Gah. No.

Vomiting only aborts some of the headaches. And I hate vomiting.

But, awesome news. I did it! We are on the transmission fluid drive right now.

No leaks so far.

We followed your procedure exactly. And I think we're good.

Fort Kickass runs again. And I swear it's running a little better.

Also, the heat. The heat is amazing now. I thought it was just meant to be pathetic. No.

 

Excellent!

Keep the news coming.

 

So far, so good.

I will continue to monitor the transmission fluid levels. Probably do a check before my next appointment, because that's a good long drive from here.

Also, coolant. Because, even though we're getting heat, I'm still not convinced I got enough in there.

I think my next car related project might be either 'how do I put these stickers on the inside of the windows' or 'since I don't have an owner's manual, let's find out what's in one and make one that's better'.

 

Annoying.

I decided to slide a piece of cardboard under the Jeep so I could be sure we were leak-free.

We are not leak-free.

I'm hoping that it's just a matter of not getting one of the two rear bolts on the valve cover properly tight [but not too tight, of course].

If it's not that, then I guess I'll get under there and play 'find the leak'. Which will probably involve cleaning all the old crud from the previous leaks off the underside.

Anything for that besides a liberal application of elbow grease?

 

I feel like I let you guys down.

Something absolutely terrible happened to the serpentine belt today, and I just couldn't deal with it. Ended up just going to a mechanic.

I had a little chat with him though. Find out what I did wrong that cost me a brand new belt. I told him that I'd just spent a week doing all sorts of stuff, and I felt really dumb for doing whatever I did to shred the belt.

I didn't get the fan quite tight enough. He took care of that for me, put in a new belt, and told me I did a very good job with everything else.

My temporary tags expire on the third, and tomorrow's going to be cold and terrible again.

I don't know if I want to risk the test tomorrow [and risk them breaking something after all this, on top of potentially failing] or spend another two hours at the DMV to get a stay of execution.

It passed a year ago, back when it was leaking everywhere and had approximately zero fans. I spent enough time under there to get really friendly with the exhaust system, and it's intact.

I'm probably worrying over nothing at this point. Except for the idea of letting some stranger behind the wheel to push it harder than we've ever pushed it.

 

Go for it. You can't keep breast feeding the Heep forever.

 

And you are going to wear out your training bra sooner or later...

Good luck!

 

Pretty sure this Jeep only drinks blood, anyway.

And if there's some sort of ritual blood sacrifice to boost emissions performance, I'm pretty sure I accidentally performed it.

 

 

Good luck with the DMV Gestapo.

 

It passed! Passed really well, too, after the initial 'oops, you failed, instant retest' phase to warm it up. It was pretty awful, though. I got to watch three or four people stare blankly under the hood as if they'd never seen an XJ before, and then watch a really angry guy run through the test twice.

That part wasn't pretty. He rode the brakes. And I swear the Jeep really wanted to climb the hell out of that dyno.

Afterwards, they tried to tell me that I should probably go get the brakes replaced, because they were obviously factory original.

All new. But I might see if the shop's willing to have a look under some sort of warranty. They work very well. I think the guy was just an ***.

Straight to the DMV after that, and it didn't suck. It took longer to find a parking place than it did to get everything taken care of. I got my special ticket, got called before I could even figure out where the seats were. I overdid it on the documentation [DD-214, two VA letters in case one of them wasn't official enough--you can print out certain letters now through a special website, and that's where one of them came from]. The lady disappeared for a second, and came back with my disabled veteran plates and I was done.

I was planning on spending at least two hours waiting there because I didn't get there right as they opened, but this place was seriously efficient.

So, yay. The worst is over.

Now I just wait for a warm enough day and give the thing a good wash. Won't help the places where there's no clear coat, but at least it'll be clean.

Thank you again for all your very patient, very detailed help.

 

Good work.