Running Late. Or not running, as the case may be.

Just a reminder to you all--the most important piece of emergency equipment you can have in your car is a cell phone.

Got the kids rousted and fed and in the car this morning with time to spare, cranked up the ol' lump o' iron, put it in Reverse, and had to wait while Boy jumped back out to run inside and get his assignment for art class.

As we waited, I caught a whiff of a most peculiar odor that I at first thought was something like burning friction material, coming in through the vents. Hmm. That's probably not good. I quickly put the car in Park, thinking (hoping against hope) that it wasn't the reverse clutches or something inside the transmission. Got out and lifted the hood, and nothing was out of place. No smoke, everything perking along as if nothing was wrong.

Well, that's weird.

Boy came back and off we went, first to the middle school, dropped him and his big sister, then it was on to the elementary school with Cat. The car didn't miss a beat, and it began to mightily bother me about that smell. It smelled expensive, but maybe it was nothing since the car wasn't a pile of cinders.

Dropped her off at school, then stopped at the Publix to get a box of sodas for the office. Paid, got back some cash so I could pick up Reba's repaired shoe and Boy's Scout cap, walked back outside and got in the car, hit the switch, and...





Nothing.

The radio and fan and all the dashboard lights were going, but there wasn't a whir from the starter or even a click from the solenoid.

Ahh.

So that's what the smell was.

I figured it had to be something in the starter circuit, and more than likely was the fusible link.

But what to do about it!? I HAD TO GET TO WORK!

Lucky for that handy cell phone.

Could I get Reba on the phone? No, she was already too far from Trussville to turn around and come back for me. Let's see--7:20. Maybe I could get Oldest, especially since she refuses to turn her phone off. I could get her to come get me, then I could take her to school and take the car on with me to work, then get Grandma to pick her up, and...

"Your call is being answered by an automated voice message system. Your party is not available...."

The one time when it would have been a good thing to have the phone on, and it was off.

::sigh::

Okay, I'm going to be late for work.

First order of business, look at my insurance card and call the number to make sure I still have emergency road service coverage. (I.e., the second most important piece of emergency equipment you should have.) Yep, but then had to call a different number for that. Called, got a woman from somewhere very far away, told her all my personal information, told her where I was, "Publix supermarket in Trussville!" "Public market in Russellville?"

Finally got all that figured out, then it was a question of where to take the car. There is a new shop right down the road about half a mile from where I sat, but I had no idea what the name of it was. So I told her that.

Alas, she needed a name. I finally figured I'd have it taken to the shop that worked on the Focus, so I gave her that name. Did I have an address?

Well, no.

I thought about getting out--IN THE RAIN, which was now beginning to fall--and going inside the store for a Yellow Pages, but the heck with that. She finally decided to put in her computer that I was going to have it towed to a shop on Gadsden Highway.

"Gasten Highway?"

"No, Gadsden. Gee-aye-dee [pause] Zee-dee-ee-en."

"G-A-Z-E-D-E-N?"

We finally got it figured out.

Hung up and waited. Got a call back that the tow truck would be there in 45 minutes.

::sigh:: That means around 8:30. Oh, well.

Waited. Watched various professional women and housewives go to and from Publix. The rain picked up. Then slacked off.

About 8:20, the phone buzzed again and it was the tow truck guy. Had to explain where I was, since he had no clue. You figure tow truck guys are like cabbies and know every place in town, but apparently not.

Got there right at 8:30, and soon thereafter my phone buzzed again with a robot asking if the tow truck guy had gotten there, and if so to press 1. I did as instructed.

The rain picked up again and he kept right on working, while I pretended to be a big sissy dork and hid under an umbrella. I felt even worse when I saw a couple of women walking out of Publix without umbrellas, so I thought maybe I was only thinking it was raining hard enough for a cover. I moved the bumbershoot to the side, and was severely misted by at least three raindroplets. Too wet for MY tastes. What with being a big sissy dork and all.

Clambered up in the cab after he'd gotten everything secure, made the short hop to the car place. AHhhhh. "Hey, it's called Panos Automotive Service!" I said proudly.

Walked in and gave them a rundown of my problem and told them what my diagnosis was so they'd have something to ignore, the counter guy said it might take many hours, I said I'd have to wait no matter what, then I went in the restroom and peed.

All that rain, you know.

They got it backed off the flatbed into the first bay, and I read the variety of magazines they had. This was the first time I'd ever used this place, and from what I could tell, they seemed to know what they were doing. It's usually covered up with cars, and it seemed reasonably tidy, and while I was sitting there reading the doormat and uniform delivery guy came by delivering door mats and uniforms. You figure any shop that goes to that much trouble is pretty stable.

