Working on cars is like anything else these days. It always takes twice as long and is twice as complicated as you thought.
The story begins with "lets change the oil in a silver Chrysler Sebring convertible." Well, if we're going to do that we should find out where the oil leak is. This is a front wheel drive car so the engine is mounted sideways making it harder to get at everything. After removing one front wheel, various splash panels, and braces under the car, we still needed to disconnect the exhaust pipe to remove the oil pan. The gasket didn't show any signs of leaking. So on to the next suspect...
To remove the timing cover gasket required the usual belt and pulley removals. But.... to do that you have to remove the coolant tank and power steering reservoir with all the associated hoses. This required a ladder in addition to the lift. Then there was a small matter of reaching all the necessary bolts. Again, the gasket seemed intact so no leak there.
What then? Reassemble everything with new gaskets, install the new oil filter and oil, start it up and check everything. Now that everything is clean we can see that the oil sending unit is the leak. As I said the engine is sideways so seeing, let alone reaching, the sending unit is a challenge. A few busted knuckles later, the new sending unit is installed and no leaks, problem solved.
On to the next vehicle... with great confidence. This time it's Sue's Cadillac. The gas gauge jumps around like some drunk so there's no way to tell how much gas is in the tank. In this case we had to unbolt a heat shield that protects the gas tank from the exhaust pipe. ( Putting the hot exhaust pipe around the plastic gas tank doesn't seem like the brightest idea to me. )
Naturally it's not possible to syphon gas out of modern cars so a steel support holds the weight of the tank while we disconnect everything. ( Using 2 cent plastic clips to attach the fuel lines to the tank isn't very reassuring either. ) Finally, the tank is on the ground and the fuel pump gets switched out. But wait... the plug on the car doesn't match the socket on the new pump. Apparently, there has been some sort of improvement in the design.
There are lots of wires in any automobile and to know which wires go where they are color coded. Typical of the documentation being provided with everything today, the wiring instructions is printed on the smallest piece of paper, ( save on paper ). The illustration of the connector is large and surprisingly matches the piece in your hand. Unfortunately, IT'S IN BLACK AND WHITE, ( save on color ink ). Underneath the picture is the color codes for the wires,... printed in about a 2pt font, ( save on black ink ). Two pairs of reading glasses reveals the secret of the wires. With the gas tank reassembled and reinstalled, the heat shield is reattached. Fuel lines are "clipped on" and things are looking good.
WRONG! While looking at project it was suggested that we replace the oil sending unit on this car too because it looks like it might also be leaking. Remember the sideways engine? While I'm fooling with the "color" wiring diagram, my friend pops off the wiring connection to the oil sending unit. The special socket used to remove the actual unit won't fit in the space around it, so it's 1/8th turn of a wrench, flip the wrench over, 1/8th turn, use channel lock pliers for 1/16th turn... REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT ... ( you get the picture ).
OK, great, the old unit is out. Now if we can just see the hole and get our fingers around the engine mount far enough to start threading the new one into the hole, we can start the wrench, wrench, pliers routine again.
VICTORY IS OURS! All that's left is to plug it in. This simple step only took 3 hours of 6 different guys trying to insert the plug into the new sending unit. The plug is keyed so it will only fit one way. These are all experienced, mechanically minded guys, one of whom only has one good eye. Finally, with 2 lights and a mirror, the guy with one good eye sees that part of the old plug is still attached. We pop that off, the plug goes right in and we're done.
And now the moral of this story.. IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND THE ONE EYED MAN IS KING!
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