Grease Monkey!

Worked my ass off today.

Changed the air conditioning compressor on the Contour. This is about a $1000 job at a shop. Cost me $250 in parts and four hours of my time. Profit! Had to pull the car up on ramps, remove the battery, take off the fan belt, drain the radiator, remove the radiator from below, disconnect the compressor, pour oil into the new compressor and reverse the process. Then charge up the system with the R134a and ride coolly into the sunset.

Completed 2/3 of the shelving from previous posting. I ran out of nails, or I would have finished.

Fast fun fact? I realized as I pulled the fanbelt today, that I have never changed it on that car. 110,000+ miles and 6.5 years. Not bad. Now, those are a lot of highway miles, but I have to say that the ol' Ford has been a fantastic value. This is the first repair on the car that wasn't a wear item or something that I damaged. The brakes lasted over 100,000 miles. The clutch is still going strong. The motor is as strong as ever (thanks to an exclusive diet of Mobil 1 oil). That shit is over $4 a quart (you can run it longer than 3000 miles though, so the price moderates a bit in the end), but has proven to be well worth it. If you open the oil cap and look into the engine, it is sludge and varnish free- clean as the day I bought it. I was never an appreciator of the Ford way, but they really built a solid vehicle in this one.