Tuesday, September 4, 2018

9/4/18 Labor Day Weekend?

    I have to say, I am pretty proud of myself for keeping up with Wife's car.  In the last two weekends, I have installed new tires, she got the first set up to a little over 70,000 miles, which now that I think of it, sounds like a lot.  Still, when I went to Discount Tire, only one of the front tires was in the dangerously thin section of wear, according to their charts.  I figure, if these new tires can give her about the same, then that should get us to four years.  I don't know if she'll keep the car with that many miles, but currently she does love what we have affectionately been calling the butt plug.  There is just something to its look, where it is simultaneously cute but boxy, too small, but big enough for the job.
    After doing the tires, she mentioned it seemed low on power.  I thought maybe it could be the gas filter, it has given us problems on the Excursion.  When I asked the guy at Advance Auto Parts, he said if they didn't carry it, it would be inside the gas tank and not meant to be cleaned regularly.  He did suggest the spark plugs should be changed as often as every two months, shoot, we hadn't changed them since we bought the car, two years ago.  He was able to look up the right part number based on the engine size.
    I brought them home and then started doubting myself that I could do it.  I looked at a couple of YouTube videos showing how to do it and it actually seemed very easy.  Sure enough, it all went smoothly until the last plug, on the far right.  It seems trapped by another part that has two hoses going to it.  I figured how to take the wires off the coil, but that didn't help too much.  I found another person online asking for the same question and the guy who did the video responded that it will come off just by forcing it out, and it did without breaking it.
    After the spark plugs, I filled her washer fluid reservoir with new fluid solution and even added a gas cleaner to the fuel container, in case she has some water in it.  I feel pretty good about doing all this, but I still had a gameplan to finish my backyard patio.  Maybe this week I will get my chance.  It is a short week, work wise and my folks are coming this weekend.

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