Channeling Mr. Goodwrench

Prologue

As I have explained before, my relationship with mechanical devices, especially cars, is not always friendly. And honestly, it's not because I'm completely incompetent mechanically. At various times in my life, I have replaced stabilizer bolts, shocks, rotors, and thermostats. I can change my own oil, put on new brake shoes, and set the gap on spark plugs. Once or twice, I have even fixed other people's cars. So I'm not a complete idiot.

But apparently, in a previous life, I somehow set fire to an entire fleet of chariots or something. And now modes of transportation in general are out for revenge. Of course, my cars don't do anything too blatant -- no failing brakes or fiery tumbling down cliffs. No, they attack my blood pressure instead.

For example, my Sentra decided not too long ago that it would be really funny if the spring that opens the hood when I pull on the release lever would just quit opening the hood. So now it takes two people to open it, one to work the lever inside and one to pull up on the hood at the same time. Doubtless my car had visions of my pulling the lever, then trying to run out real quick to pull on the hood. As if. I knew that wouldn't work after the third time.

So I outsmart it by sticking a pry-bar under the hood, which gives just enough leverage and weight to pull up the hood when I pull the lever.



And then the pry bar falls to the ground, ready to pick up and use again.



Additionally, in the "blood pressure" department, the Sentra has a driver's side window that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, so you don't dare open it in case the switch decides to short out and not close it. We also have a fan switch with two speeds: off, and high. Talk about two high-end "dealer only" repairs (I don't do electrical).

Chapter 1

Three weeks ago, on a Friday night about 11:30, my car decided not to start. It had been parked in my driveway for about 10 minutes, and it wouldn't start. After arranging rides for everyone who needed them in the next 8 hours, we made plans to tow it down to Firestone the next day.

Luckily enough, my family now has in it a Car Whisperer. There are those who call him. . . . Jake. And he came over the next morning just to take a look. Before he came, he called and said that if it was the starter, sometimes it helps to tap the starter with a hammer. So my brother and I tried to decide where the starter might be. I should point out that my brother is always willing to help with these matters, and in this case we took it in turns to frown, peer into the engine, poke at something, and walk around the car.

Now, I should point out that most of my good mechanical work has been on older cars, whose engines did not have to exist partly in hyperspace in order to fit into their allotted space. So it turns out finding the starter in a 99 Nissan is not as easy as it looks. Nevertheless I gave it the old college try. I found something near the front of the car that looked to me sort of like a canteen, which is vaguely reminiscent of a can, which is sort of what a starter ought to look like. It was underneath an aluminum shield, but you can see the side of it here:




In my defense, I want to point out that it did look like it had some electrical power going to it:



So I tapped on it, and wonder of wonders, the car started! Well, you can't imagine how happy I was. "Real Man, Armed with Claw Hammer (I don't own a ball peen), Repairs Own Car." All I was waiting for now was official validation from Jake the Car Whisperer.

Validation, in this particular case, came in the form of Jake telling me I had been tapping on the exhaust manifold.

Chapter 2

But, darn it, the car started, and that was worth something. To be on the safe side, I accepted Jake's offer to look it over, run some tests, etc. We took it up to AutoZone (AutoZone figures heavily in the story) and hooked it up to the meter. Turns out the battery was good, the starter behaved admirably under a load, and all seemed right with the world. Jake suggested that sometimes this (not starting) happens, and may never happen again. Goodness knows I was willing to believe that my car was capable of not starting just out of cussedness. So I chalked it up to sunspots and put it behind me.

Now, to understand the next part of this story, you need to know that about 16 months ago, in Red Oak, Iowa, the very same car decided not to start after I had driven it through a car wash. We let it sit for a while, hoping that whatever got wet would dry out and work again. And so it seemed to be. It started, and we rode merrily on to Nebraska. Where the "Check Engine" light came on. It seemed to run a little rough, so when we stopped for gas in -- Lincoln, maybe? -- we drove into town to an AutoZone to have them read the code. The code said we needed a new idle air control (IAC) valve, but they assured us that it wouldn't hurt us to keep driving and make it to Utah before we really replaced it. So we kept on westward, and eventually the "Check Engine" light went out, and we chalked it up to water or something.

But psychologically, the damage was done. In my subconscious, the IAC, the Check Engine light, and the car not starting were all tied together.

The Check Engine light had actually come on a couple of weeks before the "not starting' incident, and we had again taken it to AutoZone, and they told us that the code could mean any number of things, including the IAC, but maybe not, so there. And it started running better, so we made a mental note to have it checked out in March, when we needed to have it inspected anyway.

Until the car didn't start again.

Chapter 3

Well, I figured, if tapping on the manifold made it start, so might tapping other places. So I tapped away, and the car started, and I thought, "Well, my hammer and I can make it to payday, anyway. " Eventually, we started tapping it up by the IAC, and then eventually on the IAC, and lo! it suddenly became clear to me. For some reason, the faulty IAC was making the car not start. It was clear I needed to replace it. Back to AutoZone, and $160 later I had a brand new IAC to put in the next day, when it was light again.

That night, I made a run to Rite Aid with my son. The Divine Ms B, being sensible in most matters, warned us not to turn off the engine. But, as two males who had each tapped the car back to life numerous times, we were confident of what we could do with a claw hammer.

My brother came to our rescue in the Rite Aid parking lot when no amount of tapping would make the car start. I put the new IAC in by flashlight. The new IAC was clean and shiny. Hopes were high. My brother and I had given it our very best frowns.

The New IAC

The car wouldn't start. So of course we called the Car Whisperer. He came, he tapped (this time on the real starter, with his long pry-bar) and it started. So it was now clear that the starter was, in the words of The Princess Bride, "only mostly dead." And getting deader. Jake estimated it would start about 6 out of 10 times, until we replaced the starter. Still a few days left until payday, too.

Jake showed me the little gap in the manifold that was the only access to the starter from the top:



And I learned to use my pry bar to tap, tap, tap.




For a while, I seriously considered using a toilet plunger handle to tap the starter, under the not-as crazy-as-it-sounds belief that the Car Gods would be somewhat appeased if I just admitted that I had to carry a toilet plunger to start my car.



Chapter 4

In a couple of days, the Car Whisperer came over, and put a new starter in my car. We got it at AutoZone, of course. He had to do it from underneath, and bend a cross-beam to get at it, and probably had to use his tricorder to do a little work in hyperspace, but he got it done in less time than he thought (given my Car Karma, it's good to double the estimated time and go up one unit, e.g. 2 hours -> 4 days). But it all worked, and Jake has earned an assured place in heaven, if I have anything to say about it.

Postlogue

1. I claim I needed to replace the IAC anyway, and the check engine light hasn't come on again. So let me have that small bit of comfort, OK?

2. Last week, I dropped $2000 to rebuild the transmission.

Apparently the blood pressure route was taking too long.