 |
| I got him to smile even though he probably wanted to throw some tools at this point. |
 |
| Look at him go! |
 |
| Yeah, that motor mount was WAY back there! |
 | |||
| I got my hands dirty too. Twas fun. |
We went to install some motor mount inserts to help stabalize the existing motor mounts. I learned a lot about what motor mounts do and how they help. Before all of this, you could see Walter's shifter moving as we drove. That was basically the motor and everything moving around under the hood. So, we went to put inserts in to help hold them still better. The main one we needed to get to was way at the bottom and behind a lot of things under the hood.
I noticed while we were in the auto hobby garage, that a garage works much like a hospital.
-First, when we got there and started on the car, Cameron had not told me exactly what we were doing or how I could help. I was standing there, silent, not knowing what I should be doing and I thought, "We should have done a team stepps moment..." I really did. Yes, that's sad. For those of you who don't know what team stepps is, it's something all the Navy hospitals are implementing to help communication and safety for patients in the hospital. It gives power to techs and corspmen to be able to tell the doctor they don't feel comfortable with something the doctor is doing, etc. It also gets everyone on the medical team to get together and talk about the plan for that day, that patient, etc so everyone knows his/her role.
I didn't know my role. Team stepps would have been good there.
-Second, safety safety safety. That pretty much sums up point number 2.
-Third, don't EVER say, "gee, it seems quiet in here..." or even THINK it. That leads me to number 4.
-Fourth, when a disaster happens, everyone moves quickly and smoothly to react to the disaster. The radio had stopped playing and I actually thought to myself that it was particularly quiet, but I know we never say that in the hospital so I didn't say it out loud in the garage. Even thinking it caused a problem.
A few minutes later, a man that had been rotating his tires on his beautiful BMW somehow messed up and the car fell down on just one jack and the back wheel/tire looked like it bent because it was only on with one lug nut at that moment. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I do know in that exact moment everyone sprung into action. It was like a code. One guy calmly yelled, "grab a jack" and the owner ran over to where the jacks were kept. They were all being used, but I realized we had one we at that moment didn't HAVE to have under the car, so I dropped it and handed it off to him.
It was so funny. No one said anything. They got the car jacked back up and I'm not sure if the car was damaged or not, but it had looked bad. It was the garage equivalent of a code. Quite interesting to see.
-Sometimes you need a second opinion. They have some guys that work in the shop in case you need help with your car or the tools, etc. They helped many times by just giving another pair of eyes to the situation.
All the motor mounts ended up being cracked and all broken! We had to order new motor mounts all together. Cameron replaced 2 of the 3 in our drive way one day.
 |
| Boo boo under the car working in the rain and his awesome coveralls. |
 |
| I sat right next to him to hold the flashlight and umbrella. |
It slowly started to rain. I sat outside with an umbrella and a flash light for him. We'll have to go back to the auto hobby shop this weekend to get that last mount put on. It drives SO much better now. Before, I had trouble shifting and at times couldn't even get it in gear. It's like butta now.
Our wheels arrived, but now we're waiting on tires. Cameron loves things from Japan, but actually buying them here is so expensive. Also, it's almost pointless to get nice wheels because so many of them get curbed due to the small roads, etc.
We ended up ordering some wheels and tires from the states. They are a lesser known brand, but they are made from another company that does make popular Japanese wheels. They most likely are coming from the same factory anyway, so what does it matter?
The car has been consuming most of Cameron's time. He didn't expect to have this much basic maintenance to do on it as soon as he arrived. It's good though. I really am learning a lot and I'm starting to bond with the car.
Our car is a 1998 Honda Civic Type R, or EK9 for the chassis code. You can read up on type r's here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Type_R
;)
I was not a Honda fan before we arrived in Japan, but I told the boy to show me why it was he loved these cars so much. He's doing a good job. This car impresses me daily.
The name, Walter comes from the movie The Money Pit. Walter is the name of Tom Hank's character and since this car has been needing more and more things done to it, we just joke it's like the money pit. It's really not so spendy. We just joke. It's a good name, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment