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Ha! That’s priceless...I am grabbing that image!

Import Auto Parts! I used them for years nearly exclusively...heh, they knew me by my first name!

I never did have the Fire, but did have to replace that damned pump twice. I could never figure that out, it wasn’t a complicated piece of hardware, but there seemed to be something fundamentally wrong with it. (Thankfully, my engine had the mechanically operated pump with that little lever arm that was inserted in the rectangular hole in the side of the engine block...not the electronic one, which could only spell imminent failure!

Isn’t that amazing how your brain does that? I can remember with granular clarity bending over in a sunny, dew covered grass field at 0630 in the morning (when I lived in the Philippines) to examine some unusual flower that had caught my attention while I was on my way to summer school, but as you said, I can’t remember what I had for dinner the day before yesterday!

I guess when you are young, there is a lot of room inside there to comfortably store things in an organized manner, but as you get older and have less available room, you have to FIFO things in and out a lot more...:)

Funny, with Import Auto Parts, I only got one bad part from them in all those years. In my other post, I talked about how flabbergasted I was that they had to remove the engine in my car to replace the clutch....well, I had to replace it again and decided to to it myself.

I parked my car under a big maple tree, hooked a chain system under a sturdy, thick branch, and unbolted the engine and pulled it out. When I tried to put the clutch in, I didn’t know I had to have the clutch alignment tool (the manual said it made the job easier, it didn’t say it was mandatory for a fool like me) so I had to borrow my dad’s car and drive 20 miles back to the Import Auto Parts store, buy a tool I would probably never use again.

But I could not get the engine to mate up. I tried with increasing futility over the course of that weekend, working early in the morning and late into the night because I had to have the car running for Monday morning to go to work.

At one point, I was standing with two feet on the engine block, holding onto the chain trying to maneuver the engine, then get underneath the car to do some step to make it work, and it just wouldn’t go in. It had begun pouring rain, and even though I was wearing my green one piece Navy mechanic coveralls, I was covered in mud, soaked through, miserable, and doing all this five feet from a busy road with cars going by.

I had no resource to turn to for help, the Internet and YouTube weren’t yet invented, and the Chilton’s manual was wonderfully vague and imprecise to someone who had never done the job before.

So, in desperation, I decided to ask the guys at the Import Auto Part store. When I described the problem, the guy said he would double-check the part to make sure it was the right one, and he came back with a new clutch pad and laid it on the counter. He said when looking at it, that the one they sold me had been returned for some unknown reason by another customer.

The new one went right in like butter. Something was clearly wrong with the first clutch pad!