Saturday, February 14, 2015

Vehicle breaks down and youtube come to the rescue ... again.

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  How is everyone doing.  I pray that this blog finds everyone in good health and spirits.  The past several weeks has been very eventful for me and my family.

Several weeks ago, I slipped on ice while going to work.  My hands were full with my book bag, lunch, and other items, so when I fell, I fell on my elbow. I heard something in my shoulder crack and I was unable to get up.  Luckily, I ended up breaking my shoulder blade and not my elbow.  The doctor said that it normally heals in 6 weeks but it ended up healing in 3 weeks.  My employer, Ball Pipe and Supply was real good.  It wasn't worker's comp because I wasn't working at the time the accident happened.  But they allowed me to go on limited duty so that I didn't miss any work days.

This past Thursday, our car broke down.  My wife took me to work cause she needed the car to take our son to Therapy Works in Tulsa, OK.  When she left Ball Pipe and Supply, she stopped to get fuel.  She goes to start the car after fueling and the car didn't even try to start.  The lights worked, the chime worked, the battery tested positive, the the car wouldn't start.  No 'click' or anything.  She calls me up and we had to cancel our son's appointment at Therapy Works.  We have the car towed to Fred's just to find out that their mechanic quit.  Great, now what?  They were nice enough to look over the vehicle and figured that the starter must be bad but really couldn't be positive since the guy who looked at it was a tire guy. They were real good at telling me that they can't be sure.  Based on the fact that they were not mechanics (and I really doubted that it was the starter), I decided to see if we could get the car to another shop.  They called around to several shops in the area but none could look at the car until Monday.  Not good.  I asked a co worker if he could take my wife and I home and then pick me up Friday morning to go back to work.  After work Friday, I walk to the car (was picked up on my way by a co worker who saw me walking).  When I get in the car, I decide to try to start the car.  Immediately I notice that something is wrong with the ignition.  The key turned to the start position with no resistance at all and it didn't snap back to the on position when I let go of the key.  The problem was in the ignition and I didn't like it.  I have to admit, this vehicle intimidates me when it comes to working on it.  It is a 2006 Jeep Liberty and it is the newest vehicle I have ever owned.  It also has lots of fancy electrical things that I do not understand.  But, this vehicle broke down in Shawnee once before and I stumbled upon a youtube video that helped me fix the problem back then.  I decided to try youtube again.  I knew I was going to have to replace the ignition so I went on youtube and searched:  Replace ignition 2006 Jeep Liberty.  Lots of videos popped up in the results, but one caught my eye.  It was "My Jeep Won't Crank Over SOLVED".  This video was great.  It described the problem he had with his vehicle, which was the same problem I was having.  He explained that the problem was a bad ignition actuator and recommended changing both the ingnition switch and actuator and explained why. He showed how to get to the two parts, how to removed the parts (even named the special tool needed), and even went into detail on how the parts work.  He was very detailed.  The only thing I would recommend is for him to improve the lighting. Once I got the parts and tools I needed, the task was easy and went very smooth.  The hardest part was putting the covers for the steering column back together.

I will tell y'all something.  I hear a lot of people talk about the things that is bad about the internet, but there is a lot of good things.  It is filled with lots of information that can help us out a lot.  I probably wouldn't have been able to afford to have this done at the shop but because I was able to look it up on the internet and get the parts at Auto Zone, I was able to get the job done.  The other thing is that my confidence is building and I am not as afraid as I use to be to work on the car.  It goes to show how God can take a terrible thing (my car breaking down away from the house) and turn it into a good thing (I can do all things with God).  Y'all have a great day and God bless.

The Oklahoma Tomcat
http://theoklahomatomcat.bravesites.com/


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