BowerBlog

If you think mechanics have it easy making a living, think again. This is just an example of what I/we have to put up with at work sometimes. This vehicle came in yesterday for a no-start. The guy that owns it is half-crazy and lives in his van. He’s been here several times before and we always cringe when we see him coming, but he pays his bills in cash and never argues about the price.

If you’re at all familiar with full size vans, in order to do anything to the engine short of checking the oil, you have to go inside the van and pull the engine cover off. (We refer to it as a “dog house”) This is what I found when I opened the door of the van.

 How would you like to have to crawl inside this thing and practically have to put your head on the floor to get to the engine? I wore double rubber gloves and put an old set of overalls on to work on this. It took me almost an hour to move enough junk that I could actually get to the doghouse to remove it! Here’s what the back looked like:

Good morning all!
Dang it’s cold here today! I got up early to take the snowblower into the shop to get it tuned-up for the year. I thought it felt crunchy-cold out. I checked the local weather station and it’s 9 friggin’ degrees!

Man, it’s gonna be a long day today. I just know we’ll get a bunch of no-starts towed in today. This kind of weather will make any border-line starting and charging system fail. Not to mention all the vehicles that are thousands of miles overdue for a tune-up. I can hear the phone calls now: “But I need my car right away!”, “What do you mean you’ll get to it as soon as you can?”, and so on. Oh well, we’ll do what we can do; what gets done gets done and what doesn’t will have to wait. As I always say: “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”.

I suppose I’d better get at it. I want to get this snowblower ready to go and then I’ve got a couple of diagnostic jobs to get done this morning. In the meantime, stay warm and take care!

As Always,
Chris

Hi all!

So I stay at SR’s last night and what do I find when I get up this morning? White stuff all over the place! Crap, it snowed last night! Of course, I’m not prepared; I don’t have the snowblower ready to go. I should have but I can be a really bad procrastinator at times. Oh well, not much I can do but deal with it. It could be worse, I only have to drive a few blocks to get to work. Truth be told, it is kinda pretty out, but a few months of this stuff and I’m sure I’m going to find it pretty damn ugly.

It’s still snowing as I’m writing this from the shop. Here’s a shot outside in front of the bays:

The one thing I really, really hate about this time of year is getting sopping wet at work; every vehicle I bring in today will be dripping water for hours when I have it on the lift. I’ve actually considered wearing a raincoat when I have to lift a snowy vehicle up. But, I can bitch all I want and the weather is still not gonna change just for me. As all of us have to do, I’ll just have to deal with it.

I think I’ll run over to SR’s after work to shovel the walks if the snow is still here and tomorrow morning I’ll bring the snowblower into the shop and get it tuned-up for the season. Truth be told, if it wasn’t for this kind of weather, we wouldn’t appriciate the warm, sunny weather. I’d best get to work; everyone have a good day and make the best fo the snow.

As Always,
Chris