Everlasting Vehicular Drama
I spent the day working on cars, so here's a little vehicle status update:
Started on Christina's Jeep, as this was the fundamental task. The front brakes on her truck have been WAAAY beyond shot for about 2 weeks, preventing it from being driven at all. She was well past being down to metal on the pads, and $ hasn't been friendly to us the past few weeks. I tracked down pads and rotors for $75 shipped, and the main plan was to put them in today.
The toughest part of this was being able to actually get the truck off the ground. I have 2 hydraulic jacks, neither in the best of shape, and her truck is pretty high and heavy. After a few attempts using a rim & bricks to prop up the jacks, it wasn't working out. I ended up using her stock bottle jack successfully. There were no significant issues swapping out the parts. I definitely spent more time jacking up and taking down the truck than changing the parts. Not uncommon for a typical backyard disc brake job.
Then I moved onto the Subaru. In the last few weeks I had some realization about the Subaru, mainly, that since the FL repair, I had been driving the car regularly, and the only issues started in the heat of summer and it started overheating. When I had the car taken back in after that, there was a ton of other issues discovered, hence why I bought the cop car. But essentially, it was only the overheating issues changing the driving status of the car. Now that the temp is cooler, there's much less chance of it overheating. Hypothetically of course. If nothing else, I wanted to check out the possibility since the worst case scenario leaves me in the situation I'm in now....a dead Subaru. I figure if I can extract anything else out of it, it would be to my advantage. And not gonna lie, I miss my car :(
On Thursday I had taken the thermostat out, but I was unsuccessful in getting it started due to a dead battery. So after working on the Jeep, I used it to jumpstart the Subaru. It started, and actually sounded decent....interestingly, despite being last diagnosed with _6_ check engine codes, the check engine light was out. However, the car was smoking like crazy from all over, under the hood, under the car, out the exhaust, etc. I'm sure part of it was due to it sitting, and who knows what kind of vegetation, cobwebs etc were there, as well as it having to blow out whatever's settled in the past few months. But it did persist, and I have reason to believe it may have blown a (two?) head gasket. Though it was only smoking a little bit after a while. I let it run for about 45 minutes through, and no overheating. It did seem like it started running a little worse toward the end but, I still have a glimmer of hope for it. I'm gonna check out / change out the spark plugs, and see how it goes.
Next order of business was the Caprice. Ever since I got it, the front driver's side made an occasional clunk, which progressed worse and worse. I thought it was one of the ball joints going. Thursday morning on the way taking James to work (he's having his own vehicular issues), on the highway, it made another clunk, and the steering got stiff and the car got wandery. Not very good. I babied it, and got it back home. Upon taking the wheel off, I discovered that the ball joint hadn't gone, but the upped control arm had disconnected itself, and pushed itself into the motor and steering. I went yesterday and bought 8 bucks worth of bolts, nuts, and washers. One of the bolts had come completely off, so I had replaced it, and the other was really loose. It took a bit of elbow grease, but I got both bolts tightened up reasonably quickly, and it completely solved the clunking issue. It actually feels like the front end and front wheels are connected to the car now. This very well may be the first time I ever had a genuine "major" repair that was solved with under $10 worth of parts!
Of course this was all too good to be true. The next step was to test the brakes on the Jeep. I did a couple of panic stops in the yard, but the pedal started to feel spongy and the brake light came on. I looked and saw brake fluid. It was coming from the back. Lots of it...
I jacked up the back and took off the tire, and saw that there was a pinhole in the brake line. So despite the overall successful repair day, the Jeep was again immobilized. It looked a little rusted, so it is pretty likely that this problem was unrelated, and very likely could've been on an open road, maybe even with Tristan in the car, and the fact that it happened in my yard is quite the blessing. She'll have it towed to her ex's shop tomorrow and it'll get taken care of Monday hopefully.
Always something when it comes to cars. I love cars. But damn do I hate them too. *sigh*
Started on Christina's Jeep, as this was the fundamental task. The front brakes on her truck have been WAAAY beyond shot for about 2 weeks, preventing it from being driven at all. She was well past being down to metal on the pads, and $ hasn't been friendly to us the past few weeks. I tracked down pads and rotors for $75 shipped, and the main plan was to put them in today.
The toughest part of this was being able to actually get the truck off the ground. I have 2 hydraulic jacks, neither in the best of shape, and her truck is pretty high and heavy. After a few attempts using a rim & bricks to prop up the jacks, it wasn't working out. I ended up using her stock bottle jack successfully. There were no significant issues swapping out the parts. I definitely spent more time jacking up and taking down the truck than changing the parts. Not uncommon for a typical backyard disc brake job.
Then I moved onto the Subaru. In the last few weeks I had some realization about the Subaru, mainly, that since the FL repair, I had been driving the car regularly, and the only issues started in the heat of summer and it started overheating. When I had the car taken back in after that, there was a ton of other issues discovered, hence why I bought the cop car. But essentially, it was only the overheating issues changing the driving status of the car. Now that the temp is cooler, there's much less chance of it overheating. Hypothetically of course. If nothing else, I wanted to check out the possibility since the worst case scenario leaves me in the situation I'm in now....a dead Subaru. I figure if I can extract anything else out of it, it would be to my advantage. And not gonna lie, I miss my car :(
On Thursday I had taken the thermostat out, but I was unsuccessful in getting it started due to a dead battery. So after working on the Jeep, I used it to jumpstart the Subaru. It started, and actually sounded decent....interestingly, despite being last diagnosed with _6_ check engine codes, the check engine light was out. However, the car was smoking like crazy from all over, under the hood, under the car, out the exhaust, etc. I'm sure part of it was due to it sitting, and who knows what kind of vegetation, cobwebs etc were there, as well as it having to blow out whatever's settled in the past few months. But it did persist, and I have reason to believe it may have blown a (two?) head gasket. Though it was only smoking a little bit after a while. I let it run for about 45 minutes through, and no overheating. It did seem like it started running a little worse toward the end but, I still have a glimmer of hope for it. I'm gonna check out / change out the spark plugs, and see how it goes.
Next order of business was the Caprice. Ever since I got it, the front driver's side made an occasional clunk, which progressed worse and worse. I thought it was one of the ball joints going. Thursday morning on the way taking James to work (he's having his own vehicular issues), on the highway, it made another clunk, and the steering got stiff and the car got wandery. Not very good. I babied it, and got it back home. Upon taking the wheel off, I discovered that the ball joint hadn't gone, but the upped control arm had disconnected itself, and pushed itself into the motor and steering. I went yesterday and bought 8 bucks worth of bolts, nuts, and washers. One of the bolts had come completely off, so I had replaced it, and the other was really loose. It took a bit of elbow grease, but I got both bolts tightened up reasonably quickly, and it completely solved the clunking issue. It actually feels like the front end and front wheels are connected to the car now. This very well may be the first time I ever had a genuine "major" repair that was solved with under $10 worth of parts!
Of course this was all too good to be true. The next step was to test the brakes on the Jeep. I did a couple of panic stops in the yard, but the pedal started to feel spongy and the brake light came on. I looked and saw brake fluid. It was coming from the back. Lots of it...
I jacked up the back and took off the tire, and saw that there was a pinhole in the brake line. So despite the overall successful repair day, the Jeep was again immobilized. It looked a little rusted, so it is pretty likely that this problem was unrelated, and very likely could've been on an open road, maybe even with Tristan in the car, and the fact that it happened in my yard is quite the blessing. She'll have it towed to her ex's shop tomorrow and it'll get taken care of Monday hopefully.
Always something when it comes to cars. I love cars. But damn do I hate them too. *sigh*