I must admit

*sigh*

Wow.  Pretty arrogant was I.

After I completely reassembled the Volvo at school, and I drove her about 1000 miles, she blew a leak.

At the head gasket.

Riiiiiight behind the water pump.

Just one little space.  No oil/water mix, no spitter sputter, just quit.

That was when I was on the side of the road, about a mile from home, 9 months pregnant.

I had no choice but to push it off the side of the road.


Can I get a WHA?? from the people that have ever pushed a Volvo sedan?  Uphill.  In grass.  Yeah.  Sent me into preterm labor early the next morning.  Baby boy is fine, after 2 weeks in NICU to get him used to breathing this outside air.  That was last May.

So she sat, and sat, and sat.  She sat for an entire year and a half.  And this month, she's coming apart again.  I start tear down this week, so be on the lookout for something to follow. I'm taking her all the way down, block and all.  I have a sneaky suspicion the chip was in the block all along, but I couldn't see it.  We'll see if my guess is correct, or if I just didn't get it quite right the first time.

Well, 4 years later...

So I'm rediscovering this blog, a whole 4 years later, and laughing out loud at all 3 of my posts.  I seem so arrogant!  So much was going on, and I was so excited.

Let's sum up these last 4 years:

2 more boys added to my family, for a total of 3.  I'm outnumbered.

1 Volvo added to my yard after the rebuild (see below). Yes, I bought it.

1 house fire destroying our home, a year's worth of living in rental house and hotel.

1 new house on the same property.

3 more vehicles taken to Pull-a-Part.  Hubby wore them out.

1 amazing opportunity to teach Crankin' Engines, which has done well!

1 amazing opportunity to create my own class, MechaniChics, teaching women!

1 collaboration with Apprenticetown to take it nationwide.

Tada!

My next post will be the registration for my next class!

I'm not bragging, but

Here I am, not half way through the semester, and I've finished my online course. I have to wait for the tests, since they are released on specific days, but all the course work is done. I've 'read' the text, submitted the discussion board questions, and completed my review. I'm pretty happy about that. Stress to stress free in one day of hooky.

As far as my latest electronics exam went, I didn't fail, but I didn't do well. If he rounds up, I'll make a C. If not, it's a D+. And mine was the best in the class. *sigh* Hopefully Monday's engine repair will be better.

So yeah, I did play hooky last Thursday. Not that I intended to, but it happened. I was late, since Bobby fixed me breakfast. Then, I got in the car and the brakes started scrubbing hard because of the rain. Next, I had trouble with the turbo vacuum leak (just like before). And, if the car was going to run like that, I couldn't make it there with the gas I had left.

So, I played hooky for the first time. Ooooo. I just cheated myself out of two hours of learning. The sucky part was I also had my sign language class that day, and the teacher had worked the postponed class around my schedule. That I feel kinda sucky about. But I wasn't going to go for just one class - especially with no gas. That day-before-payday thing kinda sucks. Instead, I caught up my online classwork, took my test, and said "Voila!".

So now, I think I have all the kinks worn out. I have only one vehicle in my yard that won't run, probably because of a dead battery or two. Whoops. Now to get the ignition put in R's van, the plugs in C's van, and most of the sensors in B's van, and I'll be ready to tear down the Volvo. Sucks that the Volvo needs the attention so much more than the rest. *sigh* That's a mechanic's life.

Volvo head

I am not a Volvo mechanic. I am not Volvo certified. I am not Volvo trained. I am not a Volvo Master Tech.

I just drive a Volvo (or Vulva, if you're from Kernersville, and it's a girl car, like my wagon).

And that lone qualification makes me the most logical choice for tearing down the lone Volvo 850 in our lot, that just happens to be owned by the buddy of my teacher.

Said friend likes that I have a Volvo. He likes that I occasionally know cool things about Volvos that most other people don't. *thanks, Sara, for breaking me in*

On that note, I guess I should fill you in on my Volvo knowledge, limited as it is.

When the Volvo breaks, take it to MasterTech off Stratford Rd. The end.

