Once again, I was up super super late, and then I just wake up… earlier than what you’d think my body would need with sleep. I think I went to bed around… 5? And I got up before 10, I think, and I felt fine.
I swear I have the weirdest body rhythms. It’s been like that for years and years and years. Stay up way late, then just sleep until my body wakes me up, and I’ll probably sleep 5-7 hours. But go to bed early, and wake up early, and I’ll sleep 8-9, and there’s a good chance I’ll need an alarm to get me out of bed.
So weird.
Anyway, so I was up and out quickly after getting up. Did four cars today. First was replacing a belt on a 2013 Ford Fiesta in Fayetteville. Little did I realize that it was a stretch belt. I’ve never seen a main belt be a stretch belt before, and I did not know I was in for that, so I wasn’t quite ready for it at all.
Gratefully, the customer, along with buying the belt, had rented a stretch-belt tool to get the belt on.
(sigh)
Stretch belts… one more upgrade that requires special tools, and different tools for each car. That’s what makes them a pain. It’s one of the reasons I don’t do crank pully jobs. I don’t want to be carrying around a bunch of different pulley puller kits for all the different crank pully designs out there.
Anyway, so again, I was grateful he had a tool that I could use. It was still a massive pain in the but because the belt would go on over the crank, but the force of it would pull it partially off the alternator. And of course, there’s so much tension on the belt, that you can’t just slip in on the rest of the way because the pulley it keeps popping off of (the alternator) is a ribbed pulley. So… it took… I don’t know… maybe 7 attempts before I finally got the belt on, and even then, I still had to do a little extra work to get it on the alternator because it was still off a half a rib.
But I figured out how to get it on the rest of the way, so… I survived that one.
Second job was someone who called right as I was about to head from Fayetteville to Springdale and just wanted help removing a stuck lug nut. So, that one was an easy one. I ended up doing more for them than just the lug nut, but it was still relatively easy, which was nice after the stretch-belt… enjoyment.
Oh, and the lady gave me a $20 tip. That was nice. 🙂
Third car was… oh yeah, a 2013 Mercedes C230, I think it was. She said it was leaking coolant and had an issue with the brakes she wanted me to look at. Well, the issue with the brakes was simply that they’d driven the car so infrequently that the rotors were rusty, and when they’d finally drive it, they’d hear a grinding noise. Grinding usually means metal on metal, brake pad backing plate grinding against the rotors; but brakes also make a grinding noise (although less severe sounding) when the brake pad/rotor mating surface is rusty. You apply the brakes, and the pads press against the rust and start to grind it off.
So… that was that. There was some significant wear difference between the driver and passenger pad thickness, but I’m sort of a minimalist mechanic. There’s really only a few causes–guide pins sticking, caliper sticking, brake hose issues, or someone forgot to change one side of pads the last time the brakes were done. 🙃 I told them just to drive it for 20-30 minutes to grind off the rust, and then check the level of heat felt in the two front rims. If the driver’s side rim was significantly hotter than the passenger side, then we’d know that the guide pins and/or caliper likely need replacing.
As for the coolant leak… there was no evidence… anywhere of a coolant leak. So… I told her to just watch the levels, and if it keeps going down without any external visible leak, then she likely has an internal leak–maybe turbo, throttle/intake, or maybe head gasket, etc. But… it also could just be, again, someone didn’t fill the system correctly at some point.
What I did notice was a small oil leak the looked like either head gasket or just above the head gasket on the passenger side, and more concerning, it was a bit loud on cold start up, rattling/grinding ish noises, which often means timing, as I think I’ve mentioned before–loud timing chain on first start up because of lack of oil on the chain or slack in the chain from stretching over time.
So… There are a handful of potentially large issues, but nothing obvious right now, and once the engine made its initial rattling noises on startup, there’s no hearing it again for… hours. The engine has to cool all the way or most of the way back down for the sound to be heard again for the split second to seconds timeframe you have to hear and diagnose it.
I gave them like a $30 discount and headed out.
Fourth car was a 2013 Chrysler 200 that died with the battery light having come on. I went out to it, and the battery was low, so I jumped it, and it started just fine. I tested the alternator, and it wasn’t charging at all, so I got an alternator and put it one, and got everything put back together, went to start it, and nothing. Lights on the dash, great, but no crank… at all. Not even the slightest attempt.
😬😕
Ugh.
The first thought is… gosh, did I mess something up? I mean, it’s super rare to have two issues pop up at the exact same time, so I’m like, what did I do? But… I didn’t do anything. Changing the alternator is straightforward: Disconnect the battery, so there’s no power to the rest of the system so you don’t risk shorting anything out while moving wires around. Check. Remove alternator. Replace alternator. Put back together. Reconnect battery.
I did all that. Nowhere did I do anything to cause issues with startability. But you can’t really tell the customer that very easily.
I spent probably an hour or more of my time, not charging for it, trying to track down the issue, but I didn’t get it figured out. I found that there was power to the starter through the ignition wire coming out of the TIPM (fuse block), but the starter wouldn’t do a thing. So… that meant either bad starter or bad wiring to the starter.
But really?!?! How do both an alternator and starter go out at the same time?!?!
They don’t. That’s crazy.
But I don’t know what else to think. I had to stop because I was already dehydrated and tired. I’d been there easily an hour, maybe two longer than I’d expected, and I needed to eat. I would have stayed to finish the diagnosis, but the starter on this car is under the intake manifold, so I have to take all that stuff apart to get the manifold off to even get to the starter to test it and the wiring.
The other thing I though I noticed was that I didn’t clearly hear the fuel pump come on.
That’s what’s got me concerned that there could be a computer and/or TIPM issue.
Who knows, though. It’s a mess.
I’m going to Oklahoma tomorrow to see if they’ll be willing to take the engine back. Crossing my fingers, so I tried to see if another mobile mechanic company could go finish the job for me, but their response was that they hated that make and model of vehicle, expecting it to be a black whole and suggesting I tell the customer to just tow it to a shop.
😬
They might be right, but I hate having it come to that when it seemed so straightforward to start. The alternator wasn’t charging at all, and the clutch pully was floppy, no resistance whatsoever. So… Yeah. Then this new mess.
I’ll figure it out.
After that, I headed to the grocery store, ate dinner, followed a bit as the Warriors won the NBA title, and now I’m off to bed, getting up to take the engine back to Oklahoma. I’m going to see if I can get it in the back of my work van to save gas money. It’ll cost 60% less to drive that distance in my van than in my truck. So… yeah.
Anyway, good night, folks.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 