par king fun

so a week ago, i got to do a blind repair on m…

…which is my least favorite kinda work to do on a car…the “blind repair” is where you know what needs to be done, and you can reach and contort and bend your arm to get to the part, and feel the part, and even work on or replace the part, but you can’t actually SEE what the fuck you’re doing.

in this case it was, again, something that’s been kind of a pain in the ass since i got her – a parking sensor. i first dealt with it when i wanted to do the front plate, and you can follow the link to read how that turned out.

i ended up relocating it to the lower part of the bumper only for it to still catch the plate half the time and go off solidly, and eventually i just said, “fuck texas law” and pulled it, putting the cap back on the tow hook mount and putting the sensor back in it’s original place, where it sat for many months until it didn’t because, as i mentioned in the above bit, it didn’t really lock into place like it ought to, so eventually the pressure wash at the car wash pushed it in just enough that it started to detect the channel in the bumper it sits in and went off continuously (again).

i pulled everything apart and attempted to use emblem adhesive to mount it back in and have it stay, which held for about a week. after another month of it going off solid, i redid it with more adhesive, which held, but got just enough adhesive on it that it was detecting THAT after a while and going off intermittently. finding out how cheap after market ones were a week or so ago (four for $25), i just ordered some to see if we could finally wrap this up.

i swapped it out, but in the process pinched the tip of my glove off between the wiring harness and the back of the sensor, preventing a solid connection and tripping a new light i’d never seen when i road tested. on the side of the toll road i was able to get half the grill off and access the sensor and felt the flap of nitrile (i just assumed i had tore the glove on metal edges when i pulled my hand out since i was working blind) and once i got the harness unhooked pulled out THREE pieces of nitrile and then wrangled the harness back in and all was well.

so hopefully it all still works by the time you read this, exactly one week from when i’m writing it!