Start, stop, start again, I have an illness, to and from 1k, predator at our window

So I had a big agenda already for the weekend, hoping to get a number of new Tacoma accessories installed as well as completing the garage reorganization.  When Cindy reported starting problems with the 99 Tacoma late in the week I asked her to watch the video I did regarding starter replacement back in 2012, asking her if it sounded like that.  Basically she turned the key a couple times and got clicks but then the truck started normally.  That was the same behavior I had when the starter died in 2012.

I thought I should be proactive and just replace the starter, hopefully for nothing since the Autozone starter I installed had a limited lifetime warranty.  I would feel badly if I sold the truck and then had the starter let the new owner sitting in the near future.  Some people may view that as a stupid thing to care about.  After going through what I did as a result, I may agree with them.

So I got out there bright and early Saturday morning, hoping to finish up in the driveway before the heat of the day rolled in.  I assumed removal of the starter would go pretty easily since I did it before.  Predictably I had some struggles.  I used a different technique to remove the top starter bolt this time.  It required less socket extensions but more patience as I could only turn the socket 90 degrees at a time.  With a little more effort than expected I dropped the starter out of the engine compartment.

Installing the new starter went better.  After I tightened the bolts and reconnected the electrical stuff I leaned in the cab to do a test start, expecting it to be a mere formality.  Instead I was rewarded with a click.  WTF.  I turned again, hoping it was a weird anomaly.  Click, click, click…  How can this be, is it possible that Autozone sold me a DOA starter???  I was so pissed off as I imagined the hassle of having to pull the starter I just installed in order to get it checked.  I screamed a few obscenities into the wind as I walked back around to the front of the truck.

I double checked my connections and again tried the key, only to be greeted by more clicking.   I realized I had no choice but to remove my second starter of the day.  Luckily by this time I had become rather adept at it, I had the starter out in 10 minutes.  I loaded both starters AND my battery from the Tacoma into the new Tacoma in the remote chance the battery was bad as well.  The parts went into the bed.  I threw my seat cover over the driver seat since my clothes were covered with automotive fluid/dirt/grease/lubricants.

So as I pulled into Autozone I was not in a good mood.  The idea that they sold me a dead starter annoyed the piss out of me.  As I walked in from the lot my annoyance got ratcheted up a couple more clicks.  In front of the store was a pop up shelter with some kids and women that were obviously fundraising.  I was carrying the new starter in it’s box along with the old starter piled on top of it.  I was covered in dirt and surely had a sour look on my face.  Despite these obvious clues that I would not be a good solicitation target, one of the woman approaches me as I am approaching and tells me they are fundraising so some kids can go to judo camp.  I was amazed that this woman was so oblivious.   I had this immediate impulse to snap back with something like “are you blind, do I look like I am in a position to donate?”, but managed to submerge the impulse.  Instead I just gave her look of disbelief and disgust with a side order of head shaking.

So I plopped both starters on the counter and explained the situation.  The manager took both starters back to their tester.  He first hooked up the old starter.  After power was applied it fired up and passed the test.  Since the problem seemed intermittent I was not surprised.  However I expected the new starter to be dead as a door nail.  Instead the new starter fired right up as well, son of a …..

So I went into further detail about why I assumed the new starter was bad.  The manager said perhaps I have a grounding problem which he said I could check by using jumper cables to create a new temporary ground.  I told the manager I had my battery out in the truck as well.  I asked him if we could test it.  The judo woman was smart enough to not ask me for money again as I lugged the battery back in the door.  The guy slapped his tester on the battery and after 30 seconds or so showed me the result on the lcd screen, BAD BATTERY.

I was dumbfounded.  The behavior Cindy described just did not sound like a bad battery.  However the battery was around four years old which is about as long as they last in Florida conditions.  The idea that all of this bullshit and labor could have been avoided with a simple battery swap was frustrating.  I told the guy to get me a battery and that I would keep the new starter anyway. I turned in the old one to get my core charge refunded.  I returned home annoyed but relieved the solution to the problem was finally at hand.

