Such A Day!

Such a day!  OMG!  Talk about the adage, no good deed goes unpunished!

I was up late on Sunday night because I had a grand-daughter day, wherein I had both of my grand-daughters for the day and the youngest could not be picked up until almost 11 pm!  I was exhausted Sunday night and with joy just collapsed after her father picked her up!  I expected to get many hours sleep.

It was unfortunate that was interrupted at 5 am, by my sobbing youngest daughter calling my name.  Her car was beyond dead.  So, being a good father, I got up and drove her to her work in Kent, then chugged back home with a car barely holding together now for me either!  So it seems I am now losing coolant, but daughters car was dead.

So, outside of driving back to Kent to pick up daughter, I worked on her dead car.

Battery - dead.  Added water, put it on a charger and let it run for 6 hours.  Then confirmed that the battery was within its service life.

With the battery now charged, silly me thought the car could be started - NOPE!

Well that leaves wires and fuses.  Wires on the battery and starter looked good and I began the laborious task of testing all of the fuses Toyota puts on their cars.  1.5 hours later that task was done and I had a single bad fuse to go buy at Toyota.  Only $29.95 !!!!! for a fuse!!!!!  And silly me thought the car would now start!  Nope ...

It is after dark now.  All that is left is the cables and they look and test out fine.  But, the ignition switch is intermittent as to working or not.  Dash lights, headlights, horn, everything electrical will only work every third try.  Finally I get on the internet and after another hour, I find that on her model year of Toyota, this is a known problem!  I am thinking okay, bad ignition switch!  NOPE!  It turns out a loose positive battery post connector!  Really?????

I check out the connector, check out the tightness, all is fine.  What the heck ... ?  But, just for grins I tapped the connector sideways - and it flipped off the battery post!  I put it back on.  It is tight, it will not budge, I tap it and it flips off again!  A pair of vise-grips and I made an oval of the connector and gently tapped it back on.

The car fired right up and continues to run fine.

I took myself out to Wendy's to celebrate my triumph over Toyota!

Alas, no good deed goes unpunished.  As I pumped ketchup from the dispenser - my back went out for the first time in a long time ...

Codeine, my best friend ...