A Little Maintenance is a Good Thing

Ariel had noticed the other day that my brakes were squeaking, so she told her dad. He asked her if anything else was amiss, and she replied that my heater wouldn’t shut all the way off and my right turn signal is misbehaving. He told her not to drive the car anymore until he’d checked out everything.

Yesterday Tom put me up on jackstands and carefully inspected all four sets of brake shoes. Everything looked fine. With the front wheels off, he took advantaged of the clear access and lubed all my suspension points and checked for looseness. All appeared tight. He then slid underneath my drivetrain and discovered that one of the brake control cables had a short tube swaged onto the cable preventing full closure of one of the damper door. He removed the tube and adjusted the other end of the cable at the control levers and that damper door fully closes. Finally, he pulled off my steering wheel to inspect the turn signal mechanism. The only issue he found was the small plate the horn contact rides on had some bent areas. He removed the plate, flattened it, cleaned, re-lubricated with electrical grease, and reinstalled everything. After a test run around the neighborhood and back-and-forth to church, he pronounced me good-to-go.