Well, what I was suspecting finally happened. Malaki won’t be coming back to work for me. He actually got cleared to go back to active military duty, so he’s heading out.
That’s super good for him, and I’m happy for him. I always encourage those who work for me to follow their hearts and go where they truly want to be, even if that leaves me short-handed.
And boy does it ever. 🙃
From now until the end of probably September or October is the busiest time of the year, probably this particular time of year because it’s when everybody gets their tax returns back. So many people use that money to fix their cars. That means I’m crazy busy, but without a helper or another mechanic, I’m doing it all by myself which isn’t the funnest.
But it’s where I am, and it’s where I’ve been for the last month, and it’s where I’ll be until I find someone else to hire.
So, the adventure continues with the mobile mechanic scene. 🙃
I’m back to… not square one. Square… three?
It was going to be a rainy day today, so I didn’t know how much I was going to get done. Given that my schedule was slammed with cars, I figured I’d try and get done as much as I could.
The first car was a 1996 Toyota 4Runner that had died while driving after the oil leaked out. That one was in Bella Vista, and I figured I knew exactly what the issue was before I got there, but you don’t want to tell somebody their engine is completely seized up over the phone: You need to go out there and make sure that’s exactly what it is.
And that’s what it was. 😕
Those kinds of cars are nice from the mechanic perspective of being relatively straightforward, but it’s super crappy for the customer to be told that you’re car is toast. 😕
I did a couple other tests to verify that it wasn’t something else.
It wasn’t.
Next up was going back to that 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee that the other mechanic had torn apart. I had figured out that there was something else going on than what the mechanic said was going on before he tore the engine down, and I was hoping to send it over to Miguel’s shop for final diagnosis and repair, but Miguel wasn’t really interested in working on that one. I don’t blame him. It’s a pain in the butt coming in after another “mechanic” who screws stuff up.
So I went back to do the final diagnosis. As best I could tell, the sound I was hearing was coming from the passenger side top end of the engine, so I pulled off the valve cover. At first everything looked just fine, but then I noticed, tucked away in the very back of the engine closes to the passenger seat, one of the rockers was down at the bottom of the valve cover instead of on top of the lifters.
“Well there’s your problem right there!”
I sent all the information over to the owner who is a teacher and was at school. Later in the day, she decided just to take the vehicle back to the place she got it from. I guess maybe they offered to take it back and trade it for something else? That might be a big if since it’s torn apart, but I guess we’ll see.
🤞
The third car was a 2007 Pontiac G5. The guy had started trying to put a starter in the car, but he didn’t know what he was doing, so he ended up taking out a transmission bolt and loosening up another housing bolt of some kind, and still not able to get the starter out.
So I went out there, put the starter in, torqued down the bolts that he had taken out that he shouldn’t have, got the car started and left. At that point, it was misting, but not raining. So my tools and everything were getting wet, but I wasn’t feeling wet because the water wasn’t enough to get through my clothing down to the skin.
Grateful for that.
Unfortunately, he called me later to tell me that his battery light was on. I had only worked with his starter, and he had recently replaced his alternator and battery, so I told him to go to AutoZone right away and get it checked out, as I was on to the next car with a crazy busy day.
Unfortunately, he didn’t follow my instructions and decided to drive without getting it checked out, which left him stranded on the side of the highway, calling me again.
It’s a crappy situation for both of us when stuff like this happens. I look like the kind of mechanic that fixes one thing and breaks another, and he’s stranded.
I hate that.
I have no idea why the charge light would be on. I had to put things back together that he took apart that he shouldn’t have, and I wonder if there were other things that he unscrewed on bolted or something, but when I tried to walk him through stuff over the phone, he said he had checked everything and that it was all good.
He asked me if I could come back and help him, but I was completely slammed the rest of the day, the next multiple days actually. I told him that I might be able to squeeze him in, but I couldn’t promise.
I guess we’ll see what happens there.
The next car was a 2000 Toyota tundra. The one I’ve been working on multiple times. The gentleman who has called me seemingly multiple times a day for the last several days, one thing after another with his truck. This time, it was issues with his idle. It was revving up to 1800 RPMs and staying there instead of staying down around 6 or 700 like he was used to.
Nothing he learned in googling would change the idle permanently. It would temporarily make it normal, but then it would shoot sky high the next time around.
The same thing was happening for me until I was finally able to figure out that the idol could be manually adjusted on that vehicle. It was weird that it would even be necessary, and it makes me wonder if he won’t have further issues in the future when the vehicle learns its new idle, but okay. I adjusted the idle via his throttle position sensor several times before he said he felt like it was in the rain she was used to.
He was super happy, as he had been super stressed out about it, tear is coming down just a little bit I think. He’s had a rough life I think.
I gave him a huge discount because he was basically broke, and he was really grateful for that as well. And I paid for a replacement part for him, which I didn’t tell him about.
The next car was a 2011 Nissan Altima that had a seized up AC compressor. I had done the diagnosis the other day, but today it was time to put in a bypass pulley. It was relatively straightforward, although a bit of a pain in the butt getting that AC compressor out. I had to disconnect a tranny line and then finagle it out, and I lost a bit of transmission fluid in the process. Normally I would put transmission fluid back, but the transmission fluid that it had in it was the wrong color, and the transmission fluid that was designed for that vehicle isn’t supposed to be mixed with any other transmission fluid, so I left it out and didn’t put any back. It was such a small amount that it almost certainly doesn’t matter, but I usually like to put at least some of what came out back, but not knowing what kind was put in there, I didn’t want to mix what was supposed to be in there with what was currently in there, as the instructions on the type of fluid that it’s supposed to have in there are very clear that it’s not to be mixed with any other fluids.
The last car was a 2007 Ford focus that I got to after dark and worked on for quite a while. It was the same issue as the 2008 focus that I worked on probably a month ago or so. Some part of the power steering system had leaked the fluid all out, and the power steering pump dried up and gotten so damaged that the pulley and shaft actually came falling out of the power steering pump itself.
Again, just like the one before, once I put the new pump on the car and filled the system, it came leaking right out of the place where it had lost all the fluid in the first place. Now I know with these Ford focuses that if the shaft has come off with the pulley, I need to tell the customer that there’s a bigger issue at hand. I’ll need to come prepared with the power steering hoses and the pump, and not just the pump.
On the one hand it was crappy, and certainly crappy for the customer. On the other hand, it meant that going through the full bleeding procedure wasn’t necessary for the night. Although I probably spent just as much time doing the cleanup after the spray everywhere and diagnosing the specific line that was having issues, but whatever.
On to Saturday?
Yup.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 