Hola, folks! Better day today. Took it a little slow this morning. Did three cars. Went to help a young man out who yesterday wanted help replacing wheel studs. I didn’t go to him quick enough, so he had his uncle do it. His uncle said he could do it, and… he sort of could. He got the studs in the hub, but he took off the brake caliper hose, causing a leak. He didn’t bolt the caliper bracket back on properly, crossthreading the bolt in the bracket, ruining both the bracket and the bolt.
So… he asked me to go diagnose his other car–girlfriend’s car, I think. It was a crank, no start. Took a little while. No power priming the fuel pump, so I thought it might be an ignition switch or something, because I could power on the pump by jumping the relay. But… still the car wasn’t starting.
So I disconnected the fuel line at the fuel pump. Everything was working. Wires were good, jumping the pump worked there, but still… nothing would come out. I took the pump out of the sending unit, and it would pump just fine when jumped. There was something… stopping the fuel from getting through the assembly itself.
😶
😶😶😶😶😶😶
That’s a first for me.
So… he needs a new assembly–somehow. They… don’t sell assemblies, just pumps. So… not sure what he’s gonna do. Might have to use a generic pump and go bypass the pressure regulator and sending unit, etc.
Second job was a nice, easy battery job in Bella Vista. Wahoo. 😊
Then I returned a bunch of parts, cores and new returns and headed off to my last job–a 2007 Dodge Ram 1500 that was leaking coolant. Turned out to have a bad water pump bearing. I didn’t really want to do the job tonight, so I was grateful when they decided to go with the gold-level water pump, instead of the regular one, as that bumped the job to the morning. So, there we go. Malaki will do the job in the morning, and that will be nice. I left the special tool he needed for the job at the Bentonville AutoZone, so he’ll be able to get it done without me. He’ll have a quick alternator job to do right before that.
I got home pretty early. I think it was like… 6 something? That was… nice. 🙂
Then… something… unexpected happened. While in the shower, I received a call from someone I never thought I’d hear from again–my old tech Bobby! He surfaced out of nowhere, and we’re going to get together next week, have lunch or something. He’s doing well. Crap hit the fan for him, and he’s back on top of the pile.
🥳
Good stuff.
And another fun little thing… Expedia was going to charge me $725 to change my ticket to leave 2 days later and go to Melbourne instead of Sydney, but Chase reminded me that I could just buy another ticket for a different date, and so I checked, and it was just $180ish for that one-way ticket to Melbourne from Christchurch. Wahoo!
So… now I’m adding that precious extra time to our New Zealand portion of the trip, and have the locations better structured for being there with Chase, since he’s only going to be in Australia for 10 days or so. We’re gonna start in the south (Melbourne), pop down to Tasmania, and then follow the coast all the way up to the Great Barrier Reef (assuming we get all the way there in the little time we’re gonna have before Chase has to leave on December 11th). He’ll fly out of Brisbane, I think.
Gonna be fun!
A little concerned with my body, though. My freak hip injury from about this time last year flared up again today. I don’t… understand what happened. I’ve got a bunch of these issues. I just keep adding more and more–right wrist, left thumb, right hip, knees, ankles, etc.
I think pickup up a bunch of 80-lb bags of concrete flared everything up. Makes me a bit concerned that I might have a lot of pain lugging around a 60-70lb pack.
(sigh)
I’d see doctors and get things looked at, but it’s always the same story–every. freaking. time. No problems. Can’t find anything. Rather frustrating. Spend tons of money and doctors can’t figure anything out. Story of my life, healthwise.
Anyway, that’s the story for now.
Love and hugs.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 
Hike with a pack llama?
Right!