Car Repairs

During our last weekend out of town just last month, we noticed a few significant problems with Sheila's car.  Actually, between the poor weather and the car problems, our three hour drive to Saratoga became something like seven or eight hours.  That was a brutal trip.  

To make matters worse, I was feeling pretty miserable.  I had the flu or some virus that started the day before our trip and I'm still trying to clear our my lungs a month later.  Well...  my lungs have been problematic since my first of six confirmed bouts with COVID but things have been worse this past month very similar to my bouts with COVID...   not as severe, but bad enough.  This started the day before we left for Saratoga.

We made it back home safely that weekend and without any additional problems but her car definitely needed some work done before our next trip which happens to be coming up quickly.

Once Christmas was out of the way, I ordered all the parts we needed.  Since then, I've been waiting on three things...  first, obviously, I had to wait for the parts to arrive...  next, I wanted to feel a bit better so I was waiting on my health to improve a bit...  and lastly, I definitely didn't want to be working on the car in frigid temperatures so I was waiting for the warmest day in the forecast.  That day was today.  

First, I disassembled the underside of the dashboard so I could remove the heater/air conditioner blower motor.  This old motor wasn't doing well which is quite a lousy thing to happen in the dead of winter because the windshield fogs up quickly when this motor isn't working correctly.  The only difficulty I had in removing the old motor was removing the electrical harness clip.  This clip wouldn't budge!  Some channel locks helped to persuade the clip to disengage.  

Fortunately, the new motor was simple to install.  

Then I moved on to removing the cabin air filter.  I quickly found that the old filter was filthy and almost completely clogged!  That was another easy fix and appeared to need to be done about four years ago!

Then I installed some new winter windshield wiper blades.  During our trip to Saratoga last month, we had to stop at Walmart in Ticonderoga to pick up some new blades because the old ones weren't working in the poor weather.  We couldn't see much out the windshield and had to stop a couple of times just to clean off the windshield as well as the wipers!  Unfortunately, we paid double the price for garbage blades at Walmart.  I am no fan of today's Walmart...  garbage products at ridiculous prices.  Today I installed far better wiper blades made specifically for winter at half the price we paid at Walmart.  

One of Sheila's tires has a slow leak.  We've complained about this to our mechanic two or three times during seasonal tire swaps but we are always told there is no leak.  Yet, one wheel continues to lose air every month or two.  So, I filled that tire again today and checked the other three tires.  We definitely have a slow leak and this is getting old.  

While I was cleaning up all the tools that were now strewn across the front of the car, I decided I should do some cleaning too.  It was almost 40 degrees outside so I was hoping this would be warm enough to clean some windows and the entire dashboard.  Everything is looking much nicer now.  

I was on a roll at this point and, since I had to remove the table saw from the shed to get at the air compressor to fill the low tire, I figured it would be a good time to cut some lumber for a model railroading project.  I want to handlay some Fn3 scale track for our mantle (ie, glue down homemade railroad ties and then, by hand, spike aluminum rails through tie plates...  this looks much better than manufactured model track if it even existed...  for this scale it does not exist so you much make your own).  Fn3 scale is the scale of the garden railroad outside in the backyard.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the lumber I needed on hand for this project so I put everything away and came inside.  

So, I had a very productive day today.  Hopefully we'll have no problems with the car next weekend on our drive to the country's largest train show!