Another journal entry being dictated as I head home. It’s been a really long, frustrating day.
The first job went just fine. It was just a bad battery, so I replaced that, and all was great. The next job stood me up, so that was annoying, especially since I’d already done all the quotes and bought all the parts and whatnot. Third job was going back to that 2008 Chevy Silverado that had rear brake issues.
Ugh
It was an absolute nightmare.
7 and 1/2 or so hours later, I drove away having done all that I was going to do with it. It still needs help, but the rest of it needs to be done at the shop.
So frustrating.
First, the driver’s side drum was stuck on. Took probably an hour just to get it off. I had to damage other parts in order to get it apart, so i had to order more parts.
Then I had issues with the new brake pads with the new disc hardware that I needed to get because it didn’t come with disc hardware. I spent probably 30 minutes just trying to get the brake pads to work with the brake hardware. It’s one of those things where I can pretty much guarantee that every other shop in the whole world probably just slaps it together, because you lose money trying to make sure that the pads fit evenly. So so frustrating. Spend so much time trying to make sure I get it right for the customers, and they don’t know any different.
Then I had issues putting the caliper guide pin boots on. General motors with their trucks have probably the single most ridiculous guide pin boot setup I’ve ever seen. It’s not the first time that I’ve dealt with the issue before, but I haven’t had to deal with it in years, gratefully. But instead of being just a little rubber bushing that you fit over a little metal lip like everyone else in the world, general motors designs one that has to be a press fit into the caliper bracket.
It’s absolutely asinine.
And they make the outer coating a rubber seal on top of the metal, and of course you have to pound it into place to get it to seat down because, well, it’s press fit. But the slightest error, or the slightest hit just a little too hard, and it ruins the rubber.
So I spent probably another 30 minutes to an hour ruining two out of the four pin boots that I had, before finally being successful on the last two.
Then I went to try and bleed the brakes, and I got all the air out that would come out, but the brakes were still squishy, so they’re going to need to take it to a shop to have it machine bled, because there’s likely air in the ABS module.
Oh, not only all that, but I spent probably 30 to 45 minutes just trying to get the emergency brake cables hooked back up. Unlike pretty much everyone else everywhere, general motors decides that you have to disconnect the e-brake cable itself from the brake shoe assembly, which makes it a longer job, and a much more annoying job, with more of a risk of doing damage to parts, then if they would just do it like everybody else.
Noticing a theme here with general motors?
Good gravy.
Yes, grandad, I know. General Motors junk.
Came with slots that were far too narrow to hook the brake cable back up to, so that’s what took most of the time. I ended up having to bend the brake shoe bracket assembly enough to give room for the cable Head to pop through so I could lift it up and slide it into a slot.
Just ridiculous.
I finally got packed up and on my way about 9:00 p.m., heading to the last job of the day that I should have been at hours before.
Gratefully, that one was just another bad battery. It had a super nasty battery cable connection that was corroded so badly I had to fight for probably 10 minutes just to get the battery cable off the battery, but otherwise, it was relatively painless.
So there you go. 6.4 billable hours today on a day that was much much longer than the time I was able to Bill for. I suppose I could have built more time for that brake job, as it was just one issue after another, especially spending an hour pulling apart the brake drum, and then another 30 minutes probably cleaning off the one or two pounds worth of debris that had collected inside the drum because he just kept driving it with a leaking drum topping off the fluid and topping off the fluid and topping off the fluid, which gathers dust and collects inside the drum. Took forever to get it all cleaned off.
Ugh
Anyway, I didn’t charge him anything extra for the nightmare that it was. And he still hasn’t paid yet, but I’m expecting that he will.. I hope. It’s $1,000 bill. 😬
Well, so that’s the day. I’m probably 25 minutes from home driving back right now. It’s almost 10:45 p.m. and I’m just … Wasted. I’m parked, quite dehydrated, as it was a nasty hot day today. But it’s going to be even hotter for the next two weeks. So.. is what it is.
I’ll definitely be taking tomorrow off, probably spending a good chunk of time just sort of vegging.
On a bright note, my first customer today said I was the nicest most helpful mechanic she’d ever come across, so that was nice. 🙂
On another bright note, it’s nice to still be paying $1.99 a gallon for natural gas in my work van. Regular gasoline is 459 over here right now. I know that’s cheaper than a lot of the rest of the country, but it’s still pretty nutty. And $1.99 a gallon is fabulous in comparison.
All right, folks, I’m calling it a night. Love to you all. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 