hazards of working in an auto shop

[hyuri]

the latter part of this week has been occupied with replacing both main seals, the front cam seal, and the timing belt on a Chevy Metro. never buy one. so far it has cost me half a fingernail (not sure where, exactly, or even when), slashed through my left palm (cat heat shield), and removed significant quantities of skin from two knuckles on my right middle finger (nobody dresses machined edges anymore). it also needs an oil flush, new timing cover, oil pump, and harmonic balancer, but I don’t give a shit. we could have dropped it in today if we weren’t always pushed out the door early.

my hands are also growing steadily darker. from a moderate distance, my fingers are now the color of sooty bricks.

on a not‐entirely‐unrelated subject, my first action upon arriving at home was to dump a couple of fingers of vodka in a glass, top it up with orange juice and slug 3/4 of it. then I ate like a pig, because I hadn’t had anything to eat today. I’m still hungry, actually.

Comments

[novacheckers.livejournal.com]

I'm astonished that someone finds a Chevy Metro so valuable that they would invest that much money in parts and labor into repairing it. They're disposable. By the way, that's why the machining on the parts has rough and sharp edges-- it's a disposable car. In order to make any money at all on those things, the manufacturers cut every possible corner that they can.

I saw a Kia in the parking lot at work with the fuel door broken in half. Metal doesn't break in half. The fuel door was injection-molded plastic. Cheap, cheap, cheap.

(Rant off.)

[hyuri.livejournal.com]

Well no, see, the parts were maybe $60 in total, including the oil and filter. And since this is a school shop, and the work order was filled out in the name of a student in the class that actually did the work, the labor was free. Even if she hadn’t been a student, labor is a flat $20—for anything from an oil change to a complete engine rebuild.

I was just griping about the edges: I haven’t seen any dressed on anything newer than about 1980. Just worn.