The moment I stepped into the garage, I knew it was going well. A rack of abandoned track lights was hanging from the opened garage door by mangled wires. The Trainer was walking by with a shop knife and cut up bicycle tubes. The 22 year old daughter was stomach down atop the engine, arms only visible to her elbows.
The 19 year old daughter cheerfully informed me that, “Dad showed us how we can’t get electrocuted by the battery! We know how many Ohm’s of resistance we have now!”
The 22 year old popped her head up a minute to glance out of the garage at the pouring rain and said, “Well, he did say we should be careful about standing in water.”
The Trainer walked by again and clarified he had been talking about household electricity being more of a problem for electrocution. Then, he showed me how he had spliced various pieces of electrical cords to connections on the track light, which was designed to be a ceiling mounted light. It was now a portable shop light instead.
The girls crawled out of the engine in order to explain to me how the clear tube running from the garden hose to the back of the engine was from the old aquarium set-up. When the faucet was turned on, it pushed water through to clean out the heater core. The output hose of the heater core had a bicycle tube section as the liaison to another clear plastic aquarium tube. They all grinned and proudly pointed to the rusty orange snow in the yard. Delightful.
The five hour training session also covered potential uses for channel locks, cut-up plastic vodka bottles (funnel for anti-freeze), and wine bottle corks. The girls now have a better concept of car guts than I do, but they may be a little confused about what tools are commonly used. If they ever happen to watch a video of open heart surgery, I fully expect them to exclaim, “Hey! We did that to the car!”
The patient is alive, but still without a functioning heater core. Apparently, clogged arteries were not the main problem. However, the Trainer and his team are not too upset. There is just something about working at freezing temperatures, just beyond torrential rain, while performing creative vehicular operations, that brings a father and his daughters together.
