I’m a mechanic. Not a real mechanic, though. Actually, I’m a retired
Electrician. I know about electric motors. I can find and fix problems when it
comes to electrical stuff. But I know nothing about gasoline powered engines.
They are a mystery to me.
So why do I claim to be a mechanic? Well, a couple of weeks ago, my
truck wouldn’t start. It is not a new truck, far from it. It’s kind of long in
the tooth, like 18 years long. Old trucks like that break down. I don’t use it
much; only to go fishing and take garbage to the dump. Maybe take it to go
mushroom picking. That’s about it. I don’t use it in the winter.
I had loaded up the truck with old branches and was ready to take them
to the dump. When I turned the key, it didn’t want to start. It made noise but
didn’t catch. I got out and opened the hood. Apparently, that’s the thing to do
when a vehicle doesn’t start. I have no idea what I was looking for. It was a
cold, wet morning, nearly freezing, so I figured it was probably the humidity.
I tried and tried until the battery was run down. Then I gave up, put a battery
charger on the battery and plugged in the heater. Anyone living in Manitoba and
other places where the winter gets way below freezing knows what I’m talking
about.
The next few days I repeated the procedure but without luck. The motor
didn’t start. I talked to a few people about my problem and I got different
advice: It could be the battery, perhaps the electrical connections. (The
battery is only a little over a year old. I didn’t think that was the problem). New spark-plugs might fix the problem. Perhaps
it’s the timing chain. I faulty fuel pump could be the problem. It could also
be a seized engine. A mechanic gave me a few hints how to go about checking out
these possible problems. “Do your spark-plugs fire?” he asked. “I don’t know,” I
said. “Well, bring her in and I’ll check her over,” he said. Mechanics talk hat
way. I never thought of my truck as a ‘She’, but I wanted to sound
professional, so I said, “Remember, she doesn’t start?” “Oh, that’s right.” He
scratched his head and chuckled. “I guess if she’d start you wouldn’t have to
bring her in.”
I could have called a tow truck, but that would have cost me more than
what my truck is worth. It seemed I was on my own. First thing I did was check
the battery. It seemed okay. Then I went and bought 8 new spark-plugs and
replaced the old ones. The old ones looked good to me, but since I had bought
new ones I put them in. Not an easy job when the temperature is below freezing.
Some of the spark-plugs were difficult to get to, another design flaw, but I did
it. I got away with only a few cuts and bruises on my hands. When I turned the
key, the problem had not been fixed. So I removed the battery cables, cleaned
them, put Vaseline on the terminals and hooked the cables up again. Even that
was difficult. Why do they leave such little room? You can’t even get a ratchet
in there. Had to work with pliers.
This time when I turned the key, nothing happened. Not even a sound.
Just a faint click. Now I had a bit of an inkling what could be wrong. I
suspected a faulty starter. My very first car, a 1953 Ford, had that problem.
At the most inconvenient time and place the starter clicked and the car
wouldn’t start. I learned how to fix that. The car did not have an automatic
transmission. I put it into second gear and rocked the car back and forth until
I heard a click. That’s when the motor started. Can’t do this with my truck.
It’s automatic.
I crawled under the truck and looked for the starter. It wasn’t on the
driver’s side, but I found something on the other side that could be the
starter, but I wasn’t sure. I searched the internet and found pictures of what looked
like what I saw under my truck. Then I watched videos on U-Tube. ‘It takes only
about 30 minutes to change a starter’ one guy claimed. It looked simple. So I
decided to change mine.
I disconnected the battery cables to avoid getting a shock or burning a
hole into some part of the motor. Then I crawled under the truck. First thing
that happened was a piece of dirt or rust or something fell into my eye. I went
back into the house to wash it out. Then I put on safety glasses and took a
light with me and a socket set. There is no room under the truck. I could only
work with my left hand because you can only lie on your back with no way to
turn. There are pipes and wires under the starter and it isn’t easy to get to
it. Maybe it’s easy when the vehicle is on a hoist but not when you’re lying on
gravel. Why on gravel? That’s when the truck decided to turn on me—when it was
parked in the driveway and not even in a favorable position. At one time my
quilted jacket bunched up and I got stuck under there. Couldn’t move back or
forth. I don’t like tight places in the first place and was hit with a panic
attack. So I just lay there on my back looking up at the underside of the
truck, imagining all kinds of awful things that could still happen. After I
calmed down, I wiggled myself free, not eager to get back under what could turn out to be a death-trap, but I had no choice if I wanted to get that starter out.
I spent three hours the first day under the truck. Removing the bolts
that hold the starter in place took some time. I finally got them off, but I
just couldn’t loosen the nuts on the terminals with the electrical connections.
After all, they were 18 years old, which means they were rusted in and I didn’t
have the right socket. Why do American vehicles have metric nuts and bolts? I
don’t own a metric socket set. I went
and bought one, but the largest socket on the one I bought was 12 mm and I needed
a 13 mm one. I discovered that when I lay underneath the truck. After three hours,
I just couldn’t take any more. I was too frozen and too tired to work any
longer. My left arm ached and my fingers were lifeless from the cold. You have
to work without gloves.
The next day, I jacked up the truck on one side and secured it with a
wooden block to give me more room to move. At least now I could use both hands.
It still was difficult, because I had only limited movement room. Somehow, I
managed and got the starter out. I took it to an Auto-Electric place and had it
rebuilt. The guy there said it would be better, because my starter was original
equipment and it would fit without worrying about shims. (‘Shims?’ I thought. ‘Where
would I need shims?’) He also said I didn’t want to buy a new one, because it
would only be some Chinese crap. I agreed. In the end, it cost me sixty bucks.
I was okay with that. Way cheaper than a new one, anyway.
When I decided to install the rebuilt starter, it was minus 25 Celsius
outside. I put plywood all around the truck and put a heater underneath. To make it more
comfortable, I laid a piece of plywood with a carpet on top of the gravel and a
pillow for my head. Even though, installing that rebuilt starter was no picnic.
The heater just took out the chill and it was still friggen cold, especially
the metal. You can’t work with gloves. I froze the tips of my fingers and had
to thaw them in cold water to get the feeling back. With all those
preparations, it took me 3 hours until I finally had that starter in place.
Then I hooked up the battery again and prayed the motor would start.
I was like a kid opening up a present. The anticipation was hard to
control. I turned that key and was rewarded with the rumbling of the motor. I
felt elated and could have burst into a song had I not been frozen stiff. All
that hard work had actually paid off. I was a mechanic.
If there is one thing I learned from this experience is this: I never
ever want to replace another starter, especially not when it is so cold!
I’m okay now. I’ve got the feeling back in my fingers and my left shoulder
and upper left arm are also getting better. The pain is nearly gone and I can
move my arm again.
