Ah yes, yet another dumb situation I find myself in. You’d think that now that I’m older, am managing people, have a girlfriend, and find myself with all these other responsibilities, I’d have discarded my longtime tendency of getting myself into dumb wrenching-related situations (remember when I was stranded in a parking lot because all five of my cars were simultaneously broken? Remember when I reached rock bottom? Remember when the car I sold immediately blew up? Remember when my engine ingested water and then that water froze? Remember twrenchfoot and my dip in the Baltic Sea?). But no, it has become apparent that age has not brought wisdom, for I find myself about to board a plane with a bag full of tools and a brain filled with both optimism and dread. Optimism because I love wrenching, but dread because it’s cold as hell and my timeframe to rescue this 2005 Toyota Sienna is: One single day.
About a year ago, St. Louis-based Autopian reader Dave told me he’d love to sell me his old family Toyota Sienna, namely an all-wheel drive 2005 model in dark red. Asking price? $500! As I’m no fool, I committed to buying the vehicle immediately and proceeded to spend the next 12 months struggling to find time to actually pick the vehicle up. Now that it’s been a year, enough guilt has built up to force me onto a Southwest Airlines plane to St. Louis, and to convince Jason and his wife Sally that they need this reliable van. Do they actually? Probably not long-term, but it’s a $500 van, and I had to pawn it off on somebody. Also, I do think Jason needs reliable transportation in the short term, so this should be a win-win-win for everyone. Dave gets rid of his van, Jason gets a reliable vehicle, and I get to pay $500 and race against the clock in freezing cold weather trying to fix an old van and road-trip it across the frozen tundra that is America in January of 2024. OK, so maybe it’s just a win-win.
But I’m happy to do it. The truth is, I’m a sucker for a bargain, and I love nothing more than fixing up a cheap vehicle and putting it through its paces. Talk about rush!
Anyway, I’m here at the gate after having checked in 45 pounds worth of tools.
View this post on Instagram
Meanwhile, in St. Louis, Dave has been receiving extremely heavy boxes full of wheel bearings and struts. The heaviest box full of control arms and tie rods hasn’t yet arrived, and I’m still deciding if I should order some CV axles, just in case. I’m not sure what shape this Sienna’s front end is, all I know is that the struts are toast.
The plan is to drive from St. Louis to Virginia to meet Matt for a top-secret track driving session on Friday. Given that I’m writing this very article from the gate in LA, I’m arriving in St. Louis tonight at 10:30, so really I only have Wednesday to fix the van, as I’ll need all day Thursday to drive to Virginia. Then it’s off to North Carolina to hand Jason his new trusty steed.
So expect some wrenching updates tomorrow on The Autopian’s Instagram and on my own. Though I wrenched in the cold in Detroit for a decade, I am worried that this past year living in LA has made me soft and unable to bear the elements. Do I still have it in me to bring a rustbucket back to life in sub-freezing temperatures?
We’re about to find out!
DT, it may comfort you to know that, although the current temperature in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle is about 20, if you do manage to make it here tomorrow you can expect a high of 50! Positively tropical!
The first time I worked on a project in a climate-controlled garage I declared my ass-freezing and back-sweating days were over. It is not just the comfort, I work better when I am willing to go get the right tool or take the time to fix something right.
I will wrench on a wreck to get it loaded or do emergency surgery in the middle of a cold night at a racetrack but if I have a choice I am dragging that sorry heap into my cozy car cocoon.
Nonetheless, I wish you well and will follow your desperate struggles.
In my youth I could wrench in sub-freezing temperatures. Now pushing 50, I just can’t do it anymore. A heated garage would be heavenly. Maybe someday.
Yeah, it’s in the 20’s this week in my neck of Virginia. And both my daughter and sister live in St. Louis with their families and they have gotten single digit temps and frozen pipes. Layer up and wrench fast.
Today it’s actually going to get above 30!
We’ll be back below zero by the weekend, of course, but today is the least-sucky day of the week to be wrenching outside
You picked the worst possible week to do this. I’m in VA and it’s 6 degrees (F) outside. Weather.com says its a balmy 11 in St. Louis. There’s snow on the ground and more coming Friday morning. Good luck!
Missourian here. That 11 feels balmy compared to the -12 this weekend, without wind chill
Good luck David and stay warm!
Maybe one of those boxes should contain a propane heater………
This is pure pain.
https://tenor.com/view/captain-ray-holt-pain-brooklyn-nine-nine-b99-gif-12390402
This afternoon I’m driving 8-9hrs north into this frozen hellscape of a country in order to pick up a 1961 GMC Carryall that hasn’t moved in at least 10 years. I feel your pain.
Wanna guess what else comes with age? Hint: it’s not living in Cali that’s going to make wrenching in subzero weather unbearable.
It’s lumbago, isn’t it.
If it makes you feel any better, David, it’s not really the middle of Winter. We’re more like a quarter of the way through.
Meteorological Winter starts at the start of December and ends at the end of February, so the middle of winter is a bit before the middle of January…
Isn’t the middle of winter is on about February 2nd? .. the mid point between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox.
This is why Punxsutawney Phil gives his prediction on Feb 2.
Depends on how you look at winter I guess. From a temperature stand point, Jan 5-23 have the lowest average high temperatures (in St. Louis), so I have always considered the “middle of winter” to be about now, regardless of what the sun or some groundhog thinks.
There are loads of different definitions of winter, which is why I said “Meteorological Winter”.
Yes, David, I remember your dip in the Baltic. It could still be my personal favorite DT moment.
“You’d think that now that I’m older, am managing people, have a girlfriend, and find myself with all these other responsibilities, I’d have discarded my longtime tendency of getting myself into dumb wrenching-related situations.”
Classic portrait of a codependent car-giver.
The United States National Library of Medicine describes car-giver codependency as “A wrenching pattern in which a person attempts to derive a sense of purpose through relationships with other people’s vehicles.”
It’s clear that you draw personal strength from your survival of previous (dare I say often abusive) automotive relationships.
Who am I to judge? I’ve had my own.
Maybe this van is the right one for you? Maybe not?
I’ve gotta be honest…
I’m seeing more red flags than checkered ones in the background of this new project vehicle.
You need an early aughts Corolla in your life.
Seriously!
That or a therapist.
Maybe a Toyota Solara?
That could work…
You’re no better than I!
To quote Unit MNSKY.
“I can help.”
A prayer to St. Rodney, the patron saint of all misbegotten wrenching endeavors:
St. Rodney, we pray to thee for help in our mission of restoring this vehicle to roadworthiness. May your oily drippings help stuck fasteners become unstuck and your wanton destruction aid us in freeing parts we wish be freed. You are my savior in times of vehicular need. Brrrrraaaaap-men!
For you folks out there with different views, I’m pretty sure Rodney shows up all over the world in a variety of guises. I’m not endorsing any particular one; this happens to be the form I know.
Is there anyway to get that van into some sort of enclosed space to do the work? Maybe you’ve mentioned it and I don’t remember. Anything to at least get the air above brutally cold would make life a lot easier.
Sometimes I read things out of order with hilarious results. I thought you were suggesting that the vehicle in question be loaded into some kind of van to work on it, which strikes me as an amazingly Spy Huntery way to work on and deliver it.
You just came up with a story idea. David has to get a derelict box truck running and drive it to the van. Then shove the van into the back and fire up a wood stove. Or get Mercedes involved with some sort of RV HVAC system.
You plan on doing this work after you get to Jason’s, right??? RIGHT???? You can’t do a front suspension in the artic cold in one day. NOT POSSIBLE. Not even you, David Tracy. It’s actually dangerous to try. Good luck! Can’t wait to read all about it.
You say this with the confidence of somebody who has never replaced a lot of front suspension in the arctic cold in one day.
I just replaced one complete corner of my wife’s BMW suspension over the past couple weeks in my garage. There is ZERO chance of me having been able to do one corner in one day. I am easily as able of a wrencher as David, with 10 more years experience. It’s just not possible to do alone, in this cold, without being fully prepared. Aka, it’s possible in a heated, fully equipped service garage. There is zero chance 45lbs of tools will pull this off in one day.
My only argument is one day. Couple days, sure. Not one day.
Well there’s a big big difference between any BMW and a Toyota Sienna with lots of space and simple MacPherson strut suspension, and he’s not doing a complete replacement, just throwing some quick struts and wheel bearings in it. It depends on the car, but I can replace coilovers on my Honda(not MacPherson struts, so bad comparison) in literally like 20 minutes, and no more than an hour or two each on my old 2008 Caravan(I would imagine this is a pretty good comparison). Obviously it would take much longer if he was doing control arms, tie rod ends, and an alignment along with this.
I also have no idea how you take a couple WEEKS to replace suspension, considering one whole corner is what, 8 hours of labor if it goes badly? I’m not gonna go out and work on the car for 20 minutes a day, that just doesn’t make sense.
Good point, I missed that he is only doing these things. Wheel bearing might be tough, but yeah, struts are pretty easy to swap out.
Eh, I’ve done front suspension in single digit temperatures. It’s not pleasant, but it is not that bad. Wear layers, have gloves that fit really well so you don’t have to take them off too frequently, and keep some cardboard between you and the concrete.
Is he using quick struts? Not messing around with spring compressors would make the job faster.
I wish I could help, but as the polar vortex has just forced a 5-day weekend on me, and we’re back in school tomorrow, I can’t exactly take the day off to drive 5-hours to wrench.
Two weeks ago I could have. It was also like 30° warmer.
I kinda wish I was there to help. If you ever pull a stunt like this in Milwaukee, I’m all in.
Did you pick this day to do the job because it was the only free time, or were you nostalgic for Detroit? Because it’s REALLY cold here.
I would. It’s going to need them at some point in the future anyway given its mileage, and if you’re going to go through the trouble to take the entire front of the vehicle apart to do these repairs, you may as well. It’s possible the rubber on those boots might disintegrate just by rubbing them the wrong way.
The weather here sucks ass right now!
Except that aftermarket CVs are just crap these days, so odds are the old Toyota ones will be better. Never change them just because you think that they might be bad or as preventative maintenance.
Could split the difference and just pack fresh CV grease in the originals.
That might explain why a Ford Contour I used to own kept eating them every 5,000-10,000 miles or so.
When I had to replace CV axles in my ex’s Passat, I’d only buy ones that had been rebuilt from original VW units. I called multiple auto parts stores and had them check for the VW/Audi logo stamped into the axle itself. Had good luck with those, but was never brave enough to buy a no-name brand, new or rebuilt.
Wait wait wait, David now has a “Girlfriend”. In the same city he lives or Canada?
She’s been around a while. Try ro keep up.
I wish you luck DT.
But I expect this experience to go about as smoothly as a Trump court appearance.
Could’ve been worse: instead of dark red, the Toyota might’ve been Burnt Sienna.
That would have been an appropriate color of vehicle to give to someone nicknamed Torch.
I’m inordinately excited for this. Go, man/van, go!
The second you get off a plane in Los Angeles County, your body immediately adjusts to perceiving 55 degrees as “cold,” forever.
So true
I stepped off of that plane in Phoenix in 1996, and never looked back (from St. Louis, no less). 55 is actually arctic to me, now. I won’t even poke my head outside, without a steaming cup of coffee cradeled in both hands, in that kind of Janaury winter weather.
May god have mercy on your frozen soul, DT. My brother said the high was like 5 below, there the other day. I hope you have a flask with some sort of “antifreeze” for yourself, in that bag of tools. Remember, Frozen rust is the best rust. Why use PB Blaster to free a stuck nut, when you can just give it a good whack, and the whole bolt just shatters like an iceicle.
DT might be more worried about his nuts shattering like an icicle than his bolts…
COTD!
55 degrees is warmer than it was in the middle of June last year, here in Michigan.
Why? At least one of these reasons:
A) Because you’re an incurable optimist and one of the kindest and best intentioned people on the planet.
B) For the clicks!
Regardless, I look forward to the updates on your latest adventure.