Sometimes we all are just idiots.
A few weeks ago I was on my way to repair and service 4 swamp coolers at a warehouse.
Just as I got into the center turning lane to drive into their lot, my pickup died.
It sounded to me like the in tank fuel pump had died. It has happened twice before.
The men at the warehouse helped me push the pickup into their parking lot.
I worked on the coolers and called a friend to tow me home.
For the next two days I got rides there to finish the work.
I installed three new water pumps, cleaned, treated for rust, new pads, and fresh water into
all four coolers. All coolers were working fine.
Well I waited the rest of that week until the Monday following to get my mechanic friend to
look at the pickup. He thought maybe the coil was bad as it wasn’t soild and the truck
wasn’t getting any spark. But no spark even with a new one.
So then he thought it might be a problem his GMC truck had that he had hired done as it was
so difficult to do.
I got the pickup towed to a mechanic shop. They agreed that it might be that problem my
mechanic had suggested but in testing with their diagnostic machines, found it to be the
distributor module that was’ the culprit.
I’d thought of the distributor cap but not of the module.
$100 plus with parts and labor, my pickup was back on the road.
The next Monday in the evening, I got a call from the property manager of the warehouse.
“Really hot” (105 that day), coolers not working. The renters replaced one of the new water
pumps with a larger sized one and it now works. They claimed all the pumps weren’t big
enough.
Tuesday I get there. The renters have thrown the one new pump a way and the others “just
aren’t working.”
I inspected them all and learned that the new aspen pads had lost some wood shreds which
had plugged all the pumps and some of the water lines at the spider junction.
I cleaned them all out and of course they all work.
The idiots. Thinking they knew something about the coolers.
They wasted time and money because they thought themselves experts when they had no clue.
And what of me and the pickup?
I’d thought fuel pump and later cap, based on my past experience and my mechanic friend thought of his
experience and not having the diagnostic tools that the shop had were idiots too.
You know, sometimes it’s best to get the experts and not be idiots thinking we know it all.

 

 

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