Okay, kidding. They are good, but that doesn't really help the learning curve, now, does it?

Do anything but take it to Furches Automotive. That I do NOT kid about. Sara, my best friend, used to own a red 1996 Volvo 850. When the gaskets all started bailing fluids, she sent it to Furches to have it torn down. $1400 later, she drove it, and it was bailing fluids again. I had to find out why, being the nosy friend I am, and sure enough, the Internet held the answer.

Volvos have this unique thing called a flame trap on them. It's a honeycomb (yes, just like the cereal) filter that sits beside the air intake. It works somewhat like a PCV, but it's a Volvo, so it's not called a PCV. I called the Volvo place to get said trap for Sara's car, and the parts tech gave me big news - there was a TSB (technical service bulletins) on those that said not to put them back, that it was pointless. So when I found Sara's under about an inch of carbon, I pried it out, breaking plastic in the meantime. The hoses that led from the flame trap through the intake manifold were busted from the pressure. Removed the blockage? Air flows properly, gaskets reseal, fluids stop leaking. She finally sold the car last year after driving it for quite some time without oil. But that's not the point. (Furches said they weren't Volvo certified, which is why they didn't look up the TSBs, and do the simple thing first.)

Fast forward 5 years. I'm now sitting in a silver hunk of the same mold. Last semester's students had this car for the entire semester for an intermittent fuel problem, which turned out to be a relay. It had only been gone a few months when it came back. No one was excited about seeing it in the parking lot again. So, what do they do? Pin it on the girl driving the Volvo. Let her have a whack at it. Okay, fine. I'll show them all.

Can I say that right now, at this moment, I'm so frustrated with my pride sometimes I could scream, if it would do any good? Why do I always have to prove myself? Really? Can I not just pass on a challenge occasionally? Would it hurt?

So this Volvo has lost compression and it bailing fluids. Since I have the proper equipment at my disposal, I do a compression test. FAIL. Epic fail. The specs say it should have 188-218 psi on each cylinder, with no more than 20 psi difference among them.

I test three times, and I get 110, 125, 130, 150, 175. Simple math tells me not enough compression in the cylinders.

Then, my teacher looks for himself, and finds the same thing. Funny man also tells me to look into this one cylinder while he turns it over and check for water drippage. The water dripped, all right. Squirted right up into my face when the piston came up. If I was dirty before, I was wetter now.

While I was there, I took apart the intake just to see if the flame trap was still in it. I was delighted to find that I was right, it was still installed, and was in the same condition as Sara's had been so many years ago. Woot! Removed that, and told the customer so.

I went ahead and replaced the coolant reservoir, since it wouldn't hold pressure, and it looked like someone had tried to patch it several times. One pump of the pressure tester proved it was leaking in multiple areas. Simple fix.

So now it's time for the head gasket. No problem. Only 5,321,388 bolts stand between me and the head. This weird 5 cylinder head has about 4 bolts per cylinder on the valve cover gasket. Add the bolts on the edges, and there were way more than necessary.

Peel it off, and there sits the head filled with a melted Frosty. The water was so oily, and the oil so watery, that you couldn't tell the difference between them.

That was last Tuesday. On Thursday, we start actually removing the head. But after pulling everything that's in the way out, it still wasn't budging. Move to the next Tuesday. One stupid bolt was holding the intake, and we couldn't reach it. Once we unbolted the entire intake, out came the head. The gasket looked okay, for its age, and the head didn't show any damage. Even the block looked solid. So where was this water leak coming from that was so profuse it squirted into the cylinder, as opposed to seeping?

We sent the head off for a pressure test and valve job at the machine shop.

That sounds so dirty. That's why mechanics have such a dirty mind. Playing with heads and greasing rear ends are just the beginning.

So the Volvo saga continues...

So I made a guy fall off a golf cart.

True story.

The bays were full on Tuesday, my lab day. Mom brought her truck up because it wouldn't pass inspection - the EGR flow was insufficient. I hoped a new EGR valve would help.

