Oh… tired. Very tired.
I’ve been low energy pretty much all day today. Gratefully, I haven’t really had any cars that were ridiculously stupid today. 🙂
Since I went to bed a little earlier than normal, I woke up a bit earlier than normal. I took the time to load up my van with trash and recyclables, and I drove a load of trash up to the dumpster, and then I drove to the recycling center to put all the stuff in its various bins.
That’s a little more progress in trying to tame the disaster that I’ve made of the house and property lately. Not that I’ve made it a disaster on my own, but it’s been mostly me. 🙃
After that, I went to AutoZone, picked up my turn signal for my van, realize that the corner was a little bit more mushed than I thought it was, so the light wouldn’t sit on properly. Someone that also used some kind of a caulk or something to seal or help the old busted light stay in place..
In order to get the new one to sit in even somewhat possibly, I had to get my sledgehammer and bang the metal a little bit, and then I had to cut out all the old caulk. Fortunately, though, after probably 15 or 20 minutes worth of effort, I was able to get the light in and stable and looking halfway decent.
One more step in the evolution of this van becoming the main go-to beast.
I’m liking this Van more and more, and honestly, it really comes down to the extra shelving. That’s pretty much it. Well, and the design of the shelving itself. It’s funny how much time I’ve wasted over the years being improperly prepared with my vehicles. And now that I’m slowly rolling towards automotive retirement, I’m finally figuring it out. 😅
Genius, I is. 🙃
It’s nice to actually have a blinker assembly now, instead of just a dangling light bulb on the end of a wire. Looks… slightly more professional. 😁
First car was one that’s been on my schedule for weeks, I think. 2010 Toyota Highlander that they wanted spark plugs done on. Well, on the way there, I realized that one of the gas cans had spilled over and poured gas all over my nice rubber floor.
Gas and rubber don’t mix so well. 😬
Part of the rubber has bubbled up and deformed, but I’m hoping that I was able to dry up the rest of it enough that it won’t deform too badly. That wouldn’t be so nice.
Anyway, that was an annoyance, but it was made even more of an issue because the couple that wanted me to do the work for them were hovering over me constantly watching absolutely everything that I was doing. They were an incredibly nice couple from Beijing China, but it was quite annoying. 🙃
So I felt rushed trying to get everything done with cleaning up the gasoline in order to get started on their car as quickly as possible, since they were just waiting for me.
They asked a gazillion questions, which in and of itself isn’t annoying, but when they were asking me to do things that are standard stuff that you do, like check spark plug gaps, it started to get a little annoying. Of course I’m going to check the spark plug gaps before I install spark plugs. But, to be fair, lots of other mechanics probably don’t. So I can’t blame them. It’s just a little annoying when somebody asks me to do my job. It’s like, yes, of course I’m going to do my job. 🙃
Well, so after getting started and pulling the first spark plug, I realized that their spark plugs were basically brand new. So instead of having a nearly 4-hour job ahead of me, I let them know that not only were their spark plugs basically new, but they were much better quality spark plugs than the ones they’d ask me to purchase.
So instead of doing a spark plug job, I spent the rest of the time basically just going bumper to bumper on the car to see what I can find that it might need in the future for immediately.
Given that it was a Toyota Highlander, the answer was that it really didn’t need much of anything. It’s a Toyota. 🙃
The next car I went to was a 2010 Ford focus that had the window glass come crashing down on it after the window struggled to go back up. I pulled it apart, and found, as expected, a busted window regulator assembly. That’s what happens when you make parts out of plastic. They break. I know we’re trying to get better gas mileage by reducing weight on cars, and I suppose it probably makes it slightly cheaper to manufacture having it be plastic and not metal, but good gravy. So much of what goes wrong with cars nowadays is just because we’re using cheap parts. The entire rest of the assembly is metal, so why do you make the part that moves the most out of plastic?
Anyway, my local parts store didn’t have it in stock, and since I didn’t want to order it ahead of time because I’m tired of taking parts back, I didn’t have it with me, so I ended up driving to the pea ridge AutoZone to pick it up. Fortunately, it wasn’t that far of a drive. Just 10 or 12 minutes each week, I think.
I got her focus all buttoned up, and then I headed to a 2016 Hyundai Tucson that they were concerned about a noise with a wheel and wanted to do a pre-travel inspection.
The customer had basically figured out the wheel noise by the time I got there: He had several loose lug nuts on one wheel. Slight jacked up the car, tightened up the lug nuts, verified that head resolved the wheel sound issue, and it had, and then I proceeded to do a bit of a bumper to bumper check for him. He bought the car from carvana and had a 7-day return policy and a 60 day or 90 day warranty or something like that.
I went through the car, found that one of the CD axles was leaking grease, but other than that, it seems like a very well maintained and very good little car. And it didn’t have one of the motors in it that’s notorious for blowing up with Hyundai and Kia.
