Life with Kermie: Gettin’ Down & Dirty

Life With Kermie

10 May

Some of you may be wondering where I’ve been this past week. Under this thing is the answer.

I like to post on Truckin With Kermie at least three times weekly, but sometimes life gets in the way.

‘Life’ this time around was in the form of our son, Tom, who at age 25 has finally gotten around to obtaining his driver’s licence.

Nick, who is two years younger got his license on his 18th birthday. Tom however had other plans. Overseas was his destination and a license needed a car to go with it. Cars of course cost money.

So as soon as he had saved enough it was off to England and Europe for a number of months. That trip gave him the travel bug so upon his return it was back into savings mode to spend seven months in Asia, back home to save and then off again to Japan for a few months.

Tripping around his partner, Laura’s home country of New Zealand was to have been next on the agenda but Covid got in the way. Both working in hospitality, they were lucky to obtain Jobkeeper. Being ‘locked up’ here in Victoria for many months they passed their time gaming. With nowhere to go and nothing to spend their earnings on they invested in the Computer from Hell, cameras, lighting and all the other paraphernalia needed to kick-start their very own gaming website.

I understand nothing of this but they tell me that maybe one day down the line they might be able to make a quid or two out of it. And good luck with that guys. Meantime it has been back to work in their restaurant. Somehow Tom has done some ligament damage to one of his feet, not helped by the 3 km walk to work each day. Suddenly a driver’s license became somewhat imperative.

**Tom & Laura. A great Chef. Mechanic - not so much.**

As it happened, his mother had bought herself a new car and passed on her old 2007 Kia Cerato to Tom. Of course it was incumbent on me to check it over. “Bring it up here and I’ll replace the timing belt, water pump, drive belts, et cetera and give it a service. And you can learn something about cars at the same time.”

Having tinkered with cars for most of my life I expect everyone to know the basics. That will teach me to assume. In their younger days, Nick would always be hanging around when I had the bonnet up. Tom however, was much more interested in learning to play his Fender Stratocaster.

If you never look and nobody tells you, then you know sod all.

Upon their arrival last Monday I lift the bonnet and said we would start by replacing the spark plugs. “Under the bonnet? I thought they were under the dashboard,” says Tom.

Yep, a steep learning curve is definitely in order!

After pointing out the dipstick and showing him the high tide mark on it - he had assumed that you would pour oil in until it flowed over the top of the motor when I showed him where the oil filler was, I took him through basics such as topping up the radiator, et cetera. Given his total lack of knowledge I actually took a small amount of pride in the fact that a new battery had been inserted – although Laura worked out how to do that.

Then it was to work removing the various drive belts and taking off the timing cover to remove the timing belt. And this is where I made my first mistake. With the crankshaft rotating clockwise I assumed that the crank bolt would undo in a clockwise direction (forgetting the MO when I’d done the same job on Nick’s car).

For an old bloke jeez I’m strong! After realising my error and requiring even more strength to undo the bolt, when I loosened it the cast iron washer behind the bolt fell out in four pieces. Then ensued three hours of driving around Shepparton trying to find a replacement to no avail. Finally Thompson Kia (where I should have gone first) said they could have one in by the following Friday. Hopefully. Guess who was driving the kids home from Mootown to Hooterville on Tuesday afternoon?

**No room for chubby fingers down there**

Meantime we removed the timing cover and I marked up the old belt to the crank and cam gears before removing it (good boy, Kermie). The tensioner had to come right off to remove the belt which turned out to be a pain later on. With not a lot else to do in that area until the parts arrived, we continued on with replacing blown globes, windscreen wipers, cleaning the totally opaque headlight lenses and doing an oil change until it came time to drive them back to Hooterville.

**The headlights had been sufering from Cataracts**

The next day on my lonesome, I thought I’d get the new timing belt on which I’d marked up to match the old one. Now to put the tensioner back on. Yeah, Nah. I couldn’t make head nor tail of the bloody thing! Time to call my local (and great) mechanic, Pete and plead for him to do a home visit.

Pete arrives, looks at the timing belt and tells me I’ve done it wrong. (Did I mention that it’s been some time since we did Nick’s?) Thank the Gods I’d called him. Given the tensioner also gave Pete some grief, I was even more grateful he’d come out.

Long story short, it took me three hours to get the bloody timing cover back on and another two to replace the two pulleys on the water pump. My fingers aren’t made for getting between motor and body of an east-west engine.

**Those four small bolts took two hours to get back in.**

Then I looked out the back window – or rather didn’t because the tint was bubbled beyond comprehension. Certainly not good for a brand new driver. Removing it with a heat gun was fairly straight forward – although remind me to wear thick gloves next time. Getting the glue off took me the rest of the day. Then I decided that the tint on the front windows was not much better so off that came as well. I’ll lend Tom the heat gun for the rears.

The replacement washer and new bolt finally arrived on the Friday and as luck would have it, mate Don was over to brace the pulley while I tightened it – to 140Nm. No repeating my 68 year old super strength!

Looking closely at the tyres for the first time as I went to put them on resulted in a phone call to Tom to send $500 to replace the lot. His mother was driving a death trap!

Now most things are done to give Tom and Laura a bit of confidence when they hop behind the wheel. Their next visit will coincide with replacing the radiator hoses which were unavailable in under a week and I’m sure other stuff will pop up.

So that’s my mechanical work done for all three sons and my retirement from timing belt replacement. And that’s why Truckin with Kermie has been off air.

Next week: The Brisbane Truck Show. Talk to you all from there.

Meantime, Take Care of You.