A Not-so-good Weekend; a.k.a. God hates me:

From J-bot on Oct 12, 2008

Or: How Not to Change a Car Battery

So, today was laundry day; meaning I head over to Heather's place and use her washer/dryer, and we go out and do lunch while the stuff gets cleaned. I get up, had burned a DVD of anime involving vampires for her (she's into vampire/supernatural books and such) And get ready to leave, only to leave the DVD behind; which is not a big deal, I can bring it over another day, and she's pretty busy writing cover letters and applying for post-doc positions as it is.

Anyway, I left, got in and started the car; no problems. Now a few weeks prior, it had a bit of a "fit" where the engine turns over, but it won't idle. The car has a history of this, even before I got it handed down to me from the parents, but the instances are few and far in between, and it usually recovers just fine. Cept this time it was a little different as the clock/dashboard settings reset themselves.

Brain: "Hello? Dead battery!"
I brushed the thought aside, and went on my merry way.

I get to her place, turn everything off, and was probably only in there maybe 10 or 15 minutes tops. We came out, got in as we were gonna hit Bento's Cafe for some asian cuisine. I turn the key, and here this rapid-fire click sound.

Yup. Dead battery....and parked right behind her garage door. Well, her friend weren't home, and nobody else was around, so I shifted to neutral, rolled back down the incline into the street so she could get her car out so we could try jumpstarting it.

No dice. Battery was dead-as-a-door-nail. Great, so now, here I am in the middle of the street, car's not going anywhere, can't really tow it anywhere because the dealership's not open on a sunday.

Enter: Plan A:
I called, and after some ideas/advice, decided to take the battery itself out, and haul it down to Sears to have them test it real quick. Course, before I left, I had to push the car up a slight incline back into the parking spot, course, could only get it part way in once the back wheel hit the bottom, and I'm not that strong to begin with. But it's not hanging out much, so godod enough, and off we go.

Sure enough the battery itself was bad. I gave them my make/model/year of the car, and basically had a choice between 2 different Die-Hard brands, both a very similar price. (104 or 105 dollars) Naturally, I went with the cheaper :P

Swipe, ring, sign, and off to lunch we go. Which, consequently was quite good. Chicken Katsu = <3

We get back to her place and hang out to cool our jets a bit. Was quite warm today. Finally, around 6pm or so (and letting the laundry dry awhile) I go out to start putting in the new battery. So far everything is going just fine, even though I had to kinda fanagle things, since the girlfriend doesn't have a very complete toolkit. And neither do I for that matter. "Dammit Jim! I'm a Computer Geek, not a Mechanic!"

Having said that, I'm obviously not a mechanic as I obviously lack the necessary finger/hand/manual motor skills involved. Everythign was going fine and fitting in place (mind you it's starting to get dark, and she's holding a flashlight by this time) I go to reconnect the ground, being careful, and I DROP THE DAMN NUT! It falls BEHIND the battery, and DOESN"T go all the way down to the asphalt. I spend 30 MINUTES hunting for the damn hunk of metal only to find myself scrounging through my trunk for spare parts. At which point I realized scrounging meant giving up on finding it, so I took the girlfriend's advice and we both head over to wal-mart to get another nut.

Plan B:
After trying a few out, I come to realize none of them will probably fit, because Toyota probably uses a METRIC system ( you bastards!) So I cut my losses and buy a couple spare parts that fit over the battery terminals. I figured between the two of them and the parts I already had, I should be able to rig SOMETHING up.

We did dinner, as I was once again starving by that time. Physical labor seems to do that to me. I get back, get the flashlights out again, and start to open the packages, and test the other parts, and sure enough they don't fit either. Toyota is definitely using either metric, or some proprietary crap for their bolts/screws. I cut my losses and grab the new part that fits around the terminal, only to find the cable end doesn't fit over the piece itself, DOH! Luckily it's only the little bars/fitters were to narrow, so I grabbed the pliers and bent them a bit.

Done! Everything fits into place, and I tighten everything down good and tight, car starts up, and I can finally come home. Yay!

...

Did I mention it rained?

-Jbot

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