So, I thought I was edgimacated and stuff…oh well!
This morning, I walked outside and it was sleeting, so I hurried to the apartment office to drop off a note saying that my bathtub wasn’t draining; it finally has gotten slow enough that my next shower start out with me standing in cold water. Then I got in my car, debated if the windshield needed scraping—had a dusting of frozen rain on it. Well, it didn’t start anyway, so it didn’t matter. It has the habit of taking a couple cranks before it will start—when it is cold out. So, I got in my redundant vehicle, started it up, and went ahead and got some of the ice off it.
Work went fine—I tried out some interesting tactics for dealing with overly critical people. “You are right, that is incorrect. Could you go ahead and fix that up? That would be great…” It would have worked, if what their criticism had a basis in the same reality as me. I need to work on being kind, but firm. Be considerate, but not ruin myself trying to fit other’s actions into reasonableness. All without becoming a vitriolic quibbler too. (I can hear the Reading Level ratcheting up!)
When started my car, I noticed that the brake pedal had a lot of give to it. Pumping it helped a little. I checked the fluid level—way low, and the light hadn’t come on. I filled it up, but it still was pretty useless until near the bottom of the stroke. I drove home with care. I’m glad I could see the accident from way off, so I had time to coast and down shift. A pickup had run into a concrete wall (I’m guessing) The front clip was demolished, but the driver (presumably) was leaning on his roof, talking on a cell. The cops were about, so it had been several minutes.
My other car still doesn’t start—I could dump some fuel treatment into the line; that worked before. Or, I could go install this glow-plug-powered fuel heater I assembled. I still need parts, but I’ve got enough that it will work.
But my tub drains like normal—I wonder if I had washed too much dirt, or paint, or hair, or epoxy down it (ok, joking about the epoxy).
I think I’ll go make my car go—I’ve got somewhere to be at 7, so I should be able to make it…
December 10th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Tob, have you checked your glow plugs? Aram’s was not starting very good and all but one of the glow plugs were bad. It is amazing it started at all. You can use a tester to check them. You have to unhook the wires from the glow plugs and then test the resistance from the glow plug to the ground