My retarded Car

Or "How I Spent My Weekend"

In response to my last post, Eyeball made the comment that my water pump was homosexual. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that, if it was in reference to the line "It took almost all of it", or just the fact that it blew, or just derogatory in a general sense.

Anyway, I got the replacement part as well as coolant and cooling system flush, all on Friday night. First thing in the morning I headed down and got to working on it. Mostly it was pretty straightforward, but the water pump drives off the timing belt, rather than a drive belt. First time I've ever seen that, and of course the manual had no precautions about how to keep the valve train timing right. I scribed a mark all the way across and never moved the crankshaft to try and keep from having a problem.

The water pump has five bolts holding it on. After taking off all the covers and right side motor mount, I discovered that the bottom bolt is blocked from coming all the way out by a bracket that goes right in front of it!!! It unscrews all the way, but it's immovable from there. No problem, the whole pump comes out and it comes with it. Putting it back in, I did the same thing. BUT... The bolt would not start threading!!! I messed with it for hours. My dad tried to get it going. My mom tried to get it going. My first born tried to get it going (told him if he could get it I'd give him a buck). Eventually I gave up for the day, my oldest sister was having a surprise party thrown in honor of her birthday. That was fun, got to see a lot of people I'd not seen in a while, including Eyeball (didn't ask him about the homosexual thing, tho) and his girlfriend.

The next day I went down again, and ended up removing the power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, and the three brackets they all mounted on. Don't ask me why there are three for only two accessories, but the third one was the one that was in the way. The bolt went right in with it out of the way, and I spent the rest of the day putting it back together.

Well, once it was back together is started and ran just fine. No leaks, no overheating. Job well done. However, it seemed to not rev up very quickly. It would go, but it kind of hesitated. I figured I'd deal with that later, and packed up to head home. It was already well after dark. Put it in gear, but it didn't accelerate. Damn. I think I know what the problem is, the camshafts are behind where they should be. In technical terms, my car is RETARDED!!!