Closet Extremist

Mini-vans are the new black!

So...about a week and a half ago I started to notice a little noise coming from the right front corner of my van. Just a little clicking noise, nothing to get worked up about. Fast forward to yesterday, and the noise had grown into a cacaphony of popping and squealing that definately denotes a problem. I jack it up, and fiddle around there for a bit, and determine that my half-shaft on that side has lost a CV-Joint. No big whoop, I'll just head on down to the nearest auto parts store and get a new one. I found that they had 14 of them, however they were in a warehouse somewhere between here and Zimbabwe, so It'd be until today before I could get it. Shit, Ford's truck is in the shop, so we were gonna take my van down to Cleveland, TN so we could unload some jack's for two elevators at this little residence (A 3,000lb commercial-grade passenger, and an 8,000lb freight. Oh yes, 42,000 square feet of residence!).

At any rate, I coughed up the 59 bucks for the part, but there was a 60 dollar core charge. No problem though, I'll just put it on the ole debit card, and get the bread back later. Blog Daughter Sarah, came over to make sure I had a ride down to the parts store, and she really came in handy. Once I got the wheel off, I took a look at the big nut that holds the shaft to the wheel, and realized that I didn't have a socket big enough to fit it. We went down to Sears, and I got the one that I thought I needed, brought it back and it didn't fit. Back into Sarah's truck we go, and to Sears once again. This time I got the right one, and proceeded to take everything apart. Once I got all the steering parts, and the brake assembly hanging, all I had to do is pull the shaft out of the transaxle. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything that was small enough to get into the confined space, yet sturdy enough to pop the shaft loose. Sarah came through for me again, as she had the perfect-sized little wrecking bar. It took about five hours start to finish, but I got that sumbitch changed out, and my van is once again road-worthy.

I load up the old shaft in the van, and proceed back down to Advance Auto to get my $60 core-charge back. Unbeknownst to me, since I put the part on my Debit caard, their policy is to just credit the funds back to the card. "It'll only be a couple of day's." the guy says. Since that money came directly out of my checking account, I was kinda counting on having it back in my hands right after my dealings with them were over. Now I'm broke until Friday, and pissed off about it. Word of warning folks. If you're a shade tree mechanic on a tight budget, make sure to go get cash out of the bank to pay your core-charges, because those idiots at the parts store won't tell you about the extra "couple day's" before you pay for the parts.