Phil | Bustednuckles

Comment moderation is back on and will stay on.

I am already talking to someone about migrating this site to another hosting outfit so that the ijits that keep threatening me with deplatforming will have to find something else to do. At this point I don’t care what it costs and it’s something I should have done a long time ago anyway.

Stay tuned, it will take me a day or two to get all this laid out, I am just going to pay someone to migrate the entire blog because there is an absolute shit ton of data that has to move.

When it gets done then these self important jack asses will very quickly find out that no amount of screeching and stomping their widdle feets is going to do them a damn bit of good trying to get me shut down.

So don’t fret that the comment moderation is back on. CederqX will take one shift and I’ll take the other to keep the legit comments posting asap.

The disruptive ones just got shut down and it will soon be permanent.

Seriously.

I do gotta admit that it gives me a huge warm fuzzy knowing that I have obviously scored a few direct hits on these worthless little cunts. Enough that they decided they needed to band together and come after me.

Fuck you assholes, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I’m just getting warmed up.

It actually started in yesterday and today was just more of the same.

I swear there is no end to it.

I was out piddle fartin in the garage yesterday, taking my time and doing some (GASP!) organizing.

About six months or so ago, I scored some Cut Offs at the Metal Supermarket place I go to once in a while.

There were a bunch of eight to ten inch long 1/2 inch Stainless Steel round stock cut offs in a pile so I snagged those just because and there were also a bunch of 1/2 X 1/2 Aluminum angle strip cut offs about 30 or so inches long and the minute I saw those, I knew exactly what I was going to use those for.

Well I FINALLY had a chance to get after that, or so I thought.

Amazingly enough, I got about three quarters of the way done with it before all Hell broke loose.

I might as well show you what it looks like after I managed to get back to it late last night and finish the one drawer.

Everything is trapped by those strips now so it can’t slide around.

If all goes as planned, I might actually be able to find the odd drill bit or end mill now.

For once.

The old Delta drill press worked like a champ drilling the holes in the Aluminum so I could rivet them down.

Of course I had to dig for twenty minutes to find my Rivet Gun and then go spend $8 apiece on two little boxes of rivets but it happened finally.

That Rivet Gun and the remaining rivets got put away in a drawer towards the bottom that is chock full of little plastic containers full of stuff like Snap Rings, Set Screws, Roll Pins and all kinds of stuff like that.

Slowly but surely I am going to get some of this shit put away properly.

But of course, all good things must come to an end and while I was doing this, the Wifely Unit decides I need to take her and The Boy grocery shopping.

Not my favorite thing to do but it’s like a couple of weeks ago when I was driving her all over the damn place, I turned and looked at her while waiting for a light and said, “you kinda like me chauffeuring you all over the place, don’t you?”.

She didn’t even look at me and replied, “That’s the way it’s supposed to be”.

Point taken.

Told ya she’s a good one.

So we are just damn near to the Wally World she prefers to shop at, intead of , you know, the one that is a mile from the house, and sitting at a light to turn into the place when all of a sudden the car starts running like shit and is trying to die.

I hadn’t been paying attention because we were talking.

I look down at the instrument panel and every motherfucking warning light on that sonofabitch is lit up and the temperature gauge is PEGGED.

HOLY SHIT!

Ya know how they draw imaginary lines in the night sky connecting the stars together and get the constellations?

I bet if you drew imaginary lines through all those warning lights it would spell DUMBASS.

I barely kept the thing going because it was trying hard to die and whipped a left then a right into the driveway of a Jiffy Lube.

Two Darrel’s jump up and come running thinking they finally have something to do and I need an oil change.

Au Contraire Mr. Grease Monkeys, I need water, now.

I open the hood, the two Darrel’s peer inside, turn and look at each other them simultaneously tell me that it’s overheating.

No shit?!

Then they both in unison again, tell me that there isn’t anything they can do for me.

Useless cocksuckers, in stereo no less.

Thanks for nothing, it actually started back up so I jumped in it, backed it around the corner and around a building to an empty parking spot and shut it off.

The absolute irony of this is the reason I hadn’t been paying attention is because the Wifely Unit and I had been swapping stories about how and where we had broke down before back in the day.

And here , we are.

She’s panicked and I am irritated.

Do we need to call a tow truck?

How are we going to get home?

What about groceries, we need groceries.

Those and about fifteen other rapid fire questions while I am sitting there trying to plot my next move.

I get out, open the hood and take a look.

The coolant reservoir is full, clear to the top, so it isn’t out of coolant.

I reach in, turn it on, have her turn on the A/C and the fan comes on.

The A/C had been on when it got hot so I wanted to make sure the fan was working.

So two obvious reasons for over heating are good to go.

