2023-04-17 — Verge

I need to get more sleep.

And I’ve got to get some things off my plate..

Today was a Monday, but it felt like it should have been a Saturday… Like tomorrow should be my day off.

Gosh, hard day.

I still haven’t caught up on sleep, and I’m running at a pretty significant deficit right now. Just thoroughly exhausted. I didn’t sleep very well last night again, waking up I don’t know how many times.

Kudos to all you people out there who managed to live and take care of people and keep even some semblance of your composure. This morning, I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

It was pretty bad.

I was late getting out the door because I slept in too long. So I didn’t get to my first job until like 8:30, when I should have been there at 8:00. It wasn’t a problem for the customer because I didn’t specifically say 8:00, but it was my goal to get there at 8:00 so that I could have more time for an insanely busy day.

So I started off slow, and then my first customers brake job that was front and rear took like 5 hours or 5 and 1/2 or something like that.

Ugh.

A handful of things went sideways with that first job, and logistical things I had to figure out. I don’t know if I’ve ever done the heavy duty breaks for people before, but these ones came with an extra weird coating with the brake pads that when I went to test drive the vehicle, the brakes acted super crazy. It took me a little while to realize exactly what was going on, fearing at the beginning that I had done something wrong somehow. But no, it was just an issue with the brake pads needing to be broken in, so to speak.

So that was nerve-wracking. But it wasn’t my problem, nothing I’d done wrong. It just took a lot of time to figure out that it wasn’t my problem. 🙃

I was struggling, a lot, though.

And that’s an understatement.

Greatly, I finally got the job done, and it’s something like 2:00 or whatever it was finally got to my second out of eight jobs for the day.

😶

The second job was supposedly an alternator issue, and I went out there, but the alternator was working fine. The battery was only a year and a half old, but since the alternator was working fine, it seemed more likely that the battery might just be one of those ones that dies early.

I told him I charge up the battery and retest, and in the meantime, he had an oil pressure switch that wasn’t working, so I ordered the part, in gratefully the centerton AutoZone delivered it too many in like 5 minutes or less, I think.

🥳

Was one of the hardest oil pressure sensors I’ve had to change, though, even though I’ve done similar ones a gazillion times. For some reason this one… Didn’t want to be changed.

Gratefully, though, I finally got it, and after firing up the car again the second time around, the alternator decided to stop working.

So, I swap the alternator out as well, and headed over to AutoZone to deal with part stuff.

At AutoZone, I ran into someone who had called me earlier but had decided just to have her car towed because I was going to be a little while. When I got there, apparently the tow truck was still two or three hours away, so I decided I just help her out. The people at AutoZone had thought she had an electrical issue, but all it was was just a super bad battery, so bad that it couldn’t stay running even with a jump start.

The lady didn’t trust me that it was just a bad battery because the people at AutoZone had said it was something else, but it was a 5-year-old battery, and definitely bad.

Her husband gave me 20 bucks for helping, which I wasn’t expecting, and hopefully I saved them a bunch of time and a bunch of money since they no longer needed the tow truck.

Third car was going back to that heater hose job from the other… What was it, Friday I think? It wasn’t as easy as I was hoping, the plug-and-play. I actually had to cut and spliced the hose to lengthen it a little bit because the original wasn’t big enough to do what I wanted with it.

General motors uses quick connects for their heater core connections, and they always eventually leak. So much better to just cut off the quick connect and connect it with a regular clamp.

But the replacement hose isn’t long enough on one end to make it all the way to the heater core without the quick connect, so I cut it spliced in a 3/4-in connector, added a 3-in longer hose than the original, and called it good.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good.

It was yet another vehicle that had more problems than what I was expecting. After getting it all back together and fixing the leak, which is what I was originally called out there for, I realized that his thermostat was also stuck closed. I think it was stuck partially closed, as it would only overheat a little bit but not a whole lot. There was plenty of coolant in the system because the heater hoses go in and out right where the thermostat is, and they were super duper hot, so I knew that the thermostat was getting plenty of hot coolant that should have opened it up, but it wouldn’t open.

I ended up staying a good bit longer at that one, but I didn’t charge him anywhere near as much as I could have for the time spent. I taught him how to change his thermostat, so that he wouldn’t have to pay me to come back and do it, and called it good.

The fourth car was supposed to be installing catalytic converters on a 2009 Cadillac Escalade that someone had stolen the catalytic converters off of. Unfortunately, for the customer, but fortunately, for me, there was more damage than he had thought, and I wasn’t able to install the catalytic converters.

Again, I taught him what to do to prep everything for me to come back and change the catalytic converters later. I also only charged him half my normal service call because it was pretty crappy for him to have me come all the way out there only to not be able to do the job because there were more issues.

Car number 5 was 2016 Jeep Cherokee that the window wouldn’t roll back up on. Turned out that the actual button itself was broken.

That’s a first.

In the last 7ish years that I’ve been fixing cars, it’s always been either the electronics of the switch or most commonly, The regulator and motor assembly.

But this time it was just the button itself, which meant that I could take apart the assembly, and press the button internally to make the window go back up.

I thought the young lady what she needed to do to get the right part, as it wasn’t available locally, and I taught her how to install it so she doesn’t need to pay me to go back and do it. Super easy.

That one took a good bit longer than I was hoping because I accidentally had some pieces of the internal components of the master switch fall out as I was taking apart the assembly. I had no idea where they went, and it took me a good while to finally figure out where they we’re supposed to go.

Gratefully, though, I did figure out where they were supposed to go, got it all back together, and was able to get her window up for her and get her pointed in the right direction for where to go from there.

Car number 6, not including the one at AutoZone of course, was another Jeep, this one a 2006 Grand Cherokee that was supposedly having starting issues. Unfortunately for them, when I got there, there were no issues whatsoever. The cheap fired right up without any problems whatsoever, and there were no codes or anything to point to what might be going on. So I taught the young lady (The Jeep was in her sorority parking lot) some different things that she could do to hopefully diagnose it the next time, were it to happen again, And I also gave her her my card to call me if it happened again. I could walk her through some tests over the phone, or if I work close, I could swing by and help.

I drove the car number seven, but by that point it was like 10:30 p.m., And we rescheduled for Wednesday.

Gratefully, for car number 8, I had already told them that it was less likely that I could make it out today. I had forgotten I had told them that, so I was really grateful when they reminded me that I had told them that, so it wasn’t a huge deal that I didn’t make it to them today.

🥳

Had been running on empty ever since I left this morning, which is pretty impressive because I drove all the way from my house to Bentonville to centerton back to Bentonville down to bethel heights and down to Fayetteville, and then almost all the way back home, stopping at Anderson’s on highway 62 for gas.

Apparently, after my gas light comes on, I still have at least 60 to 100 miles left, if not more.

Good to know.

Probably shouldn’t be tempting fate by driving that long without filling it, though. 🙃

I’m better than I was this morning, but I’m breaking a little bits at a time, and I was really bad today. I don’t know if being so tired and overburdened right now uncovers what’s already there, or magnifies it, or both.

I’m falling asleep as I write this, so I had probably better finish eating dinner and then crash.

Rough day. Wish it were Saturday. Wish I could make my brain come to some kind of an actual resolution with this saga that keeps me unable to move, keeps me waiting and broken on pieces, but my brain… just… can’t. Very discouraging.

So. tired. Good night.

Love and hugs. 😊

Lift the World

~ stephen