Car Woes = Phil's rambling and venting

So, when it comes to car repairs, I am no newbie. My first car I had, was one that my Dad and I swapped out an automatic transmission for a manual one. My second car was a truck that I got from my brother that (again) my Dad and I swapped out the broken engine for a new one.

Car repairs is something that I have grown up doing with my dad and brother, but I don't think any of us really enjoyed that much. So when it came time to trade my truck for a more fuel friendly car, I was ecstatic that I wouldn't have to deal with car repairs for quite a while.

But of course, my fate had already been set. We are a family (or at least I'm feeling that way now) that always has to deal with car repairs. So, when my transmission on my car needed to be replaced after having it for only 20k miles, I was very upset, but not surprised.

But our car woes seemed rather subdued since that incident. Just tires and brakes needed to be replaced, and I don't mind taking care of those things, as well as oil changes.

But the latest advancement in our car woes just has me baffled.

I was dropping off one of the young men in our ward at his house, car was in drive, foot on the brake, car idling. Then it just died. It would crank over (Which told me it wasn't the battery or the starter) just wouldn't start. So I had him drive/steer the car down the street while I pushed it to our house.

So, what's next? Fuel. I checked those out, and the fuel pump is working, and I have 3/4 of a tank. So it's not that. What's next after that? Spark. Checked out my spark plugs, they all looked fine, but one problem. They weren't sparking. So for some reason, the electrical system wasn't telling my spark plugs to fire.

I looked online at possibilities, and how to check/test stuff out, and I came across a little thing called a Crankshaft Position Sensor. It basically tells your car where the crankshaft is at, and when to fire what spark plug so you can have ignition. I did a little test, and found out that it isn't telling my car when to fire the spark plugs. So I said to myself, "Let's replace it." I got the part from Auto-Zone, picked up a book to tell me where it is, and went back to my car to replace the sucker and hope that the problem would be fixed.

There is only one problem....I can't find the stupid sensor! I know it goes into the engine block, and has electrical running to it, but it's nowhere to be found! The book I picked up has this lovely picture of looking up from under the engine with this arrow pointing to the sensor, but apparently it's the wrong engine, or something, because when I look at that spot on my engine, there isn't anything there. No Sensor, and not even a spot to suggest that one is supposed to go there, and no wires showing where it would be.

I followed the rest of the electrical (wiring harness) and found as many other sensors as I could to see if they were the one I needed to replace. Nope. Now there is only one sensor I can't see plainly (it's between the engine mount and starter) that possibly could be it, but it's on the opposite side of the engine of where the picture is pointing to. So in order to even see if it is the right one, I have to take out the starter, and my view may even still be obstructed.

Stupid car repairs.

Maybe I need to call my Dad....