Fuck me, the Thermostat and a Head Gasket pop into my head.

I reached into my back pocket and snagged a 6 inch Crescent Wrench I have taken to carrying and give the plastic thermostat housing a couple ten raps with it. Not too hard, because plastic.

Spit.

I had to change that fucking prick out a few years ago when it split in half one cold January night so I know what kind of fun that bitch is.

I fiddle fucked around for a few minutes, got back i it and started it up again.

Of course it’s still hotter than the hubs of hell so I let it run with the A/C on for just a few seconds and turned it off again. If the fan is working at least it can pull some of the heat out of the radiator.

Meanwhile The Wifely Unit is in FULL WORRY MODE and chattering away this whole time.

I let it set a couple of minutes while pondering my options and tried it again. Whaddya know, the thermostat must have decided to open up finally and the temp gauge is in the normal range.

Shut up and hold on I says.

I drive it the two blocks into Wally World and tell her we can let it cool off while we go shopping.

Again she starts in with the What If’s and But’s.

Just, lets go. If it’s still fucked up when we come out I will deal with it.

At that point I would just call an UBER or LYFT, load her, the boy and the groceries in it and ship them home so I can deal with this situation without the fucking DRAMA.

I may have mentioned before how much I FUCKING HATE DRAMA, I dunno.

Maybe.

So anyway.

We get done shopping, home is fifteen minutes and many stop lights away.

The temp looks normal so off we go, the Wife quite thankfully worrying to herself for the most part.

I had explained to her that I thought the thermostat must be sticking.

About two miles from Wally World it starts in again, I watched the temp gauge move quite quickly

almost entirely into the red.

I found a wide spot, pulled over and let it cool off for another spell.

The Thermostat finally opened up again and off we went. This time I ain’t fucking around. I am shittin’ and gittin’, in and around the Dumb Fucks, through at least 3 Yellow lights and hit the Home Stretch.

It was juuuuust starting to get good and hot again when I hit the driveway.

Unload the groceries, call up and have a new thermostat and O ring set out, then run up and get them.

When I got back I got out my Code Checker and had to get rid of a code called Cylinder Head Protection Mode On.

Nice to know Ford actually did something right for once. I’m thinking that it would just shut down the engine before it would let it get so hot it could blow the head gasket or start warping shit.

However, once it enters that mode it will stay there until you clear that out. Limp Home Mode I think they used to call it.

By now it is about an hour before dark, I opened the hood and that engine is still hotter than hell so I shut the hood and went in the house for the night. I ain’t working on that whore in the dark unless absolutely necessary.

This was all yesterday, right?

I was supposed to meet my kids at my oldest daughters place this afternoon at one. The Boy was supposed to be at work for a couple hours at Noon.

The Wifely Unit rouses my ass at 10 after I got to bed at 3:30 AM.

I guzzle one cup of coffee and away I go.

My target is in there, notice you can ALMOST see the screw head for the hose clamp on the upper radiator hose directly under that metal tube,

Dirty, Mother, Fuckers.

There are 3 bolts and 4 hoses attached to this damn thing.

I finally got the housing out, THEN I could take the 3 screws out of the actual end cap to get the thermostat out.

All in all way easier in the long run instead of trying to fight them by Braille.

Swapped the little bitch out and put it all back together.

Of course five minutes after I opened the hood, good old Chuck from across the street showed up with a cloud of dust behind him like Wyle E. Coyote to see what I was doing.

I was a might busy and didn’t have a lot of time to chit chat but I managed to catch him up to speed before I finished up and took it for a quick spin.

A couple miles and plenty of time to get up to temp and everything looked good. Then I had to go take The Boy to work after having to clean out the truck because the Wifely Unit ain’t trusting the thing.

I get back, get cleaned up a bit then have to haul ass to Portland. Go visit with my kids for a while then gotta pile back in the truck, come home to Vancouver, get in the Wife’s Hoopty, take that cock sucker BACK ACROSS THE RIVER and get smokes for us both and give the Hoopty a damned good work out.

No problems, get back to Vancouver, text the Wife that since I am out and about, I’m gonna take her liitle POS in to Jiffy Lube because it’s overdue.

$92 motherfucking dollars later, for the same damn thing I paid $30 for on my truck and I’m outta there, filled the thing up with gas and FINALLY, get home so I can sit the fuck down and relax again.

At 4:30 in the afternoon.

Maybe, just maybe, I can sit here and relax for a bit but now my only two days off from work are completely fucking shot.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, now The Wifely Unit wants to go out to eat.

It will be 8:00 before I will get a chance to get back out in that garage to finish a little chore that I started on yesterday that should have taken an hour and a half, maybe two, to get done with.

I swear it never fucking ends man.