(written on the first)
It was in the ’80s yesterday.
The 80s!
And I walked out this morning in shorts and a t-shirts, and it was, I think, 28°.
😶
Welcome to Northwest Arkansas.
😅😆
I didn’t go out working on cars right away today. I actually drove over to Hidden Springs Park to redo the flow test on the spring. I realized that the pond was still filling up when we did our test before, so I came back today with the pond at what looks to be its equilibrium depth, and I redid the test. I repositioned the flow-test drain pipe, sealed around it more effectively, so that basically the entire flow was going through the 4-in PVC pipe, grabbed the 5 gallon bucket, pulled out my cell phone, opened up my stopwatch app, and we were off to the races.
And guess what?!?!
The flow was more than double what it was before, and it hadn’t rained, so there was no addition because of precipitation. The flow was somewhere between 10:00 and 11 gallons a minute, I think.
🥳
That’s super significant because it means that there’s a much larger flow of water possible through the ramp pump up the hill. The more flow we can get, the more likely it will be that we can maintain the level of the Big pond once we get it to seal and hold water at least somewhat effectively.
Anyway, so that was super cool.
And I was freezing my butt off. 🥶😆
I only did three cars today. The first one was a 2013 Dodge avenger that they’d had mechanics look at, but no one had been able to figure out the issue. I found myself feeling much the same way as I tried to diagnose what was going on with it. No check engine codes at all. It would just randomly die. But it would always start right back up. Then it would die again immediately. Or maybe it would last for a while, but it would always eventually die.
At first, I didn’t think I was going to be able to reproduce the issue. It seemed to be working just fine, then all the sudden as I was coming around to bend, it just up and died.
I kept on the test drive after restarting it, and eventually, it got to the point where it would die pretty much immediately after restarting it. I struggled to figure out a way to get it back to the house.
Eventually, I made it back.
But I was still clueless as to what on earth was going on.
Then, the godsend. The check engine light came on. 🥳🥳🥳
I looked at the code, and it was a p0171, alene code. Indicating that it was either getting too much air or not enough fuel.
Having listened to the fuel pump, and feeling like the sound that it was making was not normal, I decided it was pretty likely that it could be a fuel pump issue.
So I opened up the intake hose, started the engine, and waited for it to almost die, then I sprayed some brake cleaner into the intake, and it stayed running. I did that several more times until I was satisfied that I was dealing with a low fuel issue.
🥳
Being cold and having other jobs to do, I wasn’t feeling up to driving to the parts store, getting a pump, coming back, and doing the whole installation.
So I scheduled a time to come back on Friday to do the repair.
On the car number two.
Car number two, gratefully, was an easy peasy one. They had rounded off one of their lug nuts, so I sacrificed one of my tools to get it off, using one of the reverse thread lug nut removers that tighten up as you screw them on lefty tighty.
The last car of the day, though I actually was supposed to have two more cars, was a 2003 Honda Odyssey that they were having trouble getting the belt back on. It was a hydraulic tensioner, so I figured that they just weren’t giving it enough pressure to compress the hydraulic piston on the tensioner. It can require a heck of a lot of pressure to compress that piston.
So I went over there thinking it was going to be a relatively easy job, though out in the middle of nowhere.
It turned out to be anything but. 😕
What I didn’t know is that they were well versed in putting the belt on themselves, having changed their own alternator several times. This time, though, something was up that made it so the belt couldn’t be put on.
I didn’t realize that until I got out there.
They had already ruined one tensioner trying to get the belt on, so they purchased another tensioner, and they had rounded off one of the bungs. Fortunately, there was another bung, but in the process of trying to get the belt on, I rounded that one off as well.
😶
I had brought another tensioner with me, just in case, so I installed that one, and went to put the belt on. That’s when I realized that the issue was not with the tensioners. Yes, they were made of crappy soft metal that shouldn’t get ruined like that, but something else was going on. So I searched and searched and looked all around and tried to find some thing somewhere that would cause the belt to be unable to install. I checked the part number on the belt, but it was the right part number. I looked at the police, but they were all in line with no damage that I could see anywhere.
So what the heck?
I came out and did the job that they asked me to do, except that it couldn’t be done. I spent hours out there. By the time I left, it had been almost 3 hours on what was supposed to be just putting a belt on.
Crappy situation for both of us.
The best I could come up with was that the belt had actually been manufactured too short. There was nothing else that I could surmise could be the issue.
So I gave them instructions to go get another belt, and I gave them a particular brand to get that supposedly was a few millimeters longer than the one that they had purchased that we had been trying to put on. And then I instructed them to go ahead and buy the next three sizes up of belt even though They were part numbers for different vehicles.
What a mess.
I ended up only charging them for the service call and the actual price of the tensioner that I paid for it with my commercial discount. Crappy for both of us. I lose money and time, and they pay for something that still isn’t fixed.
And The fault was with neither of us.
Crappy. 🤕
By the time I left that job out in the middle of nowhere, I was a bit chilled, and I just was in no mood to do the last job on my schedule. Fortunately, I had mentioned to them in the morning that it might end up being another day, so it wasn’t like I hung them out to dry. I’ve been better, lately, at scheduling things in such a way that makes it more flexible for me to postpone if necessary just in case the day goes longer than I expect. I’ve been giving people a percentage of likelihood guesstimate for getting them in that day, and letting them know that it’s also possible it will end up being the next work day.
Anyway, So I was spent mentally after that job and cold and tired and just wanted to head home, so I did.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 