was saying yes to new jobs that I said I’d do today when I was already absolutely slammed.
😶
Whoops. 🙃
First job was in Rogers, putting batteries in two different vans (both Ford Transits). After I was done, they said they wanted me to come back to put batteries in 4 additional vans (they have a rather large fleet).
Second job was supposed to be just a battery (in a Fiat 500), but after replacing the battery, I found that their motor was shot–super low compression, probably from having the timing belt jump or something. 😞 They took it really well, so that was good. For any of you out there, if you’re ever tempted to buy a Fiat 500, or any Fiat car… don’t. Just… don’t.
Third job was one of the add ons that I probably shouldn’t have said yes to but which I took on because it was a battery job, and battery jobs are quick, easy, and pay well, so… they’re really hard to turn down. 🙃 It was a 2017 Toyota Rav4, and she wants to talk to me about nonprofit stuff because she already has one, but she wants to work together with someone else. So… we’ll see. It’s quite a bit different than what I’m interested in, I think, but who knows. I’ll be… open.
Fourth job was a 2003 Land Rover LR3 with misfires on cylinders 3 and 4. He was in town from Little Rock, and his mechanic told him it was coils, so I slapped two coils in for him, as requested, and sent him on his way. Had a few hiccups with old plastic stripping out. I ended up getting epoxy to try to fasten stuff back together, and it did so well enough–certainly much better than having to buy new valve covers.
Fifth job was a gentleman who was trying to do his own valve cover and ran into what he thought were metal shavings in the oil. I didn’t think they were metal shavings–just gunk build up, so I cleaned everything really well and put it all back together, and he’s good, I believe. That was… a 2003 Toyota Matrix, I think. Yup, that’s what it was.
Sixth car was brake job on a 2015 GMC Terrain, rear pads and front pads and rotors. He thought it only needed front pads, but he’d gotten to metal on metal on the passenger front. That took a long time. I. Hate. Brakes. They’re so monotonous. They take forever. And… yeah. Why do so many other mechanics love brakes and I hate them? Well… I think it’s because I take the time to do what’s necessary to do it right. For example, I clean out the old guide pin grease. Some mechanics do anything with the guide pin grease. I also make sure the pads fit smoothly into the caliper brackets. That’s often one of the most time-consuming parts of the job, and I mean really time consuming. Often times, in order to get the pads to fit in with enough play that they’ll slide without sticking or being stiff, I have to manually grind away a lot of rust. Were I not to do that, the pads would be really stiff in the brackets and could well wear out unevenly and a heck of a lot faster.
So… I take forever to do brakes because I work really really hard to make sure it’s really well done. And it’s so common to have to spend a lot of time adjusting the brackets or the pads themselves to get everything to slide/move freely within the bracket.
Seventh car was a 2018 Jeep Wrangler JK that wouldn’t start. It was acting really funny, with weird dash messages, and going completely black when you tried to start it but having normal dashlights immediately prior to cranking the key. I’ve come to recognize that immediate shut off of the dash lights as a problem with either a bad battery or a bad ground. I suppose it could be other things as well, but that’s what it is for me. Today was a the same and different at the same time. The battery was fully charged, but it had no cranking power, which means a cell inside he battery must have gone belly up, I think. Anyway, it looked like it might be a head scratcher until I disconnected the battery cables and connected them directly to my jump box (that’s a great way to help diagnose no crank issues, by the way). So I swapped out the battery, and that one was in the books.
The last one was a 2007 Suburban that was making grinding noises when you tried to start it. The job was way out in West Fayetteville (County, actually, for tax purposes). I didn’t realize how far out it was, but wow–and for my last job of the day. Whoops. 🙃
Anyway, I got there, and the Suburban was in a rocky rut, but fortunately, I’m small enough that I could crawl under on my back anyway and take a look.
What did I find? The starter was loose. Why? Because one bolt was completely missing, and the other was loose. Who knows how long he’s been that way, but whoops! What was even worse than having a missing starter bolt was the reason why the starter bolt was missing: Apparently, the shop that replaced his rear main seal must have put the bolts on with an impact wrench or something because they stripped out the threads in the engine block that the starter bolts to. In fact, they were stripped out so badly that the bolt just fell completely out. It’s probably on a road somewhere in Arkansas.
So… that’s a much bigger job than I can do. It’s going to need to be drilled, tapped, and helicoiled. I don’t do that anymore. No thanks. And this one’s a rough one because it’s recessed about a foot to 18 inches from the bottom of the motor, so you have to figure out a way to get the drill way up in there to drill it out. Then get the tap up in there to create new threads, and then when all that’s done, install a helicoil kit.
Yeah… nope. I ain’t doing that as a mobile job, and especially not on a rocky clay surface. Nope, nope, nope.
So… it would be good if I could say that I’d planned better for tomorrow, but… nope. I have another 8 or 9 cars on the schedule tomorrow. 🙃I can do better after Thursday, though. Friday is already booked, but it’s not too crazy. It’s definitely full and maybe a little over full, but it’s not like today was or like tomorrow will likely be.
On the bright side, my new business credit card offers $750 in bonus dollars if I spend $7500 in the first three months.
I might get that in the first month at the rate I’ve been going. 🙃
Well, plugging away. Mom’s still helping with all the government goo I’m trying to figure it. That’s a real help. It’s nice to have someone else be fighting through all the government bureaucracy for me. So much dumb stuff to figure out. Ugh… it would be so nice if government entities had competition. Capitalism isn’t perfect, for sure, but competition does drive innovation, efficiency, and improvement, something that just seems to be so regularly missing from government stuff.
Ok… gotta go to bed. It’s 1:20, and I need to get up and do this all over again tomorrow. Gonna be a busy one. Cross your fingers, I might have a buyer for the dozer. Cross the fingers that I’ll get something out of it. I’d like to get $5000, but I’m guessing that might be a pipe dream. We’ll see. Yeah… gonna cross the fingers. It would be really nice to have that gone and out of my hair.
Goodnight, folks.
My love to you all.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 