Bucket List Activity #2 Fixing My Car Problems

I spent the last few weeks of school driving around with no air conditioner. The frustrating part was that my air conditioner actually worked. The problem was my truck was leaking coolant badly, so if I turned on my air conditioner the engine would start to overheat. We were pretty sure that the leak was from the water pump. As soon as school was out, Eddie went to buy a new water pump and we set to work taking off the old one. It went smoothly. Everything came off just like it should, but it was late and we were just outside the girls bedroom. They wouldn't go to sleep because they kept looking out the window at us. We decided we would wait until morning to put the new one on. That was where things stopped going well.

New and old water pumps

The next morning Eddie starts working to put the new water pump on and a bolt breaks. The whole day is spent trying to get it out. Tools are bought, places are visited, but the bolt in completely stuck. It broke off even with the water pump and nothing is getting it to come out. Finally, we gave up on it. We had figured out that the original water pump was fine, it was the gaskets that were bad. We had the gaskets from the new water pump, so we decided to try to put the old one on with new gaskets. This time two bolts broke. Luckily they broke off high and easily came out.

Two broken bolts successfully removed.

We decided we needed another tool to make sure no other bolts broke. The one we had was too big for what we were doing. We headed out in Eddie's car. The first Home Depot didn't have one, but when we got back it his car it wouldn't start. After a little panicking and banging on stuff, it started. We then went to a hardware store close to our house. No tool, and again his car didn't start. After some more banging, it started and we went home. Now we had no car at all. Not a huge deal, it is summer after all, except that Eddie had training everyday the next week, and the girls had swimming lesson and gymnastics practice. Lucky for us my parents are extremely helpful. My dad brought us the tool we needed and let us borrow his car. We successfully put the water pump back on, put in two bottles of coolant, and took a look underneath. A very small drip that might have been where some was spilled. Looking good. We started the truck. It sounded good. One car fixed and one to go. We started to clean up when we took another look underneath. That's when we saw the coolant basically pouring out. Back to no cars fixed.
The next day was Monday (Eddie training didn't start until Tuesday). My mom took the girls to swimming while we took Eddie's car to the dealership to get fixed. Turns out the drive trains had been over stretched and it was completely covered under the warranty. So amazing to not have to spend one cent getting it fixed. We then headed over to a Kia dealership and took care of my car problems. We bought me a new car! Yea!!! Now I don't have to worry about overheating or no AC in the summer. Plus with much better gas mileage I don't have to constantly buy gas.

My first ever new car!