Wow! Haven’t had a day like this in a while. Just got home, and it’s after midnight. 🙃
Guess we’ll start with the most important stuff… gratitude:
- I’m grateful to be home. 🙃
- I’m grateful that the rash on my hands and feet and arms and legs seems to have plateaued and might even be starting to get better. It doesn’t itch anymore, mostly: it just feels raw all over, but I think it was a tad less raw than yesterday? 🤞
- I’m grateful that my knees, hips, and ankles have been better, overall.
- I’m grateful that my stomach acid/esophagus issues are continuing to improve, seemingly. I’ve been eating pretty bland stuff, the same stuff every day–avocados, apples, soymilk, cheerios, mini wheats, and probiotic yogurt (yeah… not vegan… and not really happy about it, but I had a thought that maybe my gut biome was messed up, and I thought maybe probiotics might help? It could be a coincidence, but I’ve been doing much better since eating a log of probiotic yogurt.
- I’m grateful that I was able to knock off some cars that have been on my list for a while.
- I’m grateful that it’s gonna rain tomorrow, which made it easier to not schedule anyone until Thursday.
- I’m grateful that the brake bleeding was successful and easier than I’d feared it might be.
- I’m grateful that I was able to get my oil changed quickly this morning (got a low oil pressure warning light. 🙃)
First car was… what was it… oh yeah! Kid thought he’d busted his tranny accidentally going off the road in his ’02 Volvo. He’d seen a leak and thought it was new, but it wasn’t. It was an old leak, long time dripping.
Second car was the ’98 Corvette that needed a caliper bracket bolt. Having bought bolts yesterday from the bolt store in Springdale, I slapped them on today, tightened his outer tie rod that was also loose, and he was on his way!
Third car was… gosh… the memory… Oh yeah, third car was back to the Hyundai Santa Fe that needed the alternator. It had been bad out of the box, which delayed the job, but I got it done today, so that was nice.
Fourth car was… a beast. It was a 2006 Chevrolet Malibu that supposedly needed pads, rotors, and outer tie rods. Well, they drove it until the pads had ground down to metal, then even further until the pad was ejected. The drove it so long like that, that they ruined the caliper, leaking out all the brake fluid–though they didn’t realize they’d done that.
That job… took most of my day. I think I got there around 4 something and didn’t leave until 10 something. Every time I turned around, there was something else wrong that hampered the job. First… was realizing it wasn’t just pads and rotors, that they had ruined their caliper. Then it was realizing that not only was the caliper also toast, but the passenger wheel bearing was so destroyed that the ball bearings were actually falling out of the hub assembly. 😶
So… I waited while they decided if they wanted that done as well.
They did.
So I replaced the wheel bearing, finding out in the process that the lug nuts on the passenger side had all been overtightened so significantly that multiple of the lug nuts were deformed and ruined.
Good gravy.
Oh, and the cv axle end was damaged, which meant that I spent probably 40 minutes just trying to get the wheel bearing assembly slid onto the axle. I ended up taking a metal file and grinding down the damaged spots.
It worked. 😅
What else… oh yeah, the brake fluid was drained all the way out of the master cylinder, which would significantly increase the challenge of bleeding the brakes.
Coolant was low.
Oil leaks.
Sway bar links were toast.
Steering rack boots were blown to smithereens.
Yeah… poor car. It. took. so. long. And the bill was already over $1100. I should have charged a lot more than I did for all the extra crap that had to be done, but… I didn’t.
Oh, and I had to cut off one of the tie rods with my grinder. 🙃
In the end, though, I got it done enough that they can at least safely drive it. That was the goal and the most important thing. They’ll need to watch the bevy of other issues that remain unfixed for the time being; but that’s up to them to take care of.
After that, though it was about 10:30 ish, I still had two more cars to do–same customer, a repeat customer who runs a business out of the Fayetteville Airport. So I headed down there, was lucky enough to catch guy who locks up the airport just as he locked it up. He let me inside, got me the keys for the cars, and left everything unlocked for me, so i could fix the cars and then return the keys.
Wahoo!
the 2014 Odyssey had run over something and torn the plastic splash guards all to crap, so I removed the most-mangled pieces and put them in the very back of the van. I also zip tied the more-intact pieces into place.
The 2018 Suburban was supposedly having weird electrical issues, but I couldn’t reproduce them. The only thing I could find was that the battery is dying. On modern cars with so many electrical demands, having a dying battery can do all sorts of whacky things to the car. So… that is my diagnosis. I finished up around 11:30ish, I think, put the keys on the front desk in the little airport, and headed home.
So nice to be home and ready to head to bed.
Long long day.
G’night!
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 