Being usually poor and having a father that taught me to do things myself, I usually attempt to do things myself when possible. And so I have done with mixed results. Saturday was my biggest foul ball ever.
I have had a coolant leak for a while. It drips and drips and I have had to add fluid or water ever once in a while for weeks now. Finally, we figured it was leaking from my coolant sensor. So, I pulled it out and broke it putting it back in and bought another and put it back in. I thought that my have fixed it but, to no avail. Then dad said I should try putting some teflon tape on it. So, last Saturday, I decided to give it a whirl. I removed the sensor, put some tape on it and proceeded to put it back in.
Now understand, the location of said sensor is to say the least awkward. To remove, or install, the sensor, I had to use a deep socket with a long extension cause a regular ratchet had to large a head. Also there was only a 70 - 80 degree opening wherein I could turn the extension. And with the other junk in the way, the extension is out at a 45 degree angle. So needless to say a tedious job and kind of difficult to judge how things were going. Tighten a little, reposition the socket, tighten, reposition, tighten, etc... I was making good progress when suddenly I heard some dripping. Wait...dripping???...there should be no dripping!!!
I looked down and sure enough, I had fluid dripping underneath the car. So I whipped out my flashlight to look at my work area and saw a long silvery crack running vertically out of the socket for the coolant sensor. @&*#& #**#*@!$ !!!!!@*!$$!@
I broke my bloody car!!!
Actually, I am fairly proud of myself. I didn't scream, yell, swear (well, I sort of swore in russian...I said "The devil take it" which is somewhat like dammit), and only gave the bumper a slight kick to show the car who was boss. After all, who could I get mad at??? I was the putz that broke it. It was ALL ME!!!
It was a miserable weekend wondering how much it would take to fix it, followed by a miserable Monday knowing how much it would take to fix it, followed by miserable (hasn't ended yet) realization how much it did cost to fix it. Ira has let me off easy with only some good natured salt-in-wounds remarks. After all, we weren't going to use that $800 bucks for anything important.
Silver lining (i.e. half hearted attempt to make myself feel less stupid) -- chevy's have a problem with the manifold gasket. Eventually, it would have to be changed to the tune of $600 when it cracked and the manifold developed a leak. Now I have the updated gasket. I also got a "free" oil change. A thermostat tuneup, and my fluid swapped out. And I learned an important lesson...again: Working on cars sucks.
2 comments:
Hopefully I learned my lesson after replacing my radiator in the ol' Accord. Have yet to need to go in for the Camry yet, but when I do, we'll see if I'm as brave as you.
He He He! Seems we have all learned a thing or two from our father and sometimes it doesn't work out as well as it seemed to for him (although I do recall him being frustrated with this or that every now and again). By the way....no, I did not get your e-mail about Kiril. I am, however, looking forward to hearing about it. Are you e-mailing my new address at rmgci5@yahoo.com? I will await it with anticipation.
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