Automotive Repairs

Meric is a do-it-yourself kind of guy when it comes to automotive maintenance and repairs. Living in a trailer makes that a bit of a challenge. We don't have a garage or driveway to work in and most campgrounds aren't too thrilled about people changing their oil and stuff like that on the campsite. So how can you do your own automotive work while living in a trailer? Well being in the military makes the answer easy, take it to the automotive bay. On most military posts they have automotive bays where you can take you vehicle to have work done on it or a place to do it yourself. At only $1.75 per 1/2 hour you can rent a bay area which includes lifts, access to all of the tools and help/advice from the mechanics who work there.

This past Saturday Meric and I took advantage of the automotive bay. Meric had just gotten a "power pack bundle" from Banks. (Banks is a company that specializes in upgrades for your vehicles.) The bundle included: air intake, exhaust (including high flow muffler), inter cooler and down pipes, tuner, speed brake. All of this is to help make his truck more efficient while towing our trailer. After a quick safety video, Meric and I checked out some tools and went to work. We were going to start by changing the air intake and the exhaust. Meric had looked at the instructions for the air intake and decided any idiot could do it, so that was my job. Following the instruction booklet (the pictures helped) I was able to switch out the old air intake for the new one on my own.

the new air intake that I installed

Meric started on the exhaust but quickly ran into trouble with a couple of rusted bolts that just wouldn't come off. Being at the automotive bay was great because Meric had access to so many different options to try and get the bolts off. Unfortunately, one of the guys that was helping broke one of bolts. Which led to more time being spent in trying to get the rest of the broken one out, but without any success. We did change out the exhaust but we will need to figure out what to do with the broken bolt at another time. For those that are worried the exhaust system is still functional without the bolt and there isn't an exhaust leak.

Meric's new exhaust tip

Broken bolt top right corner

We still have a lot of work to do before the new system is completely installed on Meric's truck but the automotive bay makes it easier. It is nice to have a place we can go to work on our vehicles.