Hello, my lovelies. 😊
I took it easy today. 🥳
I didn’t rush out the door to go fix a million cars. Instead, I drove up the hill, grabbed my truck, loaded up all the metal from all the work I’ve done over the last however long, and drove to the recycling center.
I drove up onto the weighing scale, but then realized that I didn’t have my driver’s license, and you’re not allowed to recycle metal without your driver’s license.
So I drove home. 🙃
I got back to the gate to the property just in time to see my hill sister Liz there. I jumped out of my truck and gave her a hug and talked to her for a while. Things haven’t been easy for her lately, and that’s an understatement.
After chatting with her for a good little while, I drove up and grabbed my license, and then I drove back to the recycling center. The total cash haul for the trip was $86 and change. Not a lot, but not too bad.
I’m trying to get the driveway cleaned up for my mom because I’ve left it an absolute mess. I got all the cardboard taken yesterday or the day before whenever it was, and I got all the metal taken today, so that’s something.
From there, I grabbed my work fan and headed into town. I decided to head on over to the DMV to get the new van registered. You have to register within 30 days of buying it, and it hasn’t been that long, but I still wanted to get it done so that it was legal, insured, and ready to go.
There was a bit of a wait, but as always, I have so many things to occupy my time that there isn’t really any wasted time. I had a lot of errands I needed to run on my phone, so I just did all that stuff while I waited.
Probably 45 minutes or an hour later or so, I had paid another 6 months on a new addition to the insurance, paid for The license plate and registration, and now we’re good to go.
After getting those errands done, I drove to Springdale where a customer wanted me to put a starter in a Jeep Liberty.
I clarified ahead of time that they didn’t want me to do any diagnostics, just wanted me to replace the starter, and they said yes.
We all know how that often goes. 🙃
So I pulled the starter out, which took a little more effort than I expected, but I got it decently quickly. Then I bench tested the old starter, and lo and behold, it did what it was supposed to. It didn’t sound that great and didn’t move that great, but It wasn’t the cause of the no-start.
Still, it didn’t work well enough for me to feel good about putting it back in the car, so I went ahead and put the new starter in.
As expected, the Jeep still wouldn’t start. So I asked him if you wanted me to go ahead and do a diagnostic at this point to see what was causing and not to start, and he said yes, so I got to work.
I noticed when turning the key to start the car that it didn’t turn very well at the very end, that last little motion for cranking.
I asked the customer to test it to see if it felt normal, and he said it did, so… I wondered a bit. There was a code for an issue with the transmission range sensor, and that certainly would cause a no crank no start. Or could, at least. So I was thinking that direction, but when I cleared the codes and tried to start it again, that particular code didn’t come back reliably.
So I went back to my hunch that there was an issue with the ignition. I pulled off the plastic covers that surround the steering column and all the ignition parts, and then I thought with the stupid Jeep ignition switch fasteners trying to get everything apart. For the first time in all of my years as a mechanic, I ran into temper proof torques screws on a car.
😶
The same kind of screws that you see in bathrooms where this screws that hold the stalls and whatnot to the walls and floor and all that have a little stud in the middle where the screwdriver is supposed to go, so you can’t just take the screw out. You have to get a special tool to take it out.
So I couldn’t just remove the ignition switch like I’ve been able to on every other car on planet Earth. No, of course not. Not for Jeep. So I took my chisel and I busted it out that little security piece and then took the ignition switch off, and was able to get the car started by cranking the ignition switch over.
Of course, the hole in the ignition switch was designed such that I had to actually make a tool to be able to turn it. So I got my grinder out, and I made a “key” to be able to turn the ignition switch.
Fired right up. 🥳
As I was taking everything apart, I noticed a piece of metal fallout of the ignition lock cylinder housing. I looked to see where it came from, and I found the problem. The ignition lock cylinder housing was damaged, so when you turned the ignition lock cylinder, the essential part of the system that goes in between the cylinder and the ignition switch wasn’t able to turn all the way because a little piece of metal had broken off and wasn’t putting pressure on the ignition switch in such a way as to get it to the last position to crank.
So he’s going to need a new lock cylinder housing. I’ve got to get him a quote for that still, as well as a quote for spark plugs because he asked what it would cost to get the spark plugs replaced.
But fortunately, after about 3 hours or so at that job, I finished up, and though I had plenty of other work I could do today, I decided to just head home.
I hadn’t made anybody any promises other than the Jeep, so I took advantage, and I got home I think about 5:00.
I started cleaning up a little bit at the driveway again. Putting trash in one bin and recyclables in another. I had a whole crap ton of contaminated diesel fuel that was mixed with gas. So I used that as well as contaminated gasoline that had little bits of diesel in it to burn all the weeds in the aisles of the garden. I spend a good long time doing that, and gratefully I didn’t burn myself, probably burning 10 gallons worth of fuel to burn all the weeds down.
Then I weeded all 14 grow boxes, rinse down the aisles with water under pressure, did a little bit more weeding, and then called my mom out to show her. She had no idea what I was doing, and the garden looked so massively out of control that it would be a pretty big deal for her to see the garden all weeded and ready to plant.
She was super surprised, and super grateful, and got a little teary, and that was nice. Just looking at the garden was pretty overwhelming with how out of control it had gotten, so now she won’t have to be overwhelmed by it. She can just plant and get going.
The garden aisle weighs will smell like fuel probably for a few days or so. I did rinse them all down, but it’ll take a little while for the burned fuel smell to go completely away. 🙃
I’m really tired. Starting to fall asleep as I read this.
Really grateful for my friend who’s been instrumental in helping me make progress on my porn addiction stuff.
So cool. I’ve had more hope in that area than I’ve had in a long time, which is nice, because I do need a victory somewhere, and I’ll be really really grateful if I can have one there.
In other news, I’m likely going to do a little trip around the country to visit family and friends in Utah and Washington and California and South Dakota and Nevada and whatnot. I haven’t been out to Utah since last summer, and I haven’t been through Washington and California and Nevada since 2020.
It’s about time.
Oh… I gave god a chance today. Chatted either with god or with someone who doesn’t exist. 😅
I do lean toward there being one, and I’m wanting to figure that out as much as is reasonable.
I guess we’ll see. I’m a broken little person, and i miss my god friend… The opening up of seeming conduits of communication and connection with god and even with other people.
Hope he exists. Trying one more time…
Love you, my lovelies!
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 