My new friend S helped me get the valve off so we could replace it. We tested the vacuum, and it was getting plenty. S leaned over the truck fender to get a grip on the 1 1/4 inch nut, and I was sitting on the radiator cover leaned over inside the engine compartment, with my feet up near the firewall.

A maintenance man from the college rode by, seeing us working on the truck, and stopped to chat. He commented that he could never have folded himself up like that under the hood.

My reply was something to the effect of, "It's easier to reach this way than trying to lean over that ridiculous grill."

He was attempting to get out of the golf cart, and upon hearing my voice, swung around so quickly that he tripped himself and fell flat on the ground. Ouch.

"Holy cow, that's a girl."

(My initial response was - thanks, Captain Obvious. I thought that's why you were making the comment. But I kept it to myself.)

I kid you not, the next thing out of his mouth was, "I should have looked at your behind. I would have been able to tell, since I can't see your face."

What do you say to that besides, "Thanks." ?

Besides, I got my amusement out of watching him fall down. The boys are a bad influence already, I see.

Oh, and Jasper is running for Class President. We'll find out later how that works out for him.

So far, in class, I've been doing very well. I made a 100 on my first electronics test, but since the rest of the class didn't pass, he threw out the grade, and gave us another quiz. Mark assured us that won't happen again, but really? I'm figuring out the boys are really not understanding what's going on, and are too macho to ask for help. I hope my smarty-pants attitude isn't the reasoning behind that. I sit in the back of the class so everyone can hear me when I answer a question. I try to help everyone who asks me. Mark is amused/annoyed by my 'teacher's helper' attitude. We make "that's just like a woman/man" jokes all the time. He's really annoyed when I correct him. But that's just like a man.

I'm feeling right at home. But the second year students? And the boys from diesel? Still treat me like I have three heads. (Must be from Brooklyn.) The older guys are amused I'm around, and the younger boys are so taken with the other girl - C's - good looks and amazing figure, that I'm invisible. Most haven't spoken to me at all, and I still don't know their names.

In my online class, I'm caught up and right on time. It's a ton of information, and I feel silly learning all this introduction stuff -after- I'm thrown in to engine repair and electronics. It's like taking 3rd grade while learning kindergarten stuff.

My new favorite web site

http://www.charmandhammer.com/

Just sayin'.

Why automotive?

That's the one question I get more than anything. "You're a girl - why do you want to get greasy under a hood all day?" (Right before I hear, "Hey, speaking of cars, mine is doing... ") I love that my book completely summarized my interest in auto mechanics in one paragraph at the beginning of chapter two.

MAST G-W online

The Automotive Technician

An automotive technician makes a living diagnosing, servicing, and repairing cars, vans, and light trucks. The technician must be highly skilled and well trained. He or she must be a “jack of all trades,” being able to perform a wide variety of tasks. For example, an experienced master automobile technician is usually capable of performing operations common to the following occupations:

• Machinist (precision measurements, brake part machining).
• Plumber (working with fuel lines and power steering lines).
• Welder (gas and arc welding on exhaust systems, parts repair).
• Electrician (charging, starting, lighting system service).
• Electronic technician (servicing a vehicle’s electronic parts).
• Air conditioning technician (repairing and recharging auto air conditioning).
• TV-radio technician (installing and repairing vehicle sound systems, cellular phones, and radios).
• Computer technician (servicing a vehicle’s on-board computers).
• Bookkeeper (business-type tasks, such as filling out repair orders, calculating hours on a job, ordering parts, totaling work order costs, etc.)

As this list demonstrates, an automobile technician’s job can be very challenging. The technician is called on to perform a variety of repair tasks, which prevents boredom on the job. If you like to use your mind and your hands, automotive service can be a rewarding and interesting profession.


Oh, and PS - remember that test I nearly 'failed'? I still made the highest grade in the class in electronics. I know I didn't do well on the engine repair test, though. Stupid, stupid mistakes on a foggy-brained Monday morning. Oh well. Guess it will look like I really learned something at the end of the semester.