Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Kentucky
Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:09 am
... with no photographs. There were moments where I would have could have should have photographed the beautiful southern landscapes of Tennessee and Kentucky, but I chose not to. Not with the sun relentlessly leaking down towards the southern horizon and diving down west in the early evening and rising later than me, even. No, the days are precious once more, the warmth I am hoarding where I can, the clouds that I secretly welcomed in the Texas Frying Pan of just one month ago, I now stare at as insulting interlopers, but too bad, our hemisphere is cooling and that's that.
Drove from Atlanta GA to Paducah KY, the very same Paducah as that Doyle Dane Bernbach ad "What If It Poops Out In Paducah?" with the 1960-something Beetle hanging off a towtruck.
Arrived at MandyReigle's shop at 8:00AM because we had a full day of fuel injection retrofit to do on her 1978 Neptune Blue Westy, and Belle Plaine knows, that job can be fraught with little detours. I was friggen delighted to meet an alert vital soul with her own God-given seasoning. Looking at a Mack ten-wheeler tanker in the parking lot, she tells me "that one's mine." We get right to work, and I am happy to discover a sharp mind and quite the perseverence. How many of us professional complainers might say, "damn engineers, there's no room to get my hands down there, waah," She curtly declares, "Too bad my elbow doesn't bend the other way."
Meanwhile, the train across the parking lot is parked with its locomotives idling at just-off-synchronization. Every several minutes, some air system or another lets off a huge release, and I am beginning to bond with it as though it is a loitering whale blowing off. All day that train sat there idling, those huge pistons endlessly travelling their bores, crankshafts spinning at some 200 rpm or so for no good reason.
Some time around 5:00PM, I come to a realization, this job is motoring right along, I ask MandyReigle to do the next operation, and it .... just happens, and it is good to go. So we didn't have enough good fuel hose, and had to use the crap (crap!) hose from MidAmericaMotorworks, and the cylinder head temp sensor reads infinity so we use the BobD spare, everything is ready to try out at about 5:45. Fuel pump runs! Fuel circulates! Wiring looks good! No fuel leaks! Car wont start! Yay! Troubleshooting opportunity! Seems to be the AFM wiper contacts were not quite doing their job. Once the engine starts, we time it, do a little fuel injection adjustment and go for a test drive. Now MandyReigle drives a ten-wheeler Mack with a ten-speed, ya think I am going to demand a double-clutch? You bet.
She tells me the car feels smoother and even a little more powerful. But, of course.
ColinAtBorderOfGeorgia
Drove from Atlanta GA to Paducah KY, the very same Paducah as that Doyle Dane Bernbach ad "What If It Poops Out In Paducah?" with the 1960-something Beetle hanging off a towtruck.
Arrived at MandyReigle's shop at 8:00AM because we had a full day of fuel injection retrofit to do on her 1978 Neptune Blue Westy, and Belle Plaine knows, that job can be fraught with little detours. I was friggen delighted to meet an alert vital soul with her own God-given seasoning. Looking at a Mack ten-wheeler tanker in the parking lot, she tells me "that one's mine." We get right to work, and I am happy to discover a sharp mind and quite the perseverence. How many of us professional complainers might say, "damn engineers, there's no room to get my hands down there, waah," She curtly declares, "Too bad my elbow doesn't bend the other way."
Meanwhile, the train across the parking lot is parked with its locomotives idling at just-off-synchronization. Every several minutes, some air system or another lets off a huge release, and I am beginning to bond with it as though it is a loitering whale blowing off. All day that train sat there idling, those huge pistons endlessly travelling their bores, crankshafts spinning at some 200 rpm or so for no good reason.
Some time around 5:00PM, I come to a realization, this job is motoring right along, I ask MandyReigle to do the next operation, and it .... just happens, and it is good to go. So we didn't have enough good fuel hose, and had to use the crap (crap!) hose from MidAmericaMotorworks, and the cylinder head temp sensor reads infinity so we use the BobD spare, everything is ready to try out at about 5:45. Fuel pump runs! Fuel circulates! Wiring looks good! No fuel leaks! Car wont start! Yay! Troubleshooting opportunity! Seems to be the AFM wiper contacts were not quite doing their job. Once the engine starts, we time it, do a little fuel injection adjustment and go for a test drive. Now MandyReigle drives a ten-wheeler Mack with a ten-speed, ya think I am going to demand a double-clutch? You bet.
She tells me the car feels smoother and even a little more powerful. But, of course.
ColinAtBorderOfGeorgia
