As some of you already know, our car died last week and we had planned to work on removing the alternator this weekend. I have never worked on a car before but we didn’t let that stop us.We had our little manual for the job, it showed photos and directions for getting the tasks accomplished so we bundled up. Headed out to the freezing garage to shuffle boxes and make room for the car, we didn’t want to work on the car in the snow. Once we made room for the car we put it in neutral and used another car to push it into the garage.

We spent about 1 1/2 hours trying to get the damn car on the jacks so we could get under it.. Nothing we tried raised the car high enough to slide the jacks under and eventually we gave up on raising the car.

We got the battery out of the car and were starting to loosen the pulleys for the belts that we needed to remove that were almost impossible to reach. We spent forever trying to loosen a stinking nut so we could remove the belts. We were trying so hard that when the wrench finally moved an inch or two our knuckles slammed into another part of the car scraping them all up and even slicing!

We look like we put out hands in the garbage disposal or something! Those nuts were freaking stuck on good, we were so determined to get it off that we actually stripped the nut more than we loosened it. That took about 3 hours.

In the end, about 4pm we still had made no progress, our backs hurt from trying to maneuver ourselves into workable positions, our toes we cold and our hands were bleeding. I threw down the wrench remarked at how much we didn’t get done and that we were out of time now (we had to do a secret shop that evening).

I went inside, slammed the front door real good and then sat on the floor in the kitchen defeated.. My kitties came to check on me and to smell the blood oozing from my hands, the dog even tried to paw me with hopes I would snap out of it. I was mad and very irritated. Working on cars sucks, how do they expect you to be able to see what you are working on and to get your hands in there to do the work when it’s all jammed in there like that? N reminded me that in Japan (Nissan is a Japanese car company) they usually have smaller hands and maybe getting to certain areas in the car was no problem for them.

That didn’t lessen my anger and I proceeded to get ready for our mystery shopping when N came in and said the car was running. What do you mean it’s running? How is that possible?

He said he just reconnected some hoses and tightened the things we loosened.. then he tried the car just for curiosity and it started! So, technically we fixed the car, it wasn’t the alternator we fixed but banging our knuckles on stuff and jiggling things around seemed to do the trick.. Nice huh?

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The post I am appalled!! Continuation of: "This holiday weekend sucked!!" appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

I am sure you can already tell that my holiday weekend did not go that great. I went down to Phoenix for my brother’s graduation. We are so proud of him, we went out for ice cream to celebrate and then we went to the Scottsdale courthouse to take care of my other brothers warrant. All that went fine and it was nice to see the family.

At about 7:30pm I was heading back up the hill to flagstaff. I had planned to head home at right about sundown to avoid all the campers and holiday travelers heading up north for the long weekend. Traffic was still busy but not nearly as bad as it was at about 4pm.

Anyway I am driving along, using the cruise control because I want to regulate my speed. I know that cops are going to be everywhere handing out speeding tickets and I want to make sure I don’t get one!!! My cruise control is set just under the 80 MPH mark and I am coming down the curves and hills just before the sunset rest area. I tap my break because I need to turn the cruise control off since the traffic in front of me is slowing down. We are now going down a big hill. The cruise control won’t shut off. The break has tons of pressure behind it and doesn’t seem to be slowing the car down. I am pressing the break with both feet trying to get the car to slow down but the car keeps accelerating! I glanced at the speedometer and saw the car was going over 90 MPH!!

I really began to panic once I realized the car was speeding up and the breaks were not doing anything. To make maters worse I am boxed in by other cars in the left lane. I threw on my hazard lights and thankfully the car next to me backed off and let me move over to the right hand lane. Once I was in the right lane I began to ease onto the shoulder with the car continuously accelerating. Once I was clear of the highway lanes I began to slowly pull the emergency brake.

The car slowed down considerably but still would not stop. I then noticed the car was revving to 8RPM’s. I honestly did not know if the breaks would be able to continue slowing the car while it was revving so high. I slid my foot under the gas pedal to see if maybe the pedal was stuck or something. The pedal was floppy and was not caught on anything; it just felt like the gas pedal usually does when the car is in cruise control.

The car is going about 40MPH now that the emergency brake is fully engaged, I am approaching the sign for the sunset rest area and I just want the car to stop so I can turn it off and get the hell out of it… I grab the shifter and throw it into park… The car abruptly stops, I take a deep breath and get on my cell phone to my mom. She doesn’t answer so I then dial Nathan. While I am on the phone to Nathan I see smoke seeping out from under the hood. I quickly decided it was not safe to stay inside the car so I grab all my stuff and I walk about to about 40 feet from the car and wait to be picked up.

I was so shaken up by the cars behavior that I had the chills. I really could have caused a major accident, killed myself and many others if I hadn’t gotten that car off the road when I did. The car was literally accelerating on it’s own and the breaks were not stopping the car!

When my mother picked me up she wanted to see exactly what the car was doing so we started it up and the car was still revving to 8 RPM’s sitting there in park!

N’s friend Rich came down to pick me up from New River where my mom and brother crammed tequila and food down my throat to calm me down. We left the car on the highway and headed back up the hill that night…

Since then the car has been towed to Black Canyon City and it will be checked by my mother’s mechanic on Tuesday. N and I are pretty sure the car is toast.

The post This "holiday weekend" sucked!! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.