The fourth car was a 1999 Ford F-250 that he was having trouble getting some of the spark plugs in place. He had the V10 engine, which is actually the one that I would like to have when I upgrade trucks, and he had gotten seven out of the 10 spark plugs in, but the last three were a bit of a pain in the butt to get to.
And boy were they ever. Part of the challenge was that I didn’t want to remove the heater hose and have to deal with coolant issues as well, so that made it harder to reach what I needed to reach, but it eventually, I got everything out and everything back in. I think I figured out the issue that was causing his misfires and hesitation: One of his spark plug wells was full of water. I guess he had driven through a pretty huge puddle of water during the super heavy rainstorm, so I’m guessing he splashed water on top of the engine, and that ran down and then seeped into the spark plug well.
Anyway, I did my best to dry out the spark plug well, and I got the spark plugs replaced in the three cylinders he was having trouble with, and I got the bolt to seat down properly on the cylinder that he wasn’t able to get to seat down properly.
The fifth car was a 2008 Honda Odyssey that needed an alternator, like all Honda Odyssey seem to need. Gratefully, unlike the past where it seems like I forget how to put the alternator in and out each time (it’s a crazy tight fit, and so you’re wiggling and finagling and trying to figure out how to get it in and out), this time, I got it out and then back in stupid quickly. 🥳🥳🥳
Now I just need to remember that hot wire terminal faces up. It still wasn’t a total cakewalk, but compared to how it’s been in the past when I have fought and fought and fought, it was a cakewalk.
🥳🥳🥳
The last job of the night was in a completely different city than all the others. I had to go all the way down to West Springdale, but they’ve been waiting for me for a while, so I didn’t want to bump them any further.
That one was a 2014 Chevrolet equinox that had some sounds and other concerns. It had check engine codes for timing solenoids, and it had a weird sound that it was hard to pinpoint. I found issues with the suspension, lower ball joints were in bad shape, lower control arm bushings were in bad shape, one of the subframe bushings was in absolutely atrocious shape, the sway bar was off to one side. I’ve either never noticed that in all of my time is a mechanic, where this was the first time that I’ve ever run across the sway bar being off center.
Honestly, I don’t even know how big of a deal that is if any issue at all. 🙃
Given that it has what looks like bump stops on the sway bar, I’m guessing it’s not really that big of an issue, but it still is weird looking that’s for sure.
Just as I was getting ready to finish up, I felt like I might have been pointed the sound that he was concerned about. It sounds to me like there’s maybe a little extra play in the transmission bearing than there should be, or something like that. Once I was able to get that sound to happen, I had him sit in the car with the doors closed and listened to me reproduce the sound, and he said that he was pretty sure that was the sound. So unfortunately, his equinox has a long list of things to fix, but that’s not really a surprise. It’s a Chevy. What else is it going to do other than break? 🙃
Well I was there, he also had me look at his Toyota Tacoma which would only blow heat or AC on high. For anyone out there who doesn’t already know, that’s a telltale sign, almost always, that the issue is with the blower motor resistor. Oftentimes, blower motor resistors are really easy to put in.
Or in the case of the Mazda Miata from however many days ago, they can also be an absolute pain in the tail. 😅
I just got home, and it’s 9:53 p.m.. That’s better than 11:00 or midnight.
I am so looking forward to my day off tomorrow.
I’ve got a huge smile on my face just thinking about it. 😁😁😁😁😁
This little boy is tired.
But… some gratitude…
- I’m really grateful that I was able to make some progress processing through things during a work day. It’s not really a heck of a lot more than what I’ve already worked through, but in some ways it is, and it certainly represents the continuity of thought despite lapses in chronological time between thought sessions or whatever you want to call them.
- I’m grateful, in some ways, that the first job that was supposed to be really big turned out to not be much of anything. Yes, it would be nice to have a big well-paying job, but at the same time, I still ended up doing six cars today, so nothing really lost. In fact, more customers served then I probably would have been able to do had I had that big job stay a big job.
- I’m grateful that my junker 98 B2500 van is still going. I don’t expect a whole lot out of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the engine goes with the transmission goes at any time, but in the meantime, I’m grateful for it and enjoying having it as my work van. Another 30 minutes or an hour of organization, would make it even that much better. It’s amazing how much space I’m going to have with this thing compared to my other vans. It’s just so much more intelligently organized with shelves on both sides and all the little slots that I can put stuff in in doors and what not. I even have a little place to hang up my stethoscopes. 🥳
- I’m grateful that I was able to do six cars today even though I was dead tired pretty much from the beginning of the day. Something like eight and a half billable hours ish. So that’s pretty good.
- Did I mention I was grateful for a day off? 😁😁😁
Love ya, peeps. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 