Well, folks, it’s been a whirlwind of a day. I’m scrambling trying to get everything as ready as I can before my departure back to Utah on Thursday, but I keep running out of time each day 🙃, and I am just… tired. I keep thinking, oh, I’ll pound it out tonight (some of the digital preparations I am trying to get done), but… the body doesn’t like staying up anymore–doesn’t like being short on sleep. It’s… rebelling. So… it’s 1 a.m., and though I’ve got mountains of stuff piling in from all directions, I don’t have the energy to keep going.
So… time for sleep!
Some of the things on the docket before I leave for Utah on Thursday:
- Get Liz’s golf cart running again.
- Get Liz’s drawers fixed in her kitchen and game room.
- Get Liz’s flooring fixed in the kitchen and… whatever that room is called.
- Get my new tech trained as much as possible (which means going on lots of jobs and trying to help him get experience.
- Create a mountain of training tutorials to walk newbie mechanics through diagnosing and repairing vehicles–dozens and dozens of step-by-step diagnostic work flows (e.g. If yes, proceed to step 3. If no, proceed to step 16, etc.) Those diagnostic work flows are super helpful, but they take a long time to brain through. Here’s a working draft of one, if you’re curious. It’s for a no crank, no start condition:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1inTI5dEcjSQcbPxHLQvKedAUZ4ySQ8wz_i-XiKhjAWU/edit?usp=sharing
I was also trying to get my financial stuff over to a home-loan person at the bank to get the ball rolling in that direction. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten that far, and the fed is likely going to raise the rates yet again tomorrow another 3/4 point. Couple that with the reports that the housing market is about to take a stiff downturn, and… ugh.
I’ve just got so many things going on. It’s… crazy. Lots more I could list that’s swirling around in the brain, but… you get the point.
One thought I have. I do have a knack for making money, so… maybe the interest rates don’t matter so much because if I pay the loan off quickly, it ain’t that big of a deal?
Of course, the nonprofit sector ain’t so easy to make money in. Not quite… the point. 🙃 That said, I can have a for-profit arm of a nonprofit, which can help to sustain me and keep the nonprofit going. So…
Anyway… there’s so much going on. I miss my mom’s cooking. Our arrangement of I buy food. She cooks food (not so cut and dry, but you get the gist) has been wonderful (hopefully for both of us). I miss having food on the stove or in the fridge when I get home. I’m out of the habit of preparing my own food like I used to when I lived alone in Salt Lake City. Back then, I’d have a big cooking day on Saturday, during which I’d prepare all my food for the coming week. Tupperwares full of various main course foods and tupperwares full of toppings, etc. It worked really well back then, but I’m… out of the habit.
So… I miss that. Thanks, for your wonderful cooking, mom!
What else… Was trying to get the garden fence up to keep the deer out. They’ve been eating the crap out of the garden leaves. Little punks. But… I’d probably do the same thing were I them. I haven’t made any progress on the garden for… a couple days now.
Well, folks. Tired is as tired does. And I is. And I does. So I go to sleep.
Oh! Cars of the day… first one was a car that would start and die right away. It was a weird one. Sounded to me like a timing issue, but the compression readings didn’t read like a timing issue. It was 190, 190, 145, 190. So… obviously a very unhappy cylinder; but heck, I drove my Geo Prizm for like 25,000 miles on three cylinders. I just unplugged the injector on the dead cylinder and called it good. Ran fine. Was gutless as could be, but it just kept going and going–on past 300k miles. I think I finally killed her around 308k?
Don’t remember for sure.
Eyes… tired.
Oh! Cars.
Ummm… so I tested a bunch of things and in the end concluded that it was a timing issue, as best I could tell. Second car, after filling up with fuel at the CNG station in Springdale, was a misfire. It turned out to be like most, just a bad coil. Next car was… oh yeah, replacing the radiator fan in a 2011 Ford Edge. The customer drove all the way up to Cassville, MO to get the Ford factory part (which I encouraged because I’ve had issues with the aftermarket ones). Malaki did most of the work pulling it out and putting in the new one. He did a pretty decent job. I’m encouraged by his desire to be careful and take his time and do it right. That’s good.
Fourth and last car was a 2003 Dodge Ram 1500 5.9 (gas version). It was a no crank, no start. Then the customer put in a battery, and it fired up fine. But then the next time he tried to start it, it was a crank, no start. Then they called us to come out. But then this morning it started fine, so they canceled the appointment. But then he drove to Walmart where it left him stranded again.
That’s where we met him, the Super Walmart in Fayetteville on MLK Jr. BLVD. After a quick scan of the codes, and then a quick scan of the live data feed, it came down to a likely Crankshaft position sensor issue or a camshaft position sensor issue, and even though a lot of people talked about replacing the cam sensor as the fix, that 5.9 gas motor doesn’t actually have a cam sensor, so… that made it rather easy–at least on the diagnosis part of things.
The replacing of the part itself was not so easy. The crank sensor on that one is just… a super dumb design. It’s a huge sensor, two bolts to install and hold in place (most are small sensors held in by one bolt). There’s a rubber grommet that it slides through that keeps dust and debris and water out-ish, and I accidentally dumped it into the transmission bell housing while trying to get the new sensor in place.
Ugh.
And that Dodge had no simple inspection cover to look at the flywheel from underneath, so I had to remove several bolts and pry the inspection cover it does have back. Gratefully, the grommet fell the best direction it could have, and I was able to pull it out the bottom and reinstall it in the top.
Eyes closing. Gonna run. That was the last vehicle, and we got it done.
Oh! I keep forgetting to mention the health stuff… headaches… better. Migraine medicine keeping my over-the-edge stuff in check.
Soft-tissue issues, increasing. Broken wrist? torn ligament in other wrist? Torn ligament in thumb? torn ligament in shoulder?
None of that is so happy right now. My poor body is getting beaten up, I think a lot by my mechanic work. I’m also… getting a lot of sun! I’m a reddish brown at the moment. Total mechanic’s tan.
And I don’t even know how/when it happened, but I have a huge spot on my back bigger than a silver dollar? that some how got raw and scabbed over (I must have scraped it at some point), and let’s just say it makes things a little interesting as a mechanic when I need to be on my back all the time under cars.
But… I’m grateful bodies heal themselves. That’s a plus.
And I’ve felt a bit of a connection today that I can’t really explain but that is… meaningful to me.
Anyway, love and hugs to all y’all.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 