Sunday morning I got up around 7:00am just wanting to finish my project on my patio. I bought some lattice and I want to hang it to give some much needed shade in the afternoons, as currently we can't even think about going out there until the sun goes below the trees. But I also know that Wife's car needed some attention, it hadn't been washed in a couple months and the bugs and dead moths were starting to get thick on the front of it. I hate doing it, but then it really only takes about ten minutes to wash Boy's vehicle. It does not matter how many time I tell him, he will not go out and wash his vehicle. Compared to my Excursion, his little SUV takes me a couple minutes, so I keep doing it, which I did only to ensure that the wipers would clean smoothly, as he also needed to take his SUV to get his yearly inspection. The inspection requires good wipers, a window filled with bugs is only going to cost me new wipers at their prices.
It was a lucky and good thing that it happened when it did because he starts school tomorrow, but after washing his car, I went and got him so he could follow me and we could both take care of getting our inspections done to get the newest inspection stickers. His car just gave a few click clicks but no real attempt at firing up. I told him to pop the hood to take a look. The negative terminal on the battery looked like it had a termite mound that went up a good 3-4 inches high. I told him to go get a Coke can and we poured some on top and it did quick work of most of the mess, breaking it down almost instantly. The terminal was almost "frozen" to the wire assembly thing, but I grabbed pliers and started turning it slowly. It took a while, but I finally bullied the two pieces apart. We then took the battery out and took it to Advance Auto Parts down the street. $155 later, Boy was set to get his car going again. The old battery had a couple of cracks, either it developed due to the heat or I made while forcing the terminals to let go. The battery was four years old, I think it was time for a new one.
We got back home and I have to say the new one was a tiny bit smaller than the original as it went back in the small hole rather easily. I had Boy tighten it down and then we did the terminals. The guy at the store explained how to check to see if we have a good alternator, simply removing the positive terminal, if we have a bad alternator, the car would turn off right away. To test it under a load, he said crank up the fan and high beams and rev engine into the 1500rpm range. It stayed on, it must have just been a bad battery.
We could finally head on down and get our vehicles tested to get our state inspection tags. Wife's car passed, no problems, but Boy's SUV did not due to the new battery. Apparently, a lot of internal memory stuff was lost when the battery was unplugged. He needs to run around for 80-100 miles and then go back. That just means he has to go back during the week.
By this time, it was closer to noon. I went and woke Wife, she was still asleep. I was all hot and stinky from doing too much outside. Wife asked me if I wanted to go look at kayaks, that now Boy had mentioned that he was interested in buying one. It brought a tear to my eye, finally one of the brown nuggets is interested in what I am wanting to do. No, it turns out a bunch of guys at his place of work go kayaking, so now he wants to be Huckleberry Finn and be able to run up and down the rivers and lakes. Still, if he buys one, then I buy one, we would own a couple and then we could go out and not be all lame by myself. It was cool, at Cabela's talking about the different kayaks and he was actually interested. We both agreed that maybe for Christmas time, it would be cool. I am thinking like Oprah "you get a kayak, and you get a kayak, and you get a kayak. Then we can hang like a happy family together on the water. To be continued.
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