So it was supposed to be a super busy day today, but it didn’t end up being that. I did four cars but only charged for two of them.
The first car was a 2014 Chevrolet Camaro SS, the suped up 6.2 beast. He thought he needed brake pads and rotors all the way around and an oil pressure sensor, but he only needed brake pads and the oil pressure Sensor. Unfortunately, I had the wrong parts for the brakes, not knowing that he had the super duper brembo brakes package (I only had the regular brake pads).
I also didn’t have everything I needed to change out the oil pressure sensor either. I had the pressure sensor, but I keep forgetting that general motors has an oil pressure sensor filter. 😶
Seriously, folks. Good gravy.
Anyway, he also had a concern about a ticking or chirping noise in the engine. I popped my head under the hood, and I noticed that whoever put the AC belt on didn’t put it on properly. Partially off, which was putting lateral pressure on the belt, causing the chirp, and cutting the belt slowly over time. Over time. So we got another belt for him, and I put it on. It was a stretch belt, which is a bit of a pain in the butt, but fortunately it wasn’t too bad on this one. There’s a bit of a trick where you can use a Zip tie to help you get it on instead of having to buy the special tools. I have one of the special tools, maybe two of them for different models, but it’s easy enough to use the zip tie that I don’t want to bother trying to set up the other special tool. 🙃
The second car was a Nissan Altima with a bad AC compressor. He wasn’t 100% sure that that’s what the issue was, so he asked me to come out and diagnose it, and within a second of him turning it on, I was waving to him to shut it off. That’s how bad the AC compressor bearing was. Pretty gnarly.
After that, I could have headed home as I didn’t have any other jobs that were absolutely promised for the day. I stopped off at AutoZone, and while I was chatting with the mechanic who works at the shop next door, I noticed a gentleman who pulled his car up at the back of AutoZone, pulled out one of those crank up jacks, and was getting ready to try and do a brake job.
Having parked right over by him, and having my floor jacks right there in the back, I couldn’t bear to watch him try and jack up his car with a stupid little crank jack. At the time, I didn’t know he was going to do a break job. I thought maybe he was just trying to fix a tire or something, but I went over, jacked up the car for him with my floor jack, which instead of taking several minutes and lots of energy, only took about 15 seconds.
After I realized he was doing a break job, and watching him preparing to do a break job with terribly inefficient tools, I just decided I was going to help him do the brake job. He would have been there for a long time, and he wouldn’t have gotten everything done properly because he didn’t really know what all needed to be done to properly do a brake job. So I spent probably 30 minutes or so jacking up both sides of the car, pulling the wheels off, pulling the calipers off, and helping him put everything back together with new brake pads.
I had no intention of charging him at all, as I had not even asked him if he wanted help. I just walked over and started helping him, and it’s not really good form to help somebody without asking if they want help and then expect to be paid. So I was just going to do it all pro bono and not worry about it, but he insisted on cash-apping me $100. So, that was nice. 🙂
One of my other multiple return customers called super stressed out because his truck has been giving him nothing but problems seemingly constantly for the last month or so, and he’s about as broke as broke can be. He happened to be nearby, so I told him to swing by the AutoZone, and I’d look at his truck for free. Job but I was helping the other guy do, but once we were done with that, I went over and helped him as best I could for a while.
I didn’t charge him either for the hour plus I think that I spent with him. He also trying to give me money, but I was better at not accepting anything from him.
From there I headed home and haven’t gotten home quite early, comparatively, I decided to knock one of my projects off my to-do list.
At some point last summer or so, my Milwaukee chainsaw bit the dust. It just straight up stopped working. So I started trying to take it apart to see if I could figure out what was going on with it, but then life showed up, and I didn’t get it put back together, nor did I ever figure out what was wrong with it, before I went to New Zealand. New Zealand. So there I was several months later with a Tupperware full of bolts that I didn’t remember at all where went, and a bunch of parts that needed to be put back on. I had, however, purchased the missing pieces that I had lost when I took it apart before. There was a spring that one I loosened a bolt holding it in place, it shot the retaining piece out into the garage somewhere. After spending a decent amount of time looking for that little piece, I gave up and spent a while online trying to figure out what it was and then getting it ordered. Fortunately, I had been able to find it, order it, and tonight was the night to get it all put back together.
Getting it back together, though, was an absolute nightmare. It fought me and fought me and fought me and fought me. The spring mechanism that runs the chain brake was seemingly all but impossible to put back together. I probably spent 2 hours just trying to reassemble that portion of the chainsaw. I tried so many different ways of getting that super stiff spring compressed into the tiny little place. It needed to go at the same time that you’re holding it in place and trying to get the e-brake handle lined up.
I just about had written it off as impossible when I finally had one more idea. Gratefully, that idea won the day, and now my chainsaw is back together. And guess what?
It works again. 🙃
I didn’t do anything to actually fix it. It just decided to fix itself. 😁🥳😁
So there you go. I also finished watching the TV show person of interest which had been fairly entertaining.
I did make the mistake of eating some strawberry yogurt. There was some left in the fridge, and I didn’t want it to go to waste, so even though I knew it might cause issues for me because it had last time, I was dumb enough to eat it again.
Yeah, I’m a genius. 😶
If you happen to be wondering, good news on the rash front. It’s pretty much gone. The super weird rash that was all over my hands and over some of my feet lasted probably 4 days at its peak and then quickly resolved. 🥳🥳🥳
At this point, I don’t have any residual rash that I’m aware of on either my hands or my feet or arms or anywhere.
Yay!!!
I do have a swollen joint on my right pinky knuckle. I don’t remember hitting anything or banging it against anything, but it’s swollen nonetheless. But heck, I’ll take that any day over the rash thing that was kicking my butt for so long.
Well folks! Happy end of February. 😁
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 