By the time I got back Cindy had returned from the track meet she was coaching at.  I gave her the news that the starter replacement had not been going well.  I got busy installing the starter for the second time followed by installing my brand new battery.  This time I leaned into the cab and turned the key knowing it would start for sure.  CLICK.  You HAVE to be kidding me. I was in disbelief and angry.

So after verifying my connections I decided to test out the managers theory.  After disconnecting the negative battery lead I used the two black connections on my jumper cables, connecting one to the negative post on the battery and another to a grounding point on the engine. I turned the key and the truck roared to life.  Son of a bitch.  Could all of this bullshit really just be a flaky ground or bad battery cable?

I pulled out my Chilton’s manual and tried to find the battery ground location.  Unexplainably it did not seem to include that information.  I could not easily follow it visibly since it was encased in a wire loom that lead under the engine and out of view.  I then looked online for the ground location and again came up empty.  I walked back outside frustrated once again.

I decided to take a two step approach.  I took apart the negative battery terminal and cleaned it up best I could.  I also reconnected a secondary ground that was cut years ago that leads to the fender of the truck.  The combination of the two things finally seemed to do the trick, the truck fired up normally.  There is the very real possibility that I needlessly replaced the starter and the battery but at that point I didn’t care.  I’ll just add the items to the “features” list when I list the truck for sale.  The work that I hoped to have completed in 90 minutes instead wound up consuming the entire morning. If you want to see the video of the entire frustrating experience look here. I do have a sneaky suspicion that Tuffy may have knocked the ground loose during the water pump/timing belt install.  I may have to get under there one more time to check it out.

So after eating lunch I headed right back to the garage to start installing my new Tacoma accessories.  Despite my frustrating morning the Tacoma upgrades were on my mental checklist and needed to get done.  In total Cindy and I installed 5 upgrades including mud flaps, black out tailgate letters, console organizer, chrome tailpipe extension and nerf bars, which happened to show up as we were finishing the other upgrades.  I made a video for most of the stuff which is linked above.  The installation for all of it was pretty straight forward and simple but they really helped add some visual appeal to the truck.

Even though it was getting later in the afternoon I wanted to get the garage reorganization done or as close to done a s possible.  Cindy, who is an organization junkie was all on board.  I set up one of our folding tables in the garage and used it as a staging area.  We then began the lengthy process of removing EVERYTHING from the existing pegboard and piling it on the table in a haphazard manner.

As stuff was pulled off it was a good opportunity to throw out or curb items that were no longer of use.  Of course there were many things that fell into that category.  Once everything was removed we started the rebuild.  I was the one that did all of the pegboard population since that stuff is almost exclusively my domain.  Cindy worked a lot on organizing the endless surplus of screw, nuts, bolts, and washers that I had spread all over the place.  She also emptied out the area under my workbench.

It took a long time to get everything back in place.  We worked well into the evening but were driven by having the end in sight.  Cleaning up the garage was a long standing item on my winter project list.  Even though we are now far into spring it was exciting to have it finally nearing completion.

When we finally got the last thing put away we stood back to admire the fruit of our labor.  Not only did everything look better and have a spot, I had plenty of room for additional stuff, not that I am looking to fill in my pegboard space anytime soon.  Items I use frequently went in the workbench area, everything else got hung on the left in an orderly fashion.

After we were done we both felt beat up, really beat up.  All of the fighting with the truck in the morning backed up with a solid afternoon of nothing but additional work left me walking around with my ever more prevalent old man shuffle.  There wasn’t much on me that didn’t ache to some degree.  Cindy felt much the same.

I sometimes wonder what it is that drives me to fill many weekends with such an unbalanced work/relaxation formula.  I suppose it is a hereditary thing.  I just don’t feel at peace if my mental list for that time period remains incomplete.