Or at least I sure hoped so.

Along about 9:30, I heard the tell-tale clickwhirPUTT-putterputterputter WHOOOOSH of the car cranking up in the shop. SUCCESS! I wonder what was wrong...

Turns out I wasn't quite on the target--it was a defective neutral safety switch that had shorted, then burnt out the wire leading to the starter. Same type of symptom as a bad fuse, but harder to fix.

Or was it?

I have now much more fondness for this place, because the mechanic (who allowed that he had a couple of Volvos, too) said he could just bypass the switch. Now this isn't the preferred fix, and most shops are so scared of litigation that they swear such a thing was not only inadvisable, but simply beyond the ken of mere mortals to accomplish.

The alternative was to order up a switch and replace it.

Which was going to be more money, and I knew it, but I had them ask anyway.

50 bucks for the part, 50 bucks for labor, plus the labor they'd already done on the car to figure out what was wrong with it. Call it close to $200 with tax. Which really isn't bad, but was still more than I wanted to spend.

Which meant that the tab to get me back on the road came to $80. I just have to be really REALLY careful to make sure the car is in Park to start it.

Out of the door before 10:00 a.m. and on the road.

But still really, REALLY late for work.


"Beware the ides of March," indeed!

For lovers of Furrin Cars, Parrots, and Mechanics with a Literary Streak

I was looking around last night for a variety of junk, and did a search for some things for the ol' Volvo and somehow ran across one of the most interesting places I've ever seen on the Internet.

The place is called Foreign Affairs, and is the website of a repair shop and used car dealer in the Staunton, Virginia area, and it sounds just like the sort of place I would enjoy working in (should I ever decide to ditch my current vocation). Although it combines two of the most disreputable sorts of businesses (no offense to honest used car dealers and mechanics--all five of you), you simply have to admire any shop that prides itself on "avian entertainment, and pointless pettifoggery." The avian entertainment consists of Remington and Kuzo (scroll down past the lovely wife of the proprietor), both of whom I'm certain will appeal to Miss Janis.

I found this page first, which is a documentary of sorts of customer complaints about their cars, and the photos and explanations of what was wrong. Some of them are frightening to see, but the prose is certainly entertaining: "Most engines don't operate well with a hole in the piston. Maybe a small hole. When your engine overheats, STOP and call a tow truck."

That's a photo of the mighty Volvo B230F. Proving even anvils have their limit of abuse.

Anyway, a thoroughly engaging website and what sounds like a great bunch of folks. I sure wish they had a location in Trussville...


(By the way, I had some trouble getting some of their pages to load this morning--just keep hitting reload if you have to. Also, this was crossposted to Possumblog.)

Well, how about that--even MORE routine maintenance!

I had most of the day to myself (with the able assistance of Tiny Terror) on Saturday past, and decided to take care of some long-neglected work.

On Friday, I had dropped by Advance Auto Parts and picked up a set of Bosch Platinum Plus spark plugs (with the magical flavor of yttrium!), a distributor cap, and a rotor button, but they didn't have a set of plug wires. After dispensing with family things on Saturday morning, as well as another bit of car work on the Focus, I called the other parts place down the hill (Westwood, which more of a parts supply place than a mainline mass market retailer such as Advance) to make sure they had a set of plug wires for the old brick, which they did. Got Cat dressed (more or less) and made her quit whining by promising her that if she would be good and help me, I'd take her to Sonic for lunch and then we'd have a picnic on the old footbridge over the Cahaba. (Not a current picture, but still a good one.)

THIS she understood!

Off down to the foot of the hill, walked in and saw that the genial old fellow (who smelt of stale coffee, Marlboros, and grease) already had my set out there waiting on the counter. THAT'S SERVICE, my friends!

WHOA!

SEVENTY-TWO BUCKS!?

Admittedly, they were top of the line bits called Magstar Gold, and had the nice metal shields on the plug ends and all that, but that's still awfully steep. Then I saw the list price--$132. I figure I must be getting a real deal.

Paid, and went back home ready to get started.

I don't know how long ago the plugs were last done, but I know I haven't done it. (I suppose I could look at the voluminous records kept by the previous squirrelly owner, but I didn't want to.) Anyway, it's been idling rough for a year now, and although the mileage is relatively good at around 21 mpg, I keep thinking it could do better. New ignition parts might be the trick.

First thing was to replace the rotor button and cap, which turned out to be more trouble than I gave it credit for being. Seems the rotor takes a bit of persuasion to fully seat itself down on the shaft, but I didn't know this until I cranked it and looked on in horror as the whole distributor cap was wildly oscillating like a Tilt-a-Whirl. After shutting it down and yanking everything back off, with a few smears of silicone on the underside of the rotor and then a polite tap with a screwdriver handle, it was where it was supposed to be.

BUT, before all that, there were the plugs to install. I was a bit fearful of what I might find on the ends--carbon, or worse, oil. Happily, they were each and every one a nice shade of toasted bread, with only one having a bit of tan-colored scaley stuff on the ground electrode. The center electrodes, though--oh, my. They were all nearly burnt down to the insulator. No WONDER the thing has been running rough and hard to start in the cold!

In with the new set (actually, these are done one at a time to keep junk from blowing into the cylinders) and after a bit of a brain cloud with the screw-on tips (which weren't needed with the type of wires I had) that caused me to have to REMOVE all the little screw-on tips, the wires were all snapped on, and the engine cranked to life. Again, there was that slight mishap with the bobbling distributor cap, but after that was squared away, things worked just like they should.

And I have to say, Catherine was a great help through the whole process. She even got to wear her own pair of blue nitrile gloves to keep her hands clean, which she thought was super keen. She would fetch tools for me and throw boxes away, and was kind enough to go get my shop manual so I could remember the proper firing order, (1-3-4-2, by the way), and asked what this was, and that was, and what those were, and generally hung around far longer than I ever thought she would. Of course, she's still a kid, so as her attention wandered, she went and bothered the cat for a while.

SO, time for a test drive, and LUNCH.

Cleaned up, gathered her up and off we went. Now I might be full of wishful thinking, but ol' Järn felt like a brand new car--well, almost. But a lot more peppy and without the shakiness at idle he'd had before. So, that turned out just fine.

After a nice lunch with my sidekick and a brisk round of rock-skipping and Pooh Sticks, we had one more stop to make. Luckily, Catherine was tired and ready for a stop in all the fun, because we spent the next HOUR waiting at the Express Oil Change for them to do a radiator flush. Another task that's been on hold since I bought the car, even despite the dire warnings of the previous owner that it was time to have it done. And it is important. I'd just not gotten around to it. And despite knowing how to do it myself, I wanted someone else to do it, simply because it's messy and tiresome and I didn't want to fool with it.

I also didn't realize it was going to take an hour, though, but that's okay, because now there's one more thing on my To-Do list over there on the sidebar!

So, that there's what all has been done of late--check back in a few days and we'll see how the mileage does.

Okay, I just THOUGHT I had myself a worthy moron project!

This fellow has the time and ability to REALLY go all out in the “wildly improbable” sweepstakes. (Thanks to my buddy Nate over at Wasted Electrons for digging this one up.)

Man, I LOVE Jury Duty!

Some. I had to show up Monday and yesterday, but thankfully got released at lunch, so I had some time for once to get some needed maintenance out of the way, in the form of a transmission service.

Now my humble hunk of iron does have some issues, namely a leaking rear tailshaft seal, which means I need to replace that along with the bearing (along with the driveshaft bushing and bearing), but that's more than I had time to do, so I settled on taking it to the local Express Oil Change so they could at least drop the pan, flush it out, put on a new filter and gasket, and put a little stop-leak in there to get me a few more thousand miles before it completely blows up.

I figure 70 bucks is a pretty good deal, and the mechanics were nice to the ol' feller since he has so many miles on him. Took a bit longer than planned since they had to send for the proper kit--IMAGINE! Not having a trans part set for a 21 year old foreign car!

Anyway, it took a while also because the dipstick tube and everything else was bound up with years and years of immobility, but eventually it all got undone, then done back up, and I was on my way. Be interesting to see if that Valvoline stuff works or not, but at least I feel a bit less guilty about neglecting everything!

Wonder of wonders!

I actually did manage to get the oil changed this weekend! For some reason, this was much harder than usual, I think mainly because I decided to use my newish multi-quart used oil tub, which is ever so slightly too high to simply slide under the car, meaning I had to jack it up a bit, meaning I couldn't really get under there very well to loosen up the drain plug, meaning I had to say some bad words. I really started the latter in earnest when oil blurped up over the rim of the oil tub because I had neglected to open the little vent on top. Oil all over the driveway.

I am a moron.

ANYway, got all that cleaned up and did a little underhood cleanup as well. Everything continues to click along, although it's well past time to change out the rear tranny seal and bearing and the driveshaft bearing.

But at least I don't feel so bad about not changing the oil--SINCE JULY!!

::shame-faced::