Tweet
So, My little shop gets a break and a big job comes in via phone last weds.
A 2001 Cadillac Seville Limo. Poor guy drove her into a deep puddle and hydro-locked the motor, destroying 4 rods. Another shop prices him $8000 to replace the motor with a used motor. There is only 52k miles on the car.
Local engines all have 100k+ miles on them and they are asking $2500+.
Car-part.com lists a bunch of motors with 50k or less and $1500 or less. They are a all 800+ miles away. I find 5 I like and start calling on them, 4 are sold already. 1 is in Georgia outside of Savannah. I'm in Cleveland Ohio BTW.
So I add the cost of the trip into the estimate, figuring, "I'll take the wife, we can have a 2-3 day vacation away from home and have some fun." WRONG.
I beat the price with an estimate of $5600. I sell the job!
Wife and I leave last thursday around 6pm in my 1995 S-10 2.2L stick and broken A/C, and drive straight through to this little town named Hazlehurst, GA. We get there around 9am friday morning. The hotel is cool and only charges us $5 for early check in, we grab a few winks and get up by 3pm to see what the little town has. The poor place is just that...poor. Half the businesses are out-of-business. The closest movie theater is 32 miles away. The best restaurant in town looks like a soup kitchen and is only only open fri, sat, and sun 5pm-10pm. The food was.....ok. They never heard of cocktail sauce for shrimp before. The hotel was atleast clean, but they acted like I was going to steal their towels when I asked for a few more for the pool. Which we never got too because the locals hit the pool and destroyed it, broken glass, litter, etc...
Motor won't be ready till sat at 9a.
We get some more sleep and can't wait to get out of there.
9am we get the motor without a hitch, junk yard is exceptional, clean, professional, nice place, knowledgeable people.
We end up on back roads out of georgia and into south carolina, GPS sent us that way, but we're making good time, GPS eventually gets us back on a freeway.
20 minutes left to the trip heading into a "romance" spot in VA, where we planned to spend a night, we run into a 15 mile long traffic jam. It's 109 degrees on the freeway and 3PM at 1-2 MPH. We get to the front of the jam and find the cause. 3 yuppies had kissed bumpers and didn't have enough sense to pull their cars off the freeway, hardly any damage to either of the 3 vehicles and the state trooper was just as much a fool for not making them move them! 4:45 we pull into wythville VA. Nice hotel, clean, staff good, food OK, pool clean! Trip is looking up! Thunderstorm on horizon, wife says, "no" to the pool.
So we went and saw harry potter, had dinner in the room, relaxed and headed out next morning. 45 minutes south of the ohio border My check engine light comes one, a second later my check gauges light comes on, and I watched the temp gauge peg itself from 200 past 260 in 1.2 seconds flat. I announce that "red leader" (truck is red) has a problem, instruct radio/navigator (wife) to send a MAYDAY to home base and request distance to next exit. She laughs thinking I'm joking and then notices the temp gauge. she flips the defrosters on, maxs the heat, grabs the GPS and tells me 2.5 miles to next exit in seconds, then dials on the cell to home and tells them our location. (I trained her well :P ) I make keep my foot in the gas and can hear the valves "hot" tapping badly, I get about another mile at 70 MPH and then dump the clutch, flip on the hazards, pull to the right of the highway and let her die.
And die she did.
We walk to the nearest gas station, about half a mile, I borrow a yellow pages from the girl at the counter who couldn't tell me what road the station was on....SHE WORKS THERE!
The tow truck driver shows up, hooks my truck, and tows us to Ripley VA to a super 8, telling me there is a NAPA across the street, walking distance, so I could get parts. At the time I fully intended to fix the truck in the parking lot.
He then spent 20 minutes staring at the 4.6L northstar motor like it was alien technology.
I start ripping her down and figure out the head popped. 170k miles and she was dead.
I call Dad, he grabs a friend of mine with a trailblazer and heads down monday morning to get us.
Wife and I have dinner at pizza hut, atleast there was some civilization in Ripley, and waste time till Morning. I rent a 2-wheel tow dolly from U-haul, and my buddy and father tow us home.
I think my truck really wants that V-8 conversion. She keeps giving me hints.
We arrive home around 9 pm, we stopped for dinner.
