Sunday, February 9, 2020

It is a bummer when your vehicle breaks down

About four months ago I took the blue Silverado into the shop.

Jesse called me up in the morning and said "It won't go."

"You mean it won't start?" I asked.

"No, it started. But I put it into drive and it won't go." Jesse said.

How odd.

Jesse got it up on the hoist and determined that all three bolts connecting the flywheel to the torque converter had sheared.

Did I mention that Kubota "drove" the truck to the shop in the late evening? Kubota has several friends with tow trucks. Must be a coincidence. Bolts shear all the time while the motors are not running and the transmission is in park.

After pricing out the price of flywheels and torque converters and labor rates, the tally looked like about $900. I paid $1350 for the vehicle about two years ago.

I told Jesse, "Hey, that is not too bad. Two years of driving and I can probably get three or four hundred for scrap."

Jesse said, "Let us frog around with it a little bit. Maybe we can get it back on the road for less money than that."

He charged me $60. They WELDED the stools on the torque converter to the flywheel. I drove it off the lot.

And then, suddenly, this weekend the transmission started slipping. It slipped in every gear.

Fortunately, I was able to milk it up to thirty mph and get it home from downtown Lansing.

The upshot is that I am in the market for another vehicle. I have my eye on a Chevy Tahoe and Nick the Nephew is going to take a long lunch from his job to look it over tomorrow. The plan is to NOT let Kubota drive this one.

We have our fingers crossed.

6 comments:

  1. Ahh....sorry to hear that Joe. Hope Kubota is taking better care of his shoes.

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  2. Cheap, reliable transportation, Shoedabakers.

    The fact of the matter is that he is taking a short vacation from the house this weekend + two additional nights.

    So I am not able to verify whether he is taking care of his footwear or not.

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  3. We spent more on repairs for our 1994 pickup than it is worth last year, but it is still going now, and it beats buying another. It just got two new tires and an alignment. We drive it gently!

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  4. Why do you put up with this stuff?

    All the "Coincidences" with your son.
    I mean, I know he's your son, and all that, but still.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Two bodies in orbit are predictable. Three bodies in orbit are less predictable.

      Mrs ERJ has much to say about how things play out. She is much more inclined to error on the side of benefit-of-the-doubt than I am.

      Until a kid becomes seventeen, a parent has severe limits on how much discipline a parent can exercise...unless they want to disavow their parental rights and make the kid a ward of the court.

      Kicking your kid out of the house can result in the parent going to jail and being fined. It is called child abandonment.

      Sadly, by the time a kid is seventeen, he/she has many habits for good or for ill.

      Delete
  5. Because the love and patience of a father...

    ReplyDelete

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