Car Fixin'

Today was a big day for me. It was the day that I entered a world I have avoided for too long, and one with which I hope to soon become well acquainted. It is the world of auto repair. I have felt like a total ignoramus when it comes to car stuff for almost my whole life. To illustrate, I became supremely proud of myself when I replaced the windshield washer fluid when the shop guys failed to top off the reservoir when we got our oil changed. I think that such a task compares with hanging motionless from the monkey bars in the world of physical fitness. Regardless, it was a small step in the right direction. I mean, if you think about it, I had to identify the washer fluid reservoir among all of the other reservoirs under the hood, like the coolant reservoir, the oil reservoir, and the headlight fluid reservoir. Cause for kudos? I think so.

But today was different. About two weeks ago our friends moved out of their apartment to go to New York for school. They were in the process of selling their car when it sprang a leak. A neighbor from the ward offered to help them fix it, but they needed a new tool from Sears. Because their car was on the operating table, and his wife had his (I think), we offered to drive them to Sears. While riding in our little '97 Mazda Protege, he noticed the less-than subtle thumping/creaking sound that comes from our rear suspension. I told them just to ignore it because after visiting three different mechanics I received confirmation that it was a mostly cosmetic problem and was not pressing. However, it is rather embarrassing to drive around a thumping/creaking car all the time - but at this time it hasn't been $300 embarrassing.

He told me that if I was interested he would be willing to help me work on it if I wanted to do it myself. I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to take the plunge into the world of auto repair: a willing and experienced mentor, a chance to save some serious $$$, something that is less complicated than many other car problems and yet represents a pretty substantial job. I told him I would be interested in taking him up on his offer and ordered the replacement struts (a variant of shock absorbers) from AutoZone.

Unfortunately, neither of us was really able to work on it until today - two days before we move to Boise. But when he got back from Canada and I got a complete draft of my Master's Thesis to Dr. Spackman, we finally had a chance to take this puppy on. He came over this morning and we went to town. I was so excited! I had researched strut replacement online and had some pretty detailed instructions for us to use. We took the wheel off of the problem strut and found that there is a rubber sleeve that covers the top part of the strut which appeared cracked and broken. He told me to check around to see if we could pick one up somewhere. I called around and found out that no one carries them but the dealers. So I called the local Mazda dealer and found out that they would have to order it in and it wouldn't arrive until Thursday. That was not going to work. Sad.

But we decided to go ahead and replace the other strut because its protective sleeve was still in tact. After learning how to replace the "good" strut, I could then replace the other at my lesiure once we got to Idaho and I had time to order the sleeve. So we got to work and made some good progress. It was so exhilirating to be tinkering around under there and seeing how things worked. We had to make another trip to AutoZone to pick up some bolt loosener to spray on some of these bolts and screws. That got us through our first problem bolt and we were really cooking. Then we got to the final two bolts that attach the wheel disc to the strut - these were real doozies! They would not budge! We sprayed the stuff on and cut around them to remove any paint or gunk that may have been keeping the spray from getting down to the problem areas. We still couldn't get the leverage we needed to pop those things off. Jordan (the mechanic mentor) asked me if we had a pipe anywhere, because if we put the pipe over the handle of the rachet then we could get better leverage and would have a better chance at getting this thing off. I went back to the shed to look around and found an old exercise bike that had been there since we moved in. I saw that it had two metal pipes on the bottom as balances. I pulled it out, flipped it over, unscrewed the screw, and we had our pipe. With that, the top nut was history - we leveraged the sucker right off. Then it was on to the bottom nut.

The bottom nut turned out to be our Everest. We used the pipe, we sprayed the spray, we flexed our muscles, and that beast would not give one bit! We kept working on it and then the rachet broke. I felt really bad until Jordan said that because they were MasterCraft tools, they had a lifetime warranty. So we got back in the car and headed to Sears for a replacement. Apparently this happens with some frequency because they had big bins of replacement ratchets under the cashier's desk. They gave us a new one and we were back on the job. Then that one broke. The nut was laughing at us. We went back to Sears. They gave us a replacement and we looked around for some bigger guns. They had them, but big guns cost money, and we were running short on money and time. We could have bought a simple solid wrench to fit the bolt, which would have taken some real strength to break, but our leverage pipe wouldn't fit it, and because of the position of the nut, it would have been very difficult to work with. The other option was to buy the bigger ratchet. Unfortunately, even if we bought that, they were missing the other parts we needed to use it with the bottom nut.

Defeat. Jordan was profusely apologetic, but I was just grateful for this first foray into the world of auto repair. In the end, we determined that it was the failed protective sleeve ($30) that caused the strut to fail by allowing dirt and gunk to get into its moving parts ($250-300 repair). Dag. Now I was stuck with two struts, a defiant bolt, no tools, and no time. Fortunately, AutoZone offered me a full refund for the unused struts, and Jordan and I were able to put everything back the way we found it - no loss but time, and valuable knowledge was gained as a result. I daresay that if I had the tools and some way to remove that devil nut, I could replace the struts myself. This may not be the last weekend warrior mechanics story you'll be hearing from me!