Missives from the 6th Floor

I feel like the grandfather in the princess bride: "She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time..."

So we got home and I took it apart (again). The gasket maker hadn't, and it was a bloody mess. Oil had spilled down the manifold (hence the smoke and smell) and was pooling in the plug wells. I cleaned it all up, and made some more phone calls, determined to either find the OEM gasket or give up 'till I could get to the Saturn dealer on Monday.

I found two shops with the gasket, and went to pick it up on the bike. Got home, put it together, and took it for a test drive.

Still seeping oil around the gasket.

Now I was getting frustrated. And being frustrated, I sorta did a dumb thing.

I took it apart again, seated the gasket in the valve cover, and started to re-assemble it when I over-did it a bit with the torque wrench.

The valve cover is ABS, and the torque spec - as best as I could tell from reading online (I've had this car for 10 years without owning a service manual) was between 10 and 15 ft. lbs. I kept turning the bolt, and the wrench never got above about 12.

Turns out that's cause the bolt had bottomed out in the hole, and was in the process of sheering in half - leaving half a bolt in the aluminum case.

That bind I mentioned before? This was it.

I've extracted screws before - but never from aluminum, and never in a situation where a mistake could cost me thousands of dollars to fix.

So Monday morning, from the boat, I called a mechanic (Madison Avenue Garage, on -- wait for it -- Madison Avenue) and explained the problem. Sure, he says, they can take care of it, and he gave me the name of a local tow service.

About 2 hours later they took the car away, and this morning - after waiting for replacement bolts to arrive - it was ready to be picked up. Our neighbor was kind enough to give Dawnise a lift, and so the car came home.

But the story doesn't end there, oh no.

Dawnise mentioned that the car was driving funny - that it was shuddering when accelerating. So this evening when I got home, I took it for a drive. It was fine out of the driveway, but soon as I rounded the corner, I felt what she was describing. A hesitation and thump, as if the transmission was slipping and finally slamming into gear.

Wonderful.

So I got home and popped the hood to check the transmission fluid. I noticed, pretty much immediately, that (a) there was no oil leaking from the crank case (good), but that the plug wires were laying strangely (strange). No matter. I checked the transmission fluid, and it was fine.

Ok, this could be a problem. I was about to call it a night, but the plug wires were just bothering me.

So I traced them, and quickly realized - with the help of the schematic nicely placed less than 6 inches from the high-voltage terminals, that the mechanic had apparently removed the HT ends of the plug wires, and put them back in the wrong order.

So instead of 4-1-2-3, they were 1-4-3-2.

Grumble, grumble.

A few minutes later I had them back to rights, and the car runs just like it did before they "fixed" it for me.

Tomorrow morning I get to call the shop and let them know that they owe me an hours labor (hour minimum, dontcha know). Since I doubt they'll pay me to fix their problem, I'll have to settle for letting the manager know that a bit of carelessness cost him a customer.

I don't need to pay a so-called professional to screw things up, I'm perfectly capable of doing that myself.