Happy New Year! 2025 was a hell of a ride for me, with job changes, family stuff, the growth in my shop, and all the rest of what life gets sprinkled with. I have been blessed to be where I am and doing what I am doing and for that I am truly grateful. With a new year comes a chance to make a resolution to be broken by end of the month, but my men's group leader challenged us not to make a resolution, but to make a goal and to make a plan on how to achieve that goal. I have not decided on mine yet, with my new job my goal is to beat my prior year numbers. Doing so shows that we are experiencing growth and that we are doing what needs to be done to make people want to use our facilities.
For my personal goals, I believe this year my goal will be to get more organized in my life. I get tired of not feeling orderly, though I am almost always well prepared. I feel like those 2 go hand in hand. I have my notebook for work that I take everywhere, so making lists and being able to mark off those lists is getting better. I am using the whiteboard in the shop to keep track of incoming jobs and to make sure I can write out what each one requires. It needs to be moved because its hard to reach.
Lastly, is keeping my spaces clean and tidy. Im so sick of looking at messy benches and all my flat spaces being covered in junk. My bench is torn apart for a strengthening program currently, but as it goes back together, I am going to make a conscious effort to keep it clean. Time to make the shop more efficient!
I can't start the new year without a few new tools either. These arrived yesterday but will be making their shop debut today. First up I purchased this battery/ charging system tester to replace my failing Midtronics tester
I used one at the local parts store and it was easy enough my boys could use it and they were on sale and have a great warranty through my parts guys.
Next up was a pricey piece of kit for what you get. I bought a time sert kit for repair of a BMW oil pan
There were cheaper China kits I could have purchased, but I have always used time serts branded kits with good results so I stuck with what I knew. Finally, was that while replacing the oil pump in my father in laws truck I accidentally lowered the truck onto my 3/8 impact and cracked the plastic handle housing. Its been a great gun especially for how old it is. At over 10 years old its held up well and been smashed by a lift twice in its life.
New Dewalt atomic brushless impact to replace it.
shorter, and significantly more torque. Looking forward to using this one. I am closing out my shop books for the year, this has been another part of me better organizing my life. I have kept records of what jobs I have done for the last 2 years and it has been a big morale booster to see how much I turn out here and how productive I can be. The goal is that all work performed in my shop pays the payment for the building, pays for all my tools, and that any toys I want to purchase are paid for with shop money. This system has worked well for me and as I continue working out here I get to see the heloc balance drop which is a good feeling. Enough rambling from me, time to get this stuff implemented and get working. Happy New Year!
She loves tomato soup with a grilled cheese and its an easy way to get her to actually eat a lunch. I have a busy week coming up as we try to get the rover transmission job completed this week, and try to get these benches cleared off and some organization for hand tools created.
and after cleaning it up I finally got to the point of being able to use my parts washer to clean the inside of the cover. With it all nice and clean it got reinstalled with a proper amount of sealant and torqued to spec. Next up was replacing the busted sway bar links
and then finally addressing the check engine light which was due to broken wires at the evap purge valve. 
with all these issues addressed the trans filter was replaced, transfer case and front diff fluid replaced and wiring handled it went out the door.
mine had blown the amp circuit and even with a new fuse it wont work. So time to get another one after 20 years.
I had to unpack it all before I left for work to make sure I got it all. Nextfew days will be full of Porsche, Audi and BMW work before diving intoremoving an oil pan on my father in laws truck to work out a low oil pressure issue.
then replaced the filter. These have an odd filter that is supposed to not drain back. 
Since draining my oil drain is a pain, and its hard to see in the 5 gallon buckets, I dont do it as often as I should. You can see where this might be an issue. Well I had an Exxon Valdez tonight as it overflowed into the floor. I was tossing down pig mats as quick as I could tear them off and then I got the buckets and started pumping oil into 5 gallon buckets. With the buckets filling, I went ahead and broke out the kitty litter to absorb the mess. I hate to make a mess like this and it makes me feel stupid, but lessons learned the hard way are not easily forgotten.
I got up top on the truck and popped the water pump off 
then broke out my puller and got the balancer removed, 
with that truck done this afternoon we managed to squeeze in a 4 corner brake job/ lof and a caddy brake fluid flush rotate and lof for a girl I work with who is leaving to be a travel nurse. Its been a crazy busy weekend, and this week will be wild as well with Christmas, trying to squeeze a months worth of work into 2 days so I can spend some time with the family. Time to slow down cook something good and relax tonight.
from this,
It was nice to work with considering the inconvenience of starting and shutting down the gas powered washer like I do. I am going to work out a shelf mount for it and see about plumbing it in as a permanent fixture in the shop after new years. The rest of this messed up short week is going to be busy with several cars I need to finish up for the year. The list keeps growing so it's a blessing for me.