So much for a small vacation.
A 2001 Cadillac Seville Limo. Poor guy drove her into a deep puddle and hydro-locked the motor, destroying 4 rods. Another shop prices him $8000 to replace the motor with a used motor. There is only 52k miles on the car.
Local engines all have 100k+ miles on them and they are asking $2500+.
Car-part.com lists a bunch of motors with 50k or less and $1500 or less. They are a all 800+ miles away. I find 5 I like and start calling on them, 4 are sold already. 1 is in Georgia outside of Savannah. I'm in Cleveland Ohio BTW.
So I add the cost of the trip into the estimate, figuring, "I'll take the wife, we can have a 2-3 day vacation away from home and have some fun." WRONG.
I beat the price with an estimate of $5600. I sell the job!
Wife and I leave last thursday around 6pm in my 1995 S-10 2.2L stick and broken A/C, and drive straight through to this little town named Hazlehurst, GA. We get there around 9am friday morning. The hotel is cool and only charges us $5 for early check in, we grab a few winks and get up by 3pm to see what the little town has. The poor place is just that...poor. Half the businesses are out-of-business. The closest movie theater is 32 miles away. The best restaurant in town looks like a soup kitchen and is only only open fri, sat, and sun 5pm-10pm. The food was.....ok. They never heard of cocktail sauce for shrimp before. The hotel was atleast clean, but they acted like I was going to steal their towels when I asked for a few more for the pool. Which we never got too because the locals hit the pool and destroyed it, broken glass, litter, etc...
Motor won't be ready till sat at 9a.
We get some more sleep and can't wait to get out of there.
9am we get the motor without a hitch, junk yard is exceptional, clean, professional, nice place, knowledgeable people.
We end up on back roads out of georgia and into south carolina, GPS sent us that way, but we're making good time, GPS eventually gets us back on a freeway.
20 minutes left to the trip heading into a "romance" spot in VA, where we planned to spend a night, we run into a 15 mile long traffic jam. It's 109 degrees on the freeway and 3PM at 1-2 MPH. We get to the front of the jam and find the cause. 3 yuppies had kissed bumpers and didn't have enough sense to pull their cars off the freeway, hardly any damage to either of the 3 vehicles and the state trooper was just as much a fool for not making them move them! 4:45 we pull into wythville VA. Nice hotel, clean, staff good, food OK, pool clean! Trip is looking up! Thunderstorm on horizon, wife says, "no" to the pool.
So we went and saw harry potter, had dinner in the room, relaxed and headed out next morning. 45 minutes south of the ohio border My check engine light comes one, a second later my check gauges light comes on, and I watched the temp gauge peg itself from 200 past 260 in 1.2 seconds flat. I announce that "red leader" (truck is red) has a problem, instruct radio/navigator (wife) to send a MAYDAY to home base and request distance to next exit. She laughs thinking I'm joking and then notices the temp gauge. she flips the defrosters on, maxs the heat, grabs the GPS and tells me 2.5 miles to next exit in seconds, then dials on the cell to home and tells them our location. (I trained her well :P ) I make keep my foot in the gas and can hear the valves "hot" tapping badly, I get about another mile at 70 MPH and then dump the clutch, flip on the hazards, pull to the right of the highway and let her die.
And die she did.
We walk to the nearest gas station, about half a mile, I borrow a yellow pages from the girl at the counter who couldn't tell me what road the station was on....SHE WORKS THERE!
The tow truck driver shows up, hooks my truck, and tows us to Ripley VA to a super 8, telling me there is a NAPA across the street, walking distance, so I could get parts. At the time I fully intended to fix the truck in the parking lot.
He then spent 20 minutes staring at the 4.6L northstar motor like it was alien technology.
I start ripping her down and figure out the head popped. 170k miles and she was dead.
I call Dad, he grabs a friend of mine with a trailblazer and heads down monday morning to get us.
Wife and I have dinner at pizza hut, atleast there was some civilization in Ripley, and waste time till Morning. I rent a 2-wheel tow dolly from U-haul, and my buddy and father tow us home.
I think my truck really wants that V-8 conversion. She keeps giving me hints.
We arrive home around 9 pm, we stopped for dinner.
So much for a small vacation.
Comment