Just barely and Thank You Jesus, Thank You Jesus, Thank You Jesus, for helping me get through it without any major fuck ups or pouring down rain.
Pertin’ near 7 hours, from start to closing the garage door and I am wiped, the fuck, out.
I literally came in the house and fell into my recliner because I almost didn’t make it.
Of course there were a couple glitches.
For one, when I bought the new pump my gut kept telling me to buy a gallon of coolant but my brain kept telling me I had plenty laying around.
Technically, my brain was right.
When I went to grab some, I found a half a gallon of the Green stuff, which I needed, two gallons of the Orange stuff and a gallon of the Blue stuff.
The Orange stuff was for her Dad’s Yukon which is long gone and the Blue stuff is for the Kid’s Hyundai, which my youngest daughter is currently driving.
The best part is after I put some water and the half gallon of Green stuff in, I went to shut the hood to go get more after warming it up and checking for leaks and the damn hood all of a sudden doesn’t want to latch.
In total I spent better than a half an hour dicking with that. Of course after I got it closed and went and got the Anti Freeze, it didn’t want to open back up again.
More cursing, prying and swearing.
After drowning the latching mechanism in WD-40, adjusting the stops, shimming the latch and adjusting it sideways, I finally took it clear off and started over. It finally starting opening and closing.
Fuck You Murphy.
Asshole.
I had to stop for breaks six or seven times before I finally got everything put back away and now I am going to chill out for a bit. Then I am going to take a shower and go get a birthday card and some cash for the Grandson’s 12th birthday.
He is already 5 foot 10 and weighs 155 pounds.
The freaking kid is as big as I am.
At 12.
Scary.
So after this repair job, I am thinking that after fifty years of wrenching on shit, I am pretty much officially semi retired from working on fucking cars.
Sure I’ll still do the stupid simple and easy stuff but the days of me laying across an engine bay or underneath on the concrete are pretty much done.
It’s time to start the triage process and start getting rid of stuff so I won’t even be tempted.
My body just can’t take it anymore.
Let me tell ya, I can relate. Just got done putting a rear main seal in my son’s truck and have been tuning and tweaking the thing. On initial startup, no leaks. After running off and on several times, I buttoned her up and moved it out of the garage. Come back in to find a puddle of oil under where the truck was sitting. I give up.
I did the same thing about coolant though. Thought I had plenty. I had 1.5 gallons of CAT red ELC, put that in, still needed more. Found a gallon of green, put that in. Still needs more. Added some Ford Gold coolant after that. Don’t know how well they play together, but I don’t care.
Ah, yes, the joys of old age, decrepitude and vehicles. You spend an hour getting the necessary tools together – apart from the three you have to get from upstairs halfway through the five minute job which is taking two hours. After it’s completed you spend another hour cleaning and putting away the tools – many of which you didn’t need after all. Then you wash up and flop down to recover from the bruises inflicted by the car, the tools and the concrete you’ve been lying on. It’s now time to reflect on a task well completed and to look forward to aching all over for the next three days . . .
But you gotta admit, it still feels good to think “I whupped that bastid” doesn’t it?
You’re right: I hate being beaten by ANY machine!
Don;t know how many ‘auxiliary’ brackets you had to deal with, but on a 360 w AC, EVERY aux bracket has one hole that goes under a pump bolt..
Which means you get to loosen every bracket’s bolts and hopefully have enough room to slide the new pump in without bunging up the gasket ( Thank God for Indian Head Sealer).
Had a neighbor who was foreman for a construction crew. He reached the point where his body was wiped out – both shoulder joints were shot and needed surgery. He had to retire from that job, and ended up buying run down small furniture items from garage sales, refurbishing them, and selling them on ebay. He ended up making more money that way that he did in construction. He found something his body could still handle and went with it.
Brought to mind this piece I wrote about 25 years ago:
Am I the only one this kind of merde happens to or am I just the only one who talks about it?
Time for an oil change in the ol’ Camaro, right?
O.K. Drain the old stuff, replace the filter, pop the hood, and put in the new oil. A snap. Done it so many times I could do it in my sleep.
But . . . Hood refused to pop. Pulled and pulled on the release cable — no joy.
Smacked the hood above the latch release with the palm of my hand.
Pulled some more on the cable.
Developed some new terms and phrases to enrich the mother tongue.
Great! Now there’s no oil in the engine, so I can’t drive it to a shop for some help.
