2023-03-29 — Blur

Little boy tired.

I’ve been writing that a lot lately. 🙃

Didn’t sleep very well. Up at 5:00 something after going to bed after midnight I think. Figured since I was up, I might as well be productive, so I tried to fix the garage door. I put the new gear assembly on, and then try to open the garage door, but it wouldn’t work properly. When it would go down, it would automatically go back up, but when it went back up, it would stop halfway and just sit there.

I tried again and again and again to find some way to make it work, but it just seemed to get worse. By the time I threw up the white flag, it was only going in One direction, and it wouldn’t stop. It would just keep trying to force itself closed, with so much power that it put a bow in the chain guide that runs from the garage door to the motor.

Pretty freaky. 😬

After fighting with it for probably two or three hours, and letting my inner sailor run rampant in the early hours of the morning, I finally gave up.

It’s funny, when I finally called a garage door repair company, I found out that their service call is only 50 bucks.

🥳

Geez, I’ll pay $50 for a service call all day long! 🙃

From there, I went to my first job which was a no start for a Chevy Silverado. Turns out he just had really bad battery connections just like the one yesterday. I cleaned it off, and he was good to go. Then I went to the hazardous waste recycling place to drop off some coolant. From there I got gas because I was close to empty, and then I went over to AutoZone, jacked up the back of my van, pulled off the wheels, and adjusted the rear brakes. They were super super loose, and I was hoping that would help to solve the squishy brakes issue.

Gratefully, I think it did make a decent bit of difference. I still need to change the rear brakes and not just adjust them, but I’m not sure when I’m going to take the time to do that. I need to do it ASAP because the brakes are on the cusp of grinding in the rear.

I just really hate doing drum brakes. 🙃

Anyway, I took it pretty slowly today after a rough start to the day.

My heartburn issue was a lot worse today, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of it was related to how angry I got this morning with that stupid garage door issue that was fighting me at every freaking turn.

Second car was a 2014 Dodge charger that needed its headlight bulb replaced. One would think that would be a fairly easy job, but no, it was an HID setup and the stupid bulb retainer ring was basically glued to the headlight assembly. I tried and tried and tried and tried to get it off, and just couldn’t get it to budge. Finally, with all of my force, it finally popped free. Unfortunately, as it popped free it also cracked. I think just about everybody who tries to take those off on these stupid chargers cracks or brakes the retainer rings. Fortunately, it wasn’t broken enough that it couldn’t hold the new bulb assembly in place, but still, big pain in the butt.

The third car was a 2006 Buick rendezvous. Or so it was supposed to be. Someone had told him that he needed a belt, so I came out prepared to change the belt, but no, it didn’t need a belt.

Since I was already there, I helped him with his other car. He had a leaking coolant overflow tank, and he ordered a brand new metal one from online for $90. I installed it, but that one had a leak out of the box as well, so I ended up installing a third overflow tank, one that he had gotten used. Gratefully, that one worked and didn’t leak.

🥳

The fourth car was a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado that wouldn’t start. When I got there, it was cranking and trying to start but not starting, but I was able to get it started by quickly pressing the gas pedal up and down over and over again as though it were a cabled throttle system. Funny, it seems to make a difference on drive by wire systems as well.

Anyway, it had a few check engine codes, and everything pointed to a bad mass airflow and idle air temperature sensor (in this particular vehicle, both sensors are combined into one unit). I cleaned the sensor in the hopes that that might do the trick, but it didn’t. I taught him how to replace his mass airflow sensor. I also reset the fuel composition system and the fuel trims, and I cleaned his throttle body before calling it good.

Cars numbered five and six were both at the same house. The first one was a 2013 Chevrolet equinox that needed new VVT solenoids. So I replaced the solenoids, and I cleaned his pretty nasty throttle body as well. Then I went to their 2013 Toyota Tacoma that needed a new blower motor resistor. When I unplugged it, I found that not only was the blower motor resistor bad, but the cable connecting to it was burned. Gratefully, the new blower motor resistor came with a new pigtail, so I cut out the old one, spliced in the new one, made it look all pretty and what not, installed everything, and they were good to go.

🥳

Finish that last car about 9:00 again.

14ish-hour work day today (improving every day 🙃).

I headed back to the property after that last job, but instead of going home, I drove up to the barn and put the new tires on the trailer as well as swapping a third tire over from one side to the other in order to balance everything out better. Then I helped my hill brother with his car, though he doesn’t know that I’m helping him with it. 🙃

Finally got home after 11:00, ate some dinner, and here I am. It’s after 12:30 now, and I’m the tired little boy that I mentioned when I started this post.

Hope you’ve had a beautiful day. We get a chance for another tomorrow.

Love and hugs. 😊

Lift the World

~ stephen