Maaaaaaaan, that was a good weekend. I haven’t had a garage in two stinking years and I forgot how good it feels to get up before the sun does to do some tinkering. If I could, I’d start every day of the rest of my life like that.
On the down side, I only have that one bare bulb for lighting. Might have to fix that…
Anyhoo, with the tool situation being what it is, I figured I wouldn’t get much done but DANG if I didn’t do some damage!
Right off the bat, I broke one of the tailgate cables, just by opening the darn thing!!! (actually that was a previous owner “fix”. New cables are on the list of things to order. Proper length and crimps this time.)
Day one started out simple enough, loosen this hose here, remove those wires from there… Everything was associated with that LPG kit I’m not such a fan of. The more I unwrapped, the more eager I was to be rid of it and the deeper I dived in. Duct tape, poorly soldered wires, wires without terminations, split coolant hose as chaffing protection… All bodges I’m guilty of doing throughout my automotive history, but when there were stickers with the kit providers name and web address all over the place I was expecting better.
Hmm… I thought I had more pictures than that. Sorry, you’re just going to have to take my word that it was “bodge, at best”
I tell you what though, that battery disconnect switch thingy is handier than a glove! Just a flip of a switch and the all the electricimals are off! And speaking of which, I thought for sure its installation was indicative of a “slow drain” on the battery, but I’ve accidentally left it hooked up enough times that I don’t even bother anymore. So far, no drains detected. (win!)
So yeah, glad to be rid of the LPG mess. The engine bay certainly looks cleaner without all the extra junk installed, and as a bonus I stumbled across my “misfire at idle” that I thought was going to manifest itself as a vacuum leak!
That’s the #3 cyl’s HT lead. And to the previous owner I say: “Seriously man, you cant tell me you didn’t know about it, you put dag gumm split sleeve and tape over the darned thing!!!”
Lucky for me, a few of the HT leads that came with the truck were still intact so I was able to swap it out with a good one. (again, Mr. PO: seriously!!!!!...)
Enough PO griping. Got it swapped and went for a drive on Monday to go pick up my winter wheels and tires from my buddy Zsolt’s house. On the way I noticed that with the truck running smooth it was idling ‘round about 1500RPMs. I had my new swiss army knife with me (speaking of “handier than a glove” I should have bought one of these YEARS ago…) and turned the idle adjustment almost 4 complete turns in to get her back down ‘round 900rpms or so. By the looks of it, that idle screw was almost completely at the end of its adjustment range…
(insert grumble about the PO “knowing about the problem, having the part to fix it, and bodging the fix with a screwdriver adjustment anyway” here)
With the “PO tone” now completely set in my head, I began to look at a few other things…
Throttle cable? Yup, loose as a goose! I mentioned earlier that the truck felt down on power? Yeah… not anymore!
Parking brake that barely worked? Yup. Adjusted as far as it could possibly go… in the absolute wrong direction. Works fine now! (I pulled and released it a handful of times, with the notion that it might click the auto adjusters in the rear drums a few times. You know… just in case. I have no idea if it worked or not.)
I’m tellin ya, knocking these things out? I was in hog heaven! Call me butter, because I was on a roll! I even had my helpers come out and join me in their PJs a few mornings. The eldest did some rowing through the gears for his first time (It’s still kind of weird not having the kids in the front seat. When I was his age, I used to shift the gears for my parents from the passenger seat…). The youngest did some ordering through the drive through. ‘Cept he kind of got it backwards because he kept giving me food from the driver’s seat instead of “receiving” it… ah well, it was fun. I got French fries, chicken nuggets, and a hamburger.
I did have one setback though. My heater control valve (ooh! Remind me, I need to clean that out. My heater lever is sticking something fierce!) had an extra port welded on it and I didn’t have a plug. I suffered a second loss when Saturday rolled around and the auto-parts store didn’t open (Holiday weekend. Saturday was the only day ANYTHING was going to be open) but I did get lucky when I decided to poke around the hardware store next to it. The store didn’t have any coolant caps, but there was this gate kickstand stopper thingy that had a rubber tip that looked like it JUST might work.
Which it totally would have (worked, that is), but I didnt grab any dag-gum hose clamps to go with it and scrounging around the removed LPG kit didn’t yield anything that would work either…
So I put that split coolant sleeve and one of the severed HT leads I was complaining about to good use
(Dear PO: There is a correct way and an incorrect way to "bodge". Now you know)
So far so good on that one. Two short drives and not one drip.
Which is more than I can say for the oil. The rear pumpkin is still dripping a little, but the engine is marking its territory too… Quick poking around makes me think it’s coming from the back of the valve cover (there’s a little plastic half-moon plug thingy back there that’s the most likely culprit) and from a few of the bolt holes in the oil pan. Unfortunately I cant touch either without tools. It’s not so bad that it needs immediate attention, but it might annoy me enough to swing by Zsolt’s place to borrow a couple wrenches should I stumble across the necessary gaskets
But Zsolt kind of has his hands full at the moment. He’s reliving his glory days by prepping a Fiat 650 for restoration. It’s the same make, model, and color of his first car. The dude drove to Italy to buy it, it was in GREAT condition and running well so, naturally, he started tearing it completely apart as soon as he got it home.
He’s getting it “rotisserie ready” but needed underfloor access. I’ve seen pictures of people resting a car on their spare tires before but it’s not a stunt I’ve ever seen in person so naturally I suggested we try it. Apparently it’s pretty normal around here, and it was soon very apparent that this was not Zsolt's first car-tip.
“You’ve seriously never tipped a car before???” he exclaims, unable to contain his surprise.
“dude, have you SEEN our cars???”
(this was followed by a few “Zsolt war stories” involving tipping a car to gain access to various things that needed fixing on the fly)
Good times.
For now, I’ll leave you guys with this picture of a picture that the landlord left hanging in the garage:
)
Amy
