How I spent father's day weekend

Yesterday, I had planed to change the timing belt, water pump and thermostat on C's car to make sure that I know when it was last done. After going to but the parts, I started about 11AM. Had the whole car apart in a little over an hour. Installing the parts and re-assembly took about 2 and a half hours.

However, in the middle of this I get a call from A that her call stalled on the interstate about 3 miles from home. She is in tears as she could reach nobody because I had left my phone on C's front seat while I worked on her car, C and K's phones were on vibrate mode in their purses and not within hearing distance for vibrate. It took A 4 calls to me for me to hear the phone ring. She did not try to call home, why?????

After calming her down and asking what happened, I asked her to try to restart her car. It ran with a Check Engine Light (CEL) but nothing worse. I asked if the car was running ok, with a positive affirmation, she was told to drive the car home. (take note of the interruption, needed later in this missive).

She arrived home and I used my scanner to determine the problems. The diagnostic codes for the CEL indicated that a sensor was going bad. This sensor was not inexpensive, but not bad, so I sent K off to the auto parts store to get the part.

So while K was off to get the part, I finished the job started on C's car. After that was completed, I turned my attention to A's car. I looked at the part and tried to find in my manual where the part was and how to replace it. I used the Internet to try to locate the part and a DIY on how to replace it. I took the part to the car and tried to imagine where the part fit to figure out how to replace it.

Well I selected the wrong part for K to buy. So after much searching and digging, the right part was determined, so after church, K and I went to exchange the old part and get the right part. Well, NAPA took the old part back without problems, but did not have the desired part, so we had to go to Winston-Salem, about a 20 minute drive to pick-up the part.

We get home about noon and begin have lunch. C says that her car made a horrible racket just as she was turning onto our street and as she was turning into our drive, the temperature gauge had started to rise. Remember the interruption mentioned earlier. Well that interruption came just as I was tightening the bolts on the water pump drive pulley. I had neglected to tighten them enough, so her car shed a couple of bolts and the water pump drive belt. A quick trip to Ace Hardware for a couple of new bolts, then 20 minutes after arriving home, C was back in business.

We had the right part for A's car now. After trying for 3 hours to get the old part off the way that folks on the Internet said, I finally resorted to plan W, having exhausted all of plans A-V.

This called for me to remove a motor mount on the car. It took about 40 min to remove the motor mount, supporting the engine with a jack stand and 1x4 under the oil pan. Once the motor mount was removed, it took about 20 min to replace the sensor and about 90 minutes to put things back together. At no point when the motor mount was removed was I under the engine. The work was done from the top during that period. The car was on ramps.

All this finished about 7:45 tonight with a successful test drive. After putting my tools away, a not so quick shower, K and I were off to the grocery store for a couple of items.

Both cars are now running with preventive maintenance done. Hope your Father's Day was a good one too.