When not doing it yourself pays off

August 13, 2007

They say that “Necessity is the mother of invention”. I think that Necessity’s sister, Poverty, is the mother DIY. When I grew up, we couldn’t go wasting money on such frivolous things as car repairs, so if you couldn’t fix it, or you didn’t know someone who could fix it, then it just didn’t get fixed.

In some ways that experience has made me a cheap skate. To this day, it physically hurts me to pay someone to do something that I can do myself. If something breaks, I fix it. If I don’t know how, then I either look at a book and / or ask a friend.

Now granted, it may not get fixed right away, or I may lose some skin, blood, sanity, weekends, and / or money in the process of fixing it, but I’m going to do it.

Heck, I may not even learn to fix it until I’m standing around, looking at all the extra parts that are left over after I’ve put it all back together, but its always easier the second time around. It also gets progressively easier each time you do it.

By the fifth time you’re pretty much an expert.

From a time and money standpoint, this practice doesn’t always work out, but I’ve saved a huge amount of money taking care of my vehicles and my house, so I think that I’m in the lead.

There is another saying that comes to mind, “Experience is something you don’t get until after you need it”. With the 84 Jeep CJ-7 pictured above, I’m getting a whole lot of experience.

I will say that there have been a number of times recently that I let a professional take care of an automotive problem. But last week, when my foot pushed the brake pedal to the floorboard, with none of the “stopping” that is generally associated with that action, I had to take a look at it myself. It turned out that I had a cracked brake line. Easy enough to repair:

• Step 1: Remove the old brake line.
  • Optional Step: Wash Brake Fluid out of your Eye.
• Step 2: Replace it with a new one.
  • Optional Step: Bash Knuckle on the Master Cylinder.
• Step 3: Bleed the brakes to get the air out of the line.
  • Optional Step: Take Motrin to stop the throbbing in your leg from pushing the brake pedal.

Simple right? Well, I didn’t get past step 1.

I couldn’t get the fitting off. The fitting was conveniently located between the exhaust pipe and the frame. There just wasn’t any room, and when the three fingers I could fit in there managed to get the wrench to turn, I was only shaping the fitting into a perfect circle.

A circle is a good shape for tires, but bad for nuts and bolts.

I brought the Jeep into Brakes Plus, and they said it would only take about an hour to an hour and a half, so I decided to wait. I figured that they would have an easy time with it.

Watching the mechanic, with a 4 foot long wrench (its a little easier to work on when the vehicle is on a lift), pushing as hard as he could, I thought “Man am I glad I brought it in, I would never have been able to get that off”.

Watching the mechanic bang that same 4 foot long wrench with a large hammer only made this thought more concrete.

Watching the mechanic cursing (sound proof glass), pounding a 6 foot long wrench with a hammer, and angrily throwing said hammer into the toolbox across the room, I was sure that I had made the right decision.

Anyway, 2 and a half hours later, I had my Jeep back, with a brake pedal that can put a bald headed, 215 pound man firmly into the windshield, or so I am told. I gladly parted with $190, knowing that there was no way that I would have been able to do that in any reasonable amount of time, if at all.

The moral to this story is that sometimes it pays to bring your problems to a professional. Whether this is a mechanic, a computer repair tech, or a psychologist, you will probably be happier when it is all over.

Also on Port 16:

Hosting tools and Brake issues – A Year Ago on Port16

Posted in Advice, CJ-7, Jeeps, Repairs