The broken things in life are continuing to assault my weekends. Our washing machine had a mysterious leak which I finally identified. (No, it wasn't the drain pump.)
I'm 90% sure it was a failing main tub seal which keeps water inside the large water basin for the machine. Sometimes, they're replacable. But with our model - confirmed with an appliance repair friend - our particular machine's seal is attached to the main drive shaft, which can be as much as a functional used machine. So, we ended up hopping on the local stuff website and started looking for a replacement machine. This actually works out well because my brother-in-law was wanting a machine for spinning salad leaves on the farm for packaging, so I was able to donate the old one to the farm effor this year.
We found a working machine for $40, which is a steal. It's an older model and a little smaller than what we need, but it'll work while we take longer to find the one we really want. We'll probably end up gifting this one to someone else in need of a washer.
On the way to pick up the replacement, my brake pedal went to the floor when I came to a stop. That's a Bad Thing.
Somewhere between my house and the new washer, a rock had kicked up under the van and wedged itself between the suspension and the hard brake line. All I can assume is that there was enough rubbing on the old line to pip a hole when I pushed the brakes, dropping the pressure in the hydraulics to near zero. Luckily, with modern cars, there are two outputs, so my front brakes still worked. Kind of.
We limped the car home avoiding as many intersections as we could and I managed to get the old brake line out without too much effort. Brakes are notorious for being one of the hardest easy jobs because of how much corrosion can build up on components over the years, especially in my area due to salt on the roads during the winter.
When I went to thread the new brake line into the wheel hub, the threads for the piston had stripped, so the new line couldn't seal into place. That's another Bad Thing.
In the end, I was able to find the part at a local parts supplier and get it back into working order by lunchtime on Sunday. I try hard to keep Sunday reserved for rest and rejuvinating work (in the garden, mainly) rather than tasks like this, but stuff breaks when it breaks and I just needed to deal with it.
Put another tick mark in the win column for keeping stuff working.