Amateur Mechanics

So, our 1997 Toyota 4Runner has been shaking down the highway for a few months now. But before embarking on our road trip to Yellowstone National Park, we thought it was in our best interest to fix it. Of course my father knew exactly what was wrong with it, "It's probably your ball joints. They are easy to replace." FAMOUS LAST WORDS!! But with both Stephen and my "Can-Do" attitudes, we optimistically take on this project. After 2 weeks of having the truck up on blocks and figuring out what we were looking at, we began replacing the ball joints. Well, the ball joints are tricky to remove and we had to rent two speciality tool kits and buy 2 speciality tools to get the job done.

The only injuries were a bruise to my knee, a jammed knuckle, a broken tie rod (we ended up replacing both) and a broken ABS sensor (Dad miraculously welded it back together)!!

The truck is now "tight" and only makes occasional grinding noises when turning a hard right :-)

Another twist to this saga is while the 4Runner's front steering is completely disassembled, our only other mode of transportation, the Saturn station wagon, won't start! Thank goodness Dad was available to come spend a couple of days with us...we ended up putting the 4Runner back together and attempted to move the Saturn into the garage for the next car project. Now for all of you who have been to our house, you know that we have a pretty steep driveway. Of course, the Saturn is not a really heavy car, so we shouldn't have too much of a problem getting up and into the garage...FAMOUS LAST WORDS! The first idea was to have Dad push it up with his Jeep. This would have worked great but the Jeep's bumper is much higher than the Saturn's and the angle of the driveway made the Jeep just ride right on top of the Saturn (thank goodness I had already dented up the bumper and hood).

So the wheels in my boys' heads start cranking with all sorts of ideas on how to get the Saturn up this really steep incline (it seems to be getting steeper and steeper). Stephen brings out the 2x4's to wedge in between the Jeep and Saturn bumpers (still not sure why)...Dad wants to let air out of the Jeep's tires to make the bumpers the same level...I am sitting patiently in the Saturn taking pictures and chuckling. Stephen finally opts to put himself between the Saturn and the Jeep and commences leg presses pushing the Saturn up and I slam on the brake when we get to the maximum height of each push. After a couple of these, Dad jumps in on the action, but we realize that this is not sustainable.

So now Dad follows his gut and says, "Let me pull it up and leave enough room to back the Jeep out." So he pulls and we rearrange the garage to allow him to shimmy the Jeep out of the garage. They both use brute force to push the car the rest of the way, we jack it up and start poking around under the hood. We now realize that the car is not "getting spark" but it is getting gas (Yay, the fuel pump is good!) I am grateful that Mom, Dad, Glenn & Keeli are coming over tomorrow to celebrate my Mom's birthday and we can all spend quality time together under the Saturn's hood!