O.k. First develop some more new words.
Now — it’s an old car, so maybe the cable or the release lever is corroded. Good thinking, but how the hell do you get at it without opening the hood? No way to get a hand up there from underneath, trust me.
A few more new descriptive adjectives and other identifiers.
Bounced on the hood some more — even slipped a flat piece of steel between hood and frame to try to release the latch. Right!! Kinda like trying to reach up inside a Coke machine and get the can when you know it’s caught in the gravity channel.
Try some primal screaming. Shi’ite !!
Got two ladder-hanging hooks so I could get both hands on the cabin release cable handle. Figgered if I broke it, so what? Pulled and pulled and . . . . “clunk!” It finally gave, sounding encouragingly similar to what you’d want to hear. At least it didn’t come all the way out like a snake in my hand.
Still no joy. Hood didn’t move a millimeter. Banged on it, threatened it, questioned its sexual habits, and several other ploys, but it remained steadfastly truculent.
Fell back on traditional words and phrases; neologisms clearly weren’t working, so maybe the time-honored exhortations would do some good.
Yeah. Right!
Got a small hose and ran it up to the latch release from under the radiator, snaking it around the A/C and engine heat exchanger coils with a coathanger . . . and after countless tries, finally got it positioned fairly close to where I thought it should be. Poured some wintergreen into it, and the hose fell back into the radiator tray.
Traditional oaths didn’t seem to be working, so I shifted to Tex-Mex and Tagalog. Re-ran the hose, now quite aromatic, and got it back in delivery position. Took a deep breath and carbureted the mass all over the area of the release mechanism. You got ANY idea what that stuff does when it gets in your mouth and eyes?
Crawled out from under the machine, issued a variety of public ultimatums, and flushed my face and hands with water. Went back, kicked the front bumper, and tried the hood again. Nothing. I think the damned thing was actually laughing at me.
Well, &@%!^$ and *?@*&! And $%#?@!* for good measure, you %&#?&!*#.
Came in and ate dinner. By golly that oughta show it who’s boss.
O.K. you moofin sumbitch. Crawled up under it again, slid a coathanger up to the release latch, and wiggled and wiggled and wiggled and wiggled and wiggled and wiggled it . . . and swore . . . and got back out, pulled on the cable, and “click?” Something happened! Hood came up about 1/8 inch. Ha Ha! You miserable lump of insensate polymers and alloys. Gotcha! Ran around and tried to lift the hood.
Had to drag out the few meaningful obscenities I remember from French and Italian with a couple of vaguely Germanic gutteralisms. Yes, of course I had managed to jerk so hard on the thing I succeeded only in latching it closed again!!!!
There CAN’T be a god! No reasonable, omniscient intelligence would visit such torture and frustration on a mere mortal. We’ve already had a Job, and a Hosea, and a Prometheus, and even a Dan Quayle, for chrissake.
Last resort — fell back on speaking in tongues, pure nonsense, running gibberish commentary with animated gestures and full-body posturing. Pried up the hood about 1/4 inch with two pieces of shelf angleiron and taped a plastic drinking straw onto a can of WD-40. Couldn’t see anything, but pointed the straw where I thought the release spring/lever would be and half-emptied the brand-new can.
Tried the release again. “Thoonk!” None of that tentative “click?” or “(clunk)” or even “twang . . .” crap. A decided, resounding, proud, satisfying “Thoonk!” Hood sprang up about 3/4 inch, just enough to get fingers in there and move the secondary catch. A choir of heavenly voices in 8-part harmony with full orchestral accompaniment heralded the “Raising of the Prodigal Hood.”
Joy! And humanity’s reservoir of self-expression has been forever enriched with new, vibrant, powerful descriptors and ominous buzzwords. My chest thrust proudly forward, my spirits soaring, I poured the new oil in, closed the hood . . . called the wife unit out to pull the release cable several times while I reseated the hood, just to make sure — and it worked perfectly every time! — and then cleaned up my mess. Boy, it sure feels good to be done!
Started the engine, watched the oil pressure warning light go off, and backed the car off the ramps. Closed the window, got out, and saw that the left rear tire is going flat.
How was YOUR day?
We related?
Shit… I’d still be tethered to that project.
In fact tomorrow round 3 on a power stg. pump repair on a cummins that I cant get the fused wrists to rèach. And yes, the RR tire is now also flat.Gonna try a bit of Pendleton as a lubricant for the tongue…
Count me also re; the flat right-rear tire.
