Aren't I supposed to be rested up when the weekend is over? It never seems to work out that way and particulary this weekend. I'm whupped!
Its all the car repairs I'm doing that are kicking my butt. Friday was my regular day off and I spent the first part of the day in the local junkyard looking for seatbelt parts for the Tempo in the driveway. I still can't make the motorized shoulder belt work, after changing out the drive belt, so I found out online that later model cars had the emergency release mounted on the sliding portion instead of between the seats. Friday I went hunting for some of those belts. And I found a pair that were in good shape and didn't require too much to get removed. I also scored the center console that is different from the one in the car and the sliders for each side. In addition, I scored a outside mirror housing to replace the one on the car that had been epoxied together with a couple nails for support. It was really terrible looking and for just a few bucks I found a good one at the yard.
In the afternoon I got most everything torn out of the car. I had to modify the original bracket with a hacksaw and cutoff tool and then I carried it down for some welding to add a new plate for the new bracket to mount to. That was as far as I got on Friday.
Saturday was a full day of ticketchecking at Powder Mountain and it was the first blue sky day on a Saturday this year. It was warm and beautiful all day with terrific snow and a great crowd. I even have some pictures but I'm too tired to post them tonight.
I intended to finish that job today... But a phone call from the boy last night reset my plans. Seems the girlfriend's car- their only wheels, was now broke down, stranded needing immediate attention. So- today I loaded a toolbag and headed to Salt Lake. The problem? The car won't start. All the other electrics seem to work and the battery shows a full charge and it doesn't drop off on the voltmeter when trying to start it. SO we towed the car back to their apartment and went to work. I poked and prodded a bit, decided perhaps the starter solenoid had failed, just like my truck a couple weeks back. To remove the starter and the solenoid, according to the Chilton's book, you have to drop the motor off the motor mount- or, remove the cooling fans and radiator! Turns out, all you have to do is remove the fans, the radiator can stay. But you have to remove the battery and the battery box to get the fans out!
And of course, the starter and solenoid checked out just perfect at the autoparts store... The battery tested good too... So we replaced the power cables that were junk with new ones with absolutely no improvement to the circumstance. Nothing, nada. You can hear all the relays and other stuff booting up when you turn on the ignition but there's no effort to crank up the starter. I found a 30 amp fuse in the box, labeled "Starter" but it checked good.
I think now it must be the ignition switch. Everything else seems to be in place and working. But according to the repair manual I didn't have all the right tools to do the job and it was already late this afternoon, so I didn't get the job done. Damm.
Tomorrow I'll get a switch and the dealer item hose for the PCV that's so hard it breaks off when you try to cut it and make another trip to Salt Lake to see if I can get this thing working for them. Then I can get back to finishing the seatbelt repairs on the other car!
I've still got scooters to put back together too! I need another weekend!
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