The worst day working on a truck is better than…

The worst day working on a truck is better than…

So three days and a few hundred dollars later, the truck may or may not be “fixed.” It has been running all along, but the Chevy wouldn’t hold coolant. This meant that, in addition to the costs of driving a vehicle that apparently delivers a mileage ratio of 3.4 miles per gallon, I was having to purchase radiator stop leak and anti-freeze every 100 miles. The last straw was having to ask someone in the self-check-out line for 18 cents to finish paying for just those two items – feeling someone like the alcoholic who has grown to prefer anti-freeze to bottom-shelf liquor.

At any rate, because I am now a full-time farmer who is motivated to save money and fix things like engines and plumbing on my own, I decided to put an end to the great anti-freeze debacle of 2014 by replacing a few hoses. I replaced one hose with the help of a young man at the local parts store, and it was fixed – for about 100 miles. So, I looked around the engine with a flashlight after returning home from a drive to the lumber yard and recognized fluid on a hose just centimeters from the hose I had just replaced. “Ahhh – that hose obviously needs replacing” I thought to myself, and I’m just the farmer who can do it.

There are significant differences in the skill sets of farmers and auto mechanics when it comes to auto mechanicking, but a farmer fix is as good as any. As such, I set my face toward the challenge at hand and began to move the “other” radiator hose. The truck was already in the “I’m working on the truck” mode when I decided to go back to the parts store, so I took the Prizm (our other Chevy – I’m partial to Chevys built before the turn of the century) to the parts store and told them I had a leak at end of the radiator hose that runs “from” the engine to somewhere…

They showed me the part I needed, and it looked just like one the parts on the “other” radiator hose so I went right home and set about to fixin’ stuff n’ stuff. I began to remove the hose where I had spied another fluid leak. Wow – what a process that was. Most of you may know that standard wrench sets only come with wrenches up to 7/8”. I needed a 15/16”, and incredibly, 1” and 1 1/16” wrenches as well. Because I am not a mechanic, it never occurred to me that I would need three more wrenches than I already had to work on this truck, so of course, I went to the hardware store three different times.

I struggled to remove the part in question from the truck, but after a few more trips to the parts store for some Q and A time and camaraderie with the real mechanics, I finally removed the item and took it up to show them the cooling system part. You see, during my many visits to the parts store, We all came to a realization that someone had been jerry-rigging this truck because its seems that some of the tools that I needed were not necessary to the job I was trying to perform.

I walked in and triumphantly laid the part onto the counter and said “that part you gave me isn’t even necessary for this. I’m not sure what this is.”

“Well,” said a wise woman behind the counter, “that is an EGR pipe. There’s no coolant in there, that’s exhaust.”

“Oh.”

Then I added, ‘I ruined part, so I need a replacement. Also, I broke a few things on the truck trying to get to that part.”

Conversation continued between myself, the employees, and various customers who happened to wander in during the cumulative hours that I spent at the store trying to communicate with others who know what they are doing. Finally, it all came together. This morning, I replaced a $240 part that I broke by snapping to plastic pieces off while trying to bend over it to get to something else. This required only two trips to the store. Now, I have ignition, and the truck is running. I just need to get it out on the road to see if there is a coolant leak. And what did we decide about the continuing fact of coolant leakage? It seems that the clamps for the hose may have lost tension, thus allowing coolant to be sprayed out due to a less-than-snug seal between the radiator hose and the nozzle. I’m about to take it for a spin and test everything out. Better I write about it now when my mind is not full of the kind of language that gets me in trouble around Quaker meetings and home-school groups.