Well, tonight the car is fixed. The total car repair took about 2 weeks with intensive work last weekend, a little work this weekend and a couple of hours after work. We saved some cash so it is good that Mike has some skillz when it comes to engines at least.
I originally suspected that the gas was bad since the car immediately acted up after I filled the gas tank. It was idling rough and almost stalling at lights. So we figured that was the first most likely event, but we knew it could also be a coincidence.
The other weekend, Mike spent hours in the rain trying to siphon some of the gas. I filled it with 14 gallons. You never realize how huge a gas tank is until you realize the largest gas cans hold 5 gallons. They are pretty damn big. Of course that ended up being really complicated. You can not simply put it in where you fill up and suck it out. He had to take the wheel off and get to the tank some other way. Then he could not get my tire back on since for some reason my shocks relaxed a bit on the jack. Nothing was simple.
Then Mike bought an engine code thingy. Mike knew back from his Ford days how to do this stuff. It was saying one of the sensors was bad. We went all over Westchester to get the right sensor, and after we replaced it the car was still messed up. Then he decided it must be the EGR valve. We had to order it, and that took a few days. Mike brought it home Sat night and soon realized it was wrong. So he made a trip to the store yesterday and spent time with the guys there figuring out how to get it right. He kept taking the valve out to take with him to the store. We also did some pretty unscientific testing to determine if the valve was screwed up (Mike called it the suck and blow test). So the moment of truth....
Tonight we picked up the valve, and it looked just like our valve! He put it in (he is an expert by now on that part!), and it appears the car is working again. Hooray!
So Mike may have another career to fall back on if this finance stuff does not work out. I am sure he would not have to commute to the city either! Now I have to clean out all of my crap out of his car. My car is like a crazy rolling toy chest!
Mike asked me a weird question when he got home tonight. He asked if his car was running OK today (we swapped cars since I have to make a lot of stops all day). He then told me he filled the car last night from the gas he siphoned out of my car. So I think my gas will not go to waste! I love how he did not tell me about it! I would have been freaking out about his car, and he could have said, "Oh yeah, I put some of that bad gas into it last night".
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