On Saturday night we finally relaxed, watching Pawn Sacrifice, our most recent Netflix rental.  It was a movie about Bobby Fischer who I knew was a famous chess player but little else.  It seems he was equal parts genius and neurotic with a healthy dose of asshole thrown in there.  The movie was interesting enough for a solid B rating. I had no idea that later in life he lived in exile before he died in Iceland.  I guess brilliance comes with a price.

On Sunday I felt somewhat guilty for brushing off any endurance training, despite physically feeling not up to it.  I instead spent time getting the various video footage I shot the day before up on my YouTube channel.  Speaking of YouTube I hit a big milestone, gaining my 1000th subscriber to go along with my close to 900,000 channel views.   After I announced the milestone on Facebook, that number immediately decreased by a handful, dropping me back below the 4 digit mark.  I suspect some of my FB “friends” thought it would be funny to steal my thunder and unsubbed just to dick with me.  Luckily I picked up more subs to once again put me over the mark in the last 24 hours.

During the morning I also did some simple maintenance on the used Honda generator I got from my buddy John.  Instead of taking payment for the Immokalee race I timed for him he asked if I just wanted to keep the generator I borrowed since I needed one anyway.  I accepted his offer and figured it would be good to change the oil.  In addition to changing the oil I swapped out the air filter and spark plug.  None of the work was difficult but I took the time to document it anyway.  One thing I have found with YouTube videos is even procedures that may seem very simple to me can generate substantial views by others that don’t have my background.

We took the new Tacoma for it’s first Rural King run.  We got to admire the result of our accessory installs the day before.  We both commented on just how much we love the new truck both inside and out.  After picking up several items we returned home for what we hoped would be an afternoon sans-labor.

I did my weekly bill paying/budget balancing session.  That was an opportunity to shine a light on all of the spending that has been going on since the sale of the SSR. Of course I knew it was all going on but seeing the cold hard numbers helped me apply a gentle tap on the mental spending brake so I can catch my breath a little.  Sure there are more big ticket items on the list but none of it is anything that can’t wait for a bit.

Later in the afternoon I just could not help myself and began another small project.  I had a wire shelf that was displaced from the garage during the reorganization project that was sitting in the back yard.  It was one of those strong industrial models so I wanted to put it to use.  I wound up ripping out a less useful, smaller wood shelf in the large shed and sticking the wire shelf in there.  In order to make it work I also had to cut in half some wall mounted shelving in there.  The end result was more usable storage space that worked better.

My work set off an unintended chain reaction when I asked Cindy if she wanted the old wood shelf for anything.  If she didn’t I was going to curb it.  She said she wanted to try to possibly do something with it.  I carried it over and stuck it in the corner of the smaller shed that Cindy had already spent extensive time reorganizing.  She then went on another mission, shuffling things around yet again to work with the shelf in there.  She wound up working in the shed until around 7.

She worked so late that I offered to take her out to dinner so she wouldn’t have to tack on food prep to her list as well.  We went to Pelican Larry’s that is in a relatively new shopping center I never frequented before.  It was a very nice place and worthy of our future patronage.  My grouper basket was quite tasty.

When we got back home later we were both in the office.  I was watching Casey Neistat videos on YouTube.  All of a sudden I saw movement by the office window.  At first I though it was just the sprinklers turning on.  I then focused on the window and realized I could not have been more wrong.  There was a large raccoon on the outside ledge looking in at me.  On the ground next to it was a smaller one looking at me as well.  When I told Cindy to look she couldn’t believe it.

When I turned on the porch light to take a peek out front they had taken off.  A little later I saw the motion detector in the chicken run had tripped.  I walked out there as well just to make sure the raccoons were not trying to harass the hens, despite there being multiple levels of defense in place.  I once again saw nothing but both Cindy and I felt a bit unsettled knowing these chicken predators were once again freely roaming the grounds.