And my usual parting shot when encountering something like bocopro’s little adventure is “See? That wasn’t so damn hard, now was it?” within earshot of the machine.
My ’18 F150 V8 was due for 75k mile oil change. I use AMSOIL, and typically do the deed at home, but I’m retired and on the road, trailering around the Mojave Desert. I contacted a local Bent Wrench shop and they did the deed for $20. I walked over from the next door laundromat without breaking a sweat.
But I’ll toast you for your story. I can relate. I’m retired and I approve of this message.
Congratulations!
I spent this morning pulling a 2018 F-150 3.5L Eco-boost apart. It has 88k on it. My buddy bought it just over a month ago and it appears it has jumped time and it is an interference engine. He was pulling a 4k pound travel trailer down the interstate when it happened. The heads and pistons are junk. It had extensive maintenance records with the PO using Mobile1 oil at the heavy duty maintenance cycle.
IMO a F-150 with an Eco-Boost engine should never carry a load or tow a trailer. It should be a highway cruiser. The Eco-Boost engines cannot reliably handle truck duties like a normally asperated V-8. I have not seen one used as a work truck make it past 125k miles.
FYI: I have always done my own maintenance and I have rebuilt a few transmissions and engines but that is not my primary skills. This was my first teardown of a 3.5L. A junkyard 3.5L without turbos is $2400 that has 60K miles on it. Another $900 R/R and incidentals should get this back on the road with a life of about 50 or 60 K miles. My take is to fix it and sell it to buy a truck with a 5.0L or a 6.2L.
I have done most of my own mechanical maintenance since I was 15.
Now, I spend the same amount of time looking for a “pro” mechanic as I would have if I’d have just done it myself. I’ve got two good trucks to tend to, the old one is now 24 years old, the new one is 21.
I still do the light work, but the 2000 Frontier probably needs a timing chain. Not gonna do it, will farm it out.
It’s frustrating. I have X-ray report on my hands that have terms like “Bone on Bone”, joint malformation, osteopenia, etc.
Dr.’s recommendation: Surgical consult. I just had three rods and 12 screws installed to fuse 7 vertebrae in the cervical spine with results that are still “pending”.
I can still _do_ things.
The price I pay in pain afterwards is entirely too steep.
Nobody in this house seems to comprehend this. I’m still handed jars to open and get odd looks when I take them out to the garage to find a strap wrench in order to do it.
I will wrench till I die!
That said,it may be the cause of my death!
I run old vehicles(in mint shape) and thus avoid a lot of insanity,still,there are auto engineers that have a short life expectancy if I meet them face to face!
On a side note,have a spare strap wrench in kitchen for jars,thank me later!
Boco,epic rant!
Walmart sells a tool that takes batteries. Press a button and the rubber holder moves to size of jar, metal holder comes out and latches onto size of lid and then Snap it opens. Have bone on bone in hands and with hubby gone I can’t open most lids. Works wonderful.
I’m too stupid to quit, I guess. The old lungs give me about 10 minutes of use, then I have to stop for half an hour to rest up for the next 10 minutes. Turns an hour job into a day…. day and half. But there have been days I’ve almost thrown in the towel.
I can think of worse ways to go than cussing Detroit.
I got out of wrenching specifically because I didn’t want to have a broken body by the time I was 50. The skills come in handy, I do most of my own work along with the occasional side job, but not coming home every day hurting and smelling like oil, fuel, gear oil, etc. is kinda nice. Tub stays cleaner too.
I know the feeling. Worked as a mechanic for a time, and worked on my own vehicles for years before and after my “official” wrench turning. My air compressor sprang a leak years ago, and now I have a bunch of old air tools that I can’t use, but can’t bear to get rid of.
Good luck.
I can build stuff. Process machinery, heavy steel, thick concrete, that kinda stuff. My father was an ace mechanic, but his genetics did not pass on and anything automotive has always been malevolent toward me and better left to professionals. I’ve had the great, good fortune to have a great independent shop a mile & a half down the road from me to handle that shit quickly and efficiently.
But now he’s having trouble finding help, and at the age he’s ready to sell out or just pack it in altogether. What then? I dunno. Walk, I guess.
My Dad used to say, “It’s hell getting old”. Started sucking when I started finding out he wasn’t lying. I still refuse to grow up