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So we own the truck, but it's not ready to drive yet. B at Stoneline was an auto mechanic before, and had worked on the truck before, so it made sense to have him do this job. He's replacing the freeze plugs and remilling the heads, and also replacing some other things and fixing the back gate while he's at it. He sent me to Advance with a big list of parts he had printed off their website. The list was great, it had all the part numbers so it was easy for the guy at the store to find everything. B advised me to "play the helpless female," which suggestion I did not take. To me that means feigning ignorance/inability to get people to do things for you. But I really am largely ignorant of auto repair. So I could approach the situation as I would approach any store in which I needed assistance. No need to "play" anything.

The guy at Advance made a couple of modifications to my list: he said I didn't need the water pump gasket, because it came with the water pump, but I did need a thermostat gasket because it didn't come with the thermostat. But when I brought everything to B, he said that he had asked me to buy a better water pump gasket than the one that came with it. Also he hadn't asked for a thermostat gasket because it comes with the head gasket. I offered to go back and get the water pump gasket but he said it wasn't necessary. I did return the thermostat gasket because I had to go back anyway and pick up the spark plugs, which they were out of the first time.

B has been great about telling me exactly what's going on. To the point that I sometimes don't know what he's talking about. But I appreciate his thoroughness. So the current situation is that he took the heads to a machinist last week. The machinist didn't know him (B worked as a mechanic in VA, so he doesn't know any vendors here) and wouldn't take a check. Which I didn't know until the day he had to pick them up, but between the two of us we had enough cash to pay the guy.

Unfortunately B wasn't happy with the job the machinist did. Specifically, he was supposed to clean the valves but didn't. B expressed some concern that he might have been sloppy in other ways too, and overmilled the heads. (The funny thing is, when explaining this B said "you know, like how C. sometimes gets a little too enthusiastic and oversands a table?" I was like, um, no, I'm not familiar with C's sanding habits, I almost never leave the office!) If the heads were overmilled, B says we'll have to get the manifest milled down too so everything will fit. I hope that didn't happen! B worked on the truck over the weekend so I'll find out tomorrow.

If everything went as planned, the truck will be driveable tomorrow! Except that I don't have a new tag for it yet. I got the insurance settled so I'll go to DMV on Wednesday. Georg and I already decided that the first thing we're going to do is tear down the shed behind the house (not the big nice one, the crummy falling-down one) and take it and all its contents to the dump. And then get lumber to build our vegetable garden. Yay!