2022-07-22 — Weird

Time is weird.

It feels like I’ve been back home for… a long time already. But it’s barely been 1 1/2 days. 🙃

Up relatively early to meet both potential techs in Bella Vista–the young kid and the woman. They both have a long ways to go before they could be independent mechanics.

I’m feeling better about the 18-year-old kid, believe it or not, than the lady. He’s a go getter, is really excited about it, and looks like a pretty hard worker. He has a ton to learn but seems like a kid who will learn.

The lady… that’s a bit more challenging. I’m a bit concerned with her physical capacity. I’m not bodybuilder, but I am fairly strong, and there are many times where it takes everything I have to break something free on a car. I wonder what people do who aren’t as strong. Biologically, women got the short end of the stick on the muscle front. So that’s one concern. Another is that she has what I guess one might call a meth face. I don’t know if she’s currently addicted to drugs, but she’s missing a bunch of teeth, and has the look of someone who at least has struggled with drugs, probably meth in particular, in the past. People who have struggled with drugs need chances, but at the same time, it’s a pretty big risk when mistakes can kill people and cost thousands of dollars in damage to property and vehicles, etc.

She said she’s willing to take a drug test, so perhaps what appear to be drug issues are in the past. She’s also significantly lacking in her ability to apply the book knowledge she has to a vehicle. So… We shall see. I’m going give the young man a chance for absolutely sure, as I need somebody who’s a go-getter and confident they can learn. I may hire two contract workers, so I suppose she still might have a shot. We’ll see. It’s an interesting thing to contemplate.

First car of the day was an oil leak. Turned out to have a small leak of the drain plug, most likely because they keep reusing the same gasket over and over again, and it probably no longer seals properly. I cleaned off some extra paint that I thought might have gotten underneath the gasket, but it didn’t seal it completely. The leak was still partially there. He was due for an oil change, so I told him to just go ahead and tell the oil change people to replace the gasket when they change the oil this time around.

Second car was a 2010 Chrysler Town and Country that was having trouble starting, it would try a little bit, and it sounded like the engine was laboring trying to start. We checked the voltage come in the voltage was low, but it still wouldn’t start well even with jump boxes and whatnot. Malaki, the Young man, had checked the oil, and it was extremely low, so we added three quarts to get it just to the bottom of the acceptable range. So it had been extremely low on oil.

Sadly, it turned out to have a partially seized engine. I tried to crank it over by hand, and it was super hard to crank over. It would turn, but not very well at all. Not wanting to get the diagnosis wrong, we went ahead and pulled the starter and took the belt off, the starter just to check and make sure the starter was strong, which it was, and the belt to remove pressure and resistance against the starter. But it still had the same issues. Slow crank, and eventually unable to crank it all. Couple that with the absolute muscle it took to manually crank the engine over, and it just wasn’t good news. That’s only the second time in 5 years or so that I’ve run into a partially seized engine. Both times it’s been caused by having too low of oil, starving the engine of oil long enough to have the friction tear up the innards of the engine, but only just enough to make it hard to turn, not enough to lock it up completely. Usually when I come to a seized motor, it’s completely seized. Partially seized motors are nerve-racking because you keep second-guessing yourself.

Third car was another Chrysler Town and country, this one a 2015, that was cranking but not starting. The most common issues with those are with the tipm module, most people know it as the fuse block. The relay internal to the tipm module, the fuse, and some of the wiring are all common issues that cause the fuel pump not to work. In fact, they are very common issues. Unfortunately, all of those were working properly, and it was the pump itself that was the problem. That’s annoying for two reasons at least: first, it’s a more expensive repair, and second, it means that the other significantly common issues are likely to still be a problem in the future.

Oh well it is what it is. Can’t do anything about it.

Fourth car was a 2008 I believe Ford F-150 that was also cranking and not starting. That one also had fuel issues, apparently with the pump as well. They had the pump replaced in the last 3 months or so, but even though I could hear the pump come on when I commanded it on with my scan tool, it wasn’t actually pumping any fuel at all. The tank sounded empty to me, and it sounded like the pump was trying to suck up bubbles, but the customer was certain he had filled the tank up completely. And the fuel gauge did show that it was full, but it certainly sounded empty. Anyway, I told them to not pay me to do the job but to get in touch with the people who did the job before as it should be under warranty. Don’t want to have to pay many hundreds of dollars to replace the fuel pump that should still be under warranty.

The fifth car was kind of a last minute thing. I was heading home, but they were stranded with brake and Tire issues. So I drove over there and found that they had metal on metal brake pad backing plate to rotor on the passenger front, they had a huge gash in that tire as well, three out of the four rotors were cracked from being overheated (he’s a hotshot driver with a really really really big trailer), one of the trailer tires was completely blown out, another was severely damaged, and the spare he wanted me to put on had so many holes in it that it couldn’t hold air and would blow apart even if I managed to plug the holes, I think. It was in sad sad sad shape.

To top it off, the frame of the trailer had been smashed forward with a sharp angle pressing into the tire, I think, and that’s what I believe caused the blowout on the rear trailer tire. Looks like it had happened once before as well, so whoever put on the new tires failed to notice that the frame was damaged and ready to blow another new tire.

I didn’t have a very good experience with that customer, or I guess I should say with that customers boss, as he was blaming his employee for the issues with the truck and trailer, and he was taking his anger out on me telling me that he wouldn’t pay me with a credit card, that it had to be with cash app or I wouldn’t get paid at all, and hanging up the phone on me without waiting for me to even say anything.

Not a very good experience.

They still need a lot of money’s worth of work, but I’m hesitant to do it, even though he’s stranded, because I don’t want to do that much work with a customer who’s already treated me poorly and who I don’t trust 100% is going to pay me. Last thing I want to do is a thousand plus dollars worth of work, parts and labor, and get stiffed. So.. I’m trying to decide what to do there. The driver was a nice guy, but the boss not so much.

After that I headed toward home, stopping off at my Hill sister Liz’s to try and get the golf cart going. The battery I think is bad, as it tried to start it for a little while, and then was drained back down really quickly. It’s more than 3 years old, so I’m not surprised, but it would have been nice for the battery to be good. Also, the gas tank was completely empty, the carburetor float bowl had a bunch of crap in it, and fuel was not getting from the tank into the fuel pump or the carburetor even after putting in probably two gallons of fuel, so… That’s going to be a fun one.

I also helped diagnose my hill nephew’s car noises, he’s just got a whole bunch of loose plastic that needs to be clipped down, and he also needs to have his drive belt replaced. So we’ll get that taken care of here in a bit as well.

There’s a lot more to the day, but I have a headache, it’s 2:30 a.m., and I need to wake up in fewer then 5 hours to get going on the day.

Hope y’all enjoyed your day.

Love and hugs.

Lift the World

~ stephen