Automobiles have a sense of humor, it seems. They’ll run flawlessly for years, but fail right when you need them the most, in the worst possible conditions. Temperature extremes are hard on cars, so things are bound to break down more often in the cold or heat, but sometimes don’t you just wish that something would go wrong when it’s sunny and 70 out for a change?
We haven’t been hit as hard here in the Pacific Northwest by the recent cold snap as other parts of the country, but it has still been brutal. We got about three inches of icy sleety snow over the weekend, enough to render my steep dead-end street impassable, so I called in to work on Monday. On Monday evening, I hopped in my trusty 4×4 Chevy pickup (which David wrote about over at the old site) so I could tiptoe down the hill to the grocery store, turned the key, and got nothing but a click.
Dammit.
It took three trips to three different parts stores, in my wife’s 4WD GMC Yukon, to get it going again yesterday. First I replaced the three-year-old battery, thinking it had failed in the cold, but that didn’t help. I could hear the solenoid clicking, and the engine turned fine by hand, so I figured the starter itself had gone out. There are two different starter types used on these old Chevy small-block-based V6s: One with direct drive, and one with a gear reduction. They are not interchangeable. The direct drive unit is half the price. You can guess which one I bought first, and which one I actually needed.
All the while I was working on it, the temperature never got above twenty degrees Fahrenheit. The worst part about wrenching in the cold isn’t the air temperature, though; it’s the fact that the tools and parts are all the same temperature. You have to hold on to a bunch of freezing-cold chunks of metal, while your fingers go slowly numb. At one point, I had on two pairs of gloves, grippy mechanic’s gloves over Gore-Tex ski gloves. They kept my hands warm, but made it impossible to pick up nuts and bolts. You know those space movies where an astronaut fumbles some critical bolt or tool in their big clumsy gloves, and it goes flying off into space? I get it now.
I grew up just outside Chicago, and lived in Minnesota and Wisconsin for many years after that, so you’d think I would be used to wrenching in the cold. But you get used to not wrenching in the cold far too quickly, which is why I feel for David and his unnecessary minivan heroics. A lifetime of Midwestern toughness can be lost in just a mild West Coast winter or two.
Things aren’t much better at the other end of the thermometer. Back in 2011, when the clutch in my old beat-up Miata finally wore down to the point that I had to do something about it, a friend let me borrow his garage with a four-post lift in order to replace it. I somehow chose the hottest day of the year. The thermometer outside the garage peaked at 107 degrees, and I’m sure it was hotter than that inside – just what you want when you’re handling a bunch of big, greasy, heavy parts.
What about you, dear readers? What are the nastiest conditions you’ve faced while having to fix something?
(Image credits: me)
I don’t even remember what was wrong, but I remember crawling on hot Southern asphalt, downtown, screwing with something under the Sentra.
My gf at the time said “at least it’s not cold,” which did not assuage the feeling of actual burns from touching the ground. IIRC I think I came back to it in the evening.
Edit: that was the worst emergency wrenching (including dead coil packs in a best buy parking lot – not too bad, and a dead alternator – the blueness of my language would have made the sky blush). But the worst conditions were the absolutely, shamefully rotten interior of a Mazdaspeed3 I restored. It was in my driveway because I was an idiot and agreed to hold on to it, but the owner parked it up with food and drinks inside, with faulty window seals, and it sat there for nine months, fogging up on the inside, growing and spewing mold.
I took every piece of fabric out of that car and did the strongest cleaning I could to each and every part. I cut new carpet pad inserts for all the seat positions. It was so foul that, instead of using a seat and interrupting my cleaning process, I put a folding chair in the driver’s position to move it around the driveway. When I opened the door, you could see clouds of spores come out. I power washed the upholstery three entire wet-dry cycles. People that saw me during said they didn’t know how I was working on it.
Oh, and it was July, and I am a profuse sweater. So, I’d soak a paper N95 mask and basically race the clock before I couldn’t breath enough to keep working. Many times I’d have to stop because I would sweat onto tools or surfaces I was cleaning, and either have to clean again or wipe down the tool and coat it with oil. One hole in the rear seat was rusted and rotten with filth and I had to tap it out larger, sweating, dripping and wiping sweat because it would rust the raw metal in seconds. I’d go through three or four shirts a day; they’d be wet instantly, but would at least hold enough sweat to let me work for 45-60 minutes.
Goddamn that was miserable.
Changed out a transmission in a frozen field. The first day was so rough with below-zero windchills that we gathered a few straw bales & pieces of fence to make a bit of a shelter/windbreak in which we ran a parabolic propane heater.
Cold-ass tools make wrenching suck
changed a battery at -40F during a snow storm. The two of us working one used the smallest wrenches in the world with no gloves. Hands would go numb, the other person would take over as you ran into to house until you could feel pain to know there was no frost bite.
15 minute job took about 2 hours.
Inside a friend’s shop during winter with with no heat and a concrete floor. It was -10F early that morning before me and my friend entered, and it got up to about 15F, but it was noticeably colder inside the shop than outside the shop.
The back ” cold storage” at my work is like this, about 100 tons of cast iron takes a long time to change temperature, on decent winter days it will be 35°F outside and 20° inside.
Well, I was a mechanic at Eglin AFB for a while. Typical Florida weather, 100% humidity, 95+ regularly. We had it kind of nice as we were maybe 1/4 mile from the water and had a nice breeze regularly, the shop was setup to have flow-through from the breeze as well.
However we also had several weeks in the teens over some of my winters there. They also didn’t have appropriate heating in the shop (contractor installed it wrong and designed it for a shop with half of our air-space.) Those were unpleasant.
Ever work on anything over at Elgin Air Force Auxiliary Field #9?
Not really. Spent a LOT of time at field #3 though.
Cool. You may have worked on some of my old birds which were transitioned to reserve status in 1995. I was long gone by then, but those planes flew on until 2013, I think.
Nah, I never worked flightline. I was strictly heavy equipment.
Probably some of that overlapped in our two timeframes, but barely.
Still, small damn world.
You can say that again.
Its something that comes up a lot in my experience. My uncle retired as a deputy down in Broward county after 20-something years. Took another job, retired from that after 20 years. After that he bought a few acres on a mountainside in North Carolina. Moved up and one day he sees a guy he was a deputy with. Turns out the guy had bought a few acres on the other side of the same mountain as him.
Life’s full of weird things like that.
Great story.
One time my 89 Toyota SR5 4wd extended cab truck suddenly lost all power during a freeway run. It was terribly slow due to it’s small but venerable 22RE, so interstate driving was rare. But this time it decided to break down in the middle of the night, and right before an exit, so I limped off and into a CVS parking lot. One of the main fuses had blown. Luckily I had some extras, but whenever I pushed in a new one, it would immediately blow again. It was shorting out somewhere. Albeit chilly and dark, the weather was fine. With my back to the ground under my old truck, I began to scope out the electrical gremlin. It was late and in a small central Utah town, so I was alone…….or so I thought. Within a few minutes, I heard a rumble of a diesel truck move close to me….. wait…. and then drive away. I didn’t think anything of it. But a few minutes later, it happened again. I turned my head to see a tow truck circling me like a vulture. It wanted to tow me right then, but couldn’t because of the huge liability of crushing me. It was just waiting patiently for me to leave my truck. I realized that I had to fix it there and NOW, or I would be a victim of the predatory tow company. I soon noticed my o2 sensor wire was touching my exhaust, and the rubber had melted to it. I initiated MacGuyver mode and used a knife, zip ties, and a small amount of electrical tape in the glove box to fix my o2 sensor wire and solve the problem. During this time, the tow truck circled TWO more times. I jumped in my old Toyota, waited for the tow driver to circle again, gave him a “California howdy”, and drove off, escaping his clutches and the impound lot abyss.
This is my favorite; the ticking time bomb condition is definitely the unique one in the comments. It could indeed be the opening gambit in an old MacGyver episode!
I got you beat at both ends of the thermometer but I lose it on difficulty of repair. South of Las Vegas on 95 shredded a tire, temperature was over 130 degrees, death valley eat your heart out, but thank you AAA. I called them but being impatient I had the VX jacked up, tire off when they arrived to put my spare tire on the rim, didn’t want to use mini spare, and mount it.
Just moved to VT. Just bought the VX it was May. So traveling the backroads from a bar, not drunk, to my abode. Had to pee really bad stopped and got out on a dirt road shut the door keep the warm in. Door locked automatically. So in the middle of a Forrest after midnight, locked out with less than a quarter tank of gas. I espied a light in the distance. Walked a mile to a cabin in which a wonderful 84 year old woman answered the door invited me in gave me usevof her landlines and a mug of cocoa and wait for the tow truck to open the door. Her thermometer read -20 degrees. AAA isn’t bad when they show up.
Speaking of wrenching, any updates from DT in St. Louis?
I’m guessing this is just a warm up to finding him in an auto(pian) body shop, wrenches and sockets arrayed around him, frozen in place Han Solo-in-carbonite style. Cheap bastard that he is, I bet he requested a Harbor Freight casket, to boot.
Watkins Glen racetrack during a light snowstorm. My car had already eaten a camshaft so I helped a bunch of guys I didn’t even know install a junkyard BMW 2002 engine into their vintage racecar. The dead motor had grenaded so we had to remove and clean out the oil cooler, intakes, radiator, everything before we could build it back up. We worked all night with just a bonfire to keep warm. The word got around the paddock and people kept bringing us beer, parts, and encouragement. The next morning we had a reveal party at 8AM (end of quiet hour). That junker fired right up and ran great. It finished the 3 hour enduro 2nd in class! I saw those guys 2 years later and they told me they used that engine all season. What a great memory. I was younger then.
I’ve done plenty of wrenching in hot weather, rainy weather, and even in the mud. The worst was definitely my time living in Minnesota and fixing stuff during the winter, the worst of that being replacing a starter in January. A friend called asking for help with his late-90s Chevy Malibu not starting. Turned out the starter had fried itself, so we swapped the starter out in his apartment parking lot during an overcast day and -18 degF temps (-30 degF wind-chill). To make it worse, the ground was covered in snow and ice, so we laid on some cardboard to at least try to insulate ourselves somewhat. I was really missing my heated garage that day…
My shit doesn’t break in the summer, only winter.
Does wrenching in the presence of a toddler throwing tools at me count? Taking pliers to the wrist bone hurts…
I’ve been fortunate to not deal with bad weather for my wrenching, but the worst was trying to diagnose a dead battery in sub freezing temps after my friends swore up and down the JUST tried jumping the car and it did nothing. Pulled fuse blocks and rails with basic hand tools, did some inspection and no crank, barely any lights came on, nada. Jumped it with my car, came back to life immediately…
And then I noticed the dash cam hard wired into the car on permanent sentry mode, and the car hadn’t been driven in 2 weeks, which explains how a 1.5 year old TLX had a dead battery
I had it easy! Starter failed in a parking garage downtown after I’d worked at a customer site. Called the boss, then rode the bus to the parts store at the other end of downtown, got a replacement and a cheap socket set, rode the bus back and bolted it in.
I replaced the battery in my daughters PowerWheels in May once. Think that about sums up the most tragic conditions I have faced.
“the wind pushed a 747 around on the ice”
“I almost died in condom water”
“My frozen blood made a crackling sound when I bent my legs again”
“The weather was almost too nice when I changed the power wheel battery” hahaha
I got caught in a thunderstorm doing drums on my 72 Mustang. My friend and I dropped some cinder blocks on a tarp on the roof and couple more on the ground. Wind could’ve easily knocked them off and cracked our heads open.
I try to avoid any major wrenching in the winter, and I have a buddy heater, a heater that goes on the top of a propane tank, and a 3kw electric radiator in my garage, I can at least get that to a comfortable temperature in the winter (though it is expensive to run that heat). Pro tip is to take your wrenches inside the night before so they are at least room temperature. Or put them closer to a heat source.
So usually, my worst wrenching is on a humid summer day when I can’t do anything other than a fan to cool things down in the garage. I have a few ways to move a lot of air, but sometimes it just isn’t enough.
Removed and replaced my radiator on the street outside a radiator shop during a sleet storm.
I got a *click* this morning when I went to start my truck. Took my shitbox Corolla to work instead. It is a balmy 16 degrees out. Battery swap coming later today (I hadn’t even let the idea that the 18 year old starter has gone bad enter my head, so UGH!).
A 3ish hour wrenching bonanza as the sun set in around a 20°F parking lot to replace a blown power steering line, then a pump as the fitting broke off, then reservoir, which also broke off. Eventually we just looped the line to the rack, which blew off halfway home anyhow during a massive snowstorm. Why all this effort? -pressurized power steering fluid on hot exhaust burns very well.
I was crew chief for a rally team for a number of years- so you name it! Middle of the forest in Quebec (just off of a snowmobile trail) in the middle of the night in February wasn’t much fun.
Replacing a transmission in a rainy hotel parking lot in November wasn’t a blast either… but all of the experiences built character, I’m sure! (Even smiling about it gives me back pain!)
It was January, don’t remember the year. Bitter cold out. Water pump on my Dakota went. While I had a building to work in, it wasn’t heated. If you’re familiar with the Magnum V-6 in a ’97 Dakota, you know that there is a huge aluminum bracket on the front of that engine that friggin’ everything is mounted to. And you have to take out the radiator and fan shroud to have enough room to get all that crap off the front of the engine. Book calls it at 8 hours of labor, took me about that amount of time to get it done. I ran a kerosene space heater to get some semblance of warmth. Inside of my truck reeked of kerosene for a good month after that and I was still frozen all damn day.
The worst conditions are easily snowy. If you’ve had to fix a snowmobile or snowcat out in the white stuff…it sure does suck.
Thankfully not too many bad ones. I do remember having to put a spare tire on in the middle of winter during a freezing rain/snow mix. I’d say it was probably in the mid to high 20s. That sucked a bit. By the time I was done my fingers were numb and barely able to hold onto anything. And then I realized that my spare tire was rubbing against my brake caliper so I had to fix it which meant pulling over again and making sure I put the spare tire on properly.
Swapping out the dual alternator belts on my ‘91 SAAB 900 in a parking lot in North Dakota in short sleeves when it was -40 air temp with a ~20mph wind.
“Minus Forty WHAT, Fahrenheit or Celsius?” I hear you commenters. Yes, the answer is yes.