Nice that things have been cooler recently. 80s, not 90s or 100s. I think the worst of summer has gone. Ready for fall. 🙂
Yawning a lot at the moment.
Busy day. 9.5 cars. Malaki had 6 easy peasy ones, which was super cool. I prize those days, rare occasions, when everything is simple and goes wonderfully. I think he had… four battery jobs, 1 undercover removal, and one door lock issue to fix. Each one went super easily, and even with taking a leisurely lunch, he’d finished all six cars by like 4:30.
🥳
I did 3.5 cars, the .5 being a bigger pain in the tail than probably all 9 other cars combined. Why? It’s a Nissan.
Ugh. Hate those darn things. Such maddeningly awfully designed pieces. Anyway, my first car was a pre-purchase inspection for a customer who was in another state. It was going normally with one red flag combination of a particular check-engine code, coupled with low coolant. It was possible that those symptoms were a precursor to a common head-gasket issue that those vehicles had.
While I was doing the inspection, the car dealership owner came out to see how it was going, and I mentioned that particular red flag. Having heard what I shared, he did a quick Google, got really defensive and started getting angry–angry that I was telling my customer the things I’d found. He felt it wasn’t fair to share those things because I was making it sound like it actually had a blown head gasket. But no, that’s not what I’d told my customer. In fact, my customer wasn’t super concerned with that red flag. Yet, the dealership owner shut down the inspection “you’re done here.” He wouldn’t let me continue the inspection, unhappy that I was sharing the negative aspects of the vehicle with my customer, feeling like it wasn’t a fair representation of the vehicle.
Well… sorry, but I call it like it is. If there are obvious concerns or even potential concerns, I’m not going to let those go by without mentioning them. My responsibility is to my customer, not to mention honesty.
Good gravy.
Anyway, so that was the first job. The second job was a 2012 Ford Expedition that was making an awful sound on startup and dying at low RPMs. I didn’t let it run for more than a few seconds, hearing the awful noise. That particular engine is an interference engine, so… can’t risk messing that up by letting it run very long, so I directed them to take it to a nearby shop. Most likely the issue is with the cam phasers or the timing chain. Both of which are bigger jobs that require a lot of disassembly. The husband might be interested in working for me, learning mechanics and whatnot. We’ll see. They’re just about to move to Arkansas.
Third call was a 2008 Ford F250 that had burnt up a starter. I replaced it, and the company owner mentioned he might be interested in renting my dump trailer. So, that could be good. It would be nice to start making additional income from that.
Sadly, the poor guy had a tranny line blow later that day. I’m grateful he didn’t blame me, figuring out for himself that the damage was caused by one hose rubbing against another for a long time.
So he asked if I could help with that issue as well. So… we’ll see.
I headed home after that to finish up the 2009 Sentra that my hill brother Jim wants to use for work road trips (much better gas mileage than the truck he usually drives). I’d already replaced the struts, sway bar links, and the blower motor. I still needed to replace two rear shocks, two motor mounts, and the serpentine belt. I got one motor mount on relatively easily, got the belt put on just fine without much of any issue at all, but the other motor mount.
🤦♂️
It was a Nissan nightmare. One of the mount bolts was rusted to the motor mount sheath, which meant that both the mount, the mount bolt, *and* the mount bracket would all need to be replaced.
At first, I didn’t realize that everything was ruined, so I worked and worked and worked to get the bolt out of the bracket. Because of the design, I had to grind the bolt into three or four pieces while still on the car in tight, confined spaces.
Wasn’t easy.
Finally after triumphantly getting the bolt out, I realized the bracket itself was ruined because of the issue with the bolt and mount sleeve.
Lovely. So I went to take off the bracket as well, but what’s one of the key characteristics of a Nissan? When you go to take a part off, you can get every bolt off but one. In order to get that last one off, you have to take another part off. And of course, with that part, you can get all if its bolts off but one, and to get that one off, you have to take off yet another part.
That’s Nissan.
🤦♂️
Ugh.
So… I got every bolt out of the bracket but one. What does it take to get that last bolt out? Oh, nothing huge, just dropping the whole engine, which requires removing the battery, the whole intake hose and air box assembly, removing the battery tray and computer, etc. Just…
Ugh.
So… the job still isn’t done, and won’t be until I can find a bracket and bolt.
So… that was the end of the day.
On a lighter note, my mom, whose feet are something like a women’s size 5, who has massive difficulties finding shoes that… don’t have glitter or princesses on them, managed to score a massive haul of perfectly-sized shoes from a friend of hers who had a mother the same size as my little mama.
So, super cool. 🥳
Love and hugs.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 