Another work day today, four cars.
And I didn’t do myself any favors with the cars that I scheduled, at least the first one.
The first car was going way out by the lake to a 2007 Honda Civic that was a crank no start.
When would think that a little four-cylinder Honda wouldn’t be too challenging to diagnose, but every time I tried to test something, it seemed like there were challenges that made that test either impossible or questionable.
One thing I did at least figure out was that the engine would start on an external fuel source, squirting brake cleaner through the intake.
Interestingly, the pump was making a great humming noise, as though the pump were working just fine. So I wanted to verify that the pump was indeed pumping and not just making a noise like it was.
Accordingly, I popped the trunk, unbolted the back seat, popped off the cover plate over the fuel pump, disconnected the fuel line, and commanded the pump on with my scan tool.
What did I find? The fuel was squirting out quite strongly.
🤔
So the fuel pump is working, and it’s getting spark (which I figured out earlier by accidentally getting myself shocked 😅)
So what was the deal?
I decided to take a sample of the gasoline itself, and lo and behold, it was absolutely nasty. Look like a mix of water and gasoline.
You could definitely smell that there was gas in it, but it was clearly not just gas.
So for the next maybe hour and a half, I drained the tank down to its last drop, wiped out the inside, fought like the Dickens to get the fuel pump back in, realizing that the parts were bad out of the box, at least fitment wise, and finally got everything back together.
The gentleman didn’t have gas to put in it, so that was where I left him, with instructions to put in at least 5 gallons of gas, and prime the tank several times before trying to start it.
I had tried to suck out some water out of the line, but no dice.
That was a long first job. I think something like 3 hours ish.
Car number two was a 2008 Cadillac Escalade that had a broken heater hose and was stuck in the JCPenney parking lot in the promenade shopping Center in Rogers.
Normally, those hoses are a pain to get off, but I have never ever had one that was as hard to remove as that one. I could access the tabs just fine, but it was like the thing was glued on to the other one. I fought with it and fought with it and fought with it, damaging part of the Assembly that was supposed to be reused, before finally getting the busted piece unstuck from via part of the assembly that was supposed to be reused.
Good gravy.
Gratefully, though the new assembly was also ridiculously hard to put on, it did click on and the damaged piece was successfully reused without issue.
I still don’t know what was wrong with that old piece that would cause it to be so difficult to remove the hose quick connect from. It was bigger than it was supposed to be somehow. But how? I don’t know, and the customer didn’t really seem to care that it was going to be a nightmare to get off again in the future if it ever needed to be done again, so if he’s not worried about it, then I’m not going to worry about it.
Car number 3 was a 2005 Subaru outback that I was going to do a pre-purchase inspection on. When I got there, I found that the coolant was really low and that there was a coolant leak.
At first, I didn’t find the leak, and those Subarus are notorious for blowing their head gaskets because of a poor engine design.
So he decided not to buy that one and ask me to look at another car at the same lot instead, which had a few minor issues, but I think I was able to talk him out of it more because it was over the budget that he was wanting to spend, and I didn’t want him to buy the car just to get one if it meant he was going to go into debt for the car. He had planned to only purchase a car that he could pay off in cash.
As y’all I’m sure are well aware, I highly recommend the no debt route in life. Sure, you’re going to lose out on opportunities that people who choose to go into debt might have that you won’t have, but it is really nice to not owe anyone anywhere anything and be tied to a payment that I must make or risk losing the thing that I purchased via debt financing.
And how funny is it that as I write that, I’m contemplating going into debt to buy a piece of property. 😅
The last car of the day, number four, was a 2007 Honda Accord that was dead. No lights on the dash, no nothing. That one was way out by the lake, but on the Springdale side of the lake.
I got out there and found that they had a blown mega fuse, which is not a part that I can get locally at the local parts stores, at least not that I’m aware of and couldn’t find via autozone’s app, so I taught the customer how to replace the part themselves. They had other issues with the car, issues that sounded like a starter that was beginning to go bad, but without being able to even try and start the car safely until a new mega fuse was purchased, it wasn’t really possible to diagnose that other than to guess based on the make, model, generation, and engine size, which is known for having starter issues compared to the V6 counterpart
So I suggested what it likely was, but without any ability to be certain.
From there, it was on to the house, more just answer stuff, I think, winding myself down a little bit, and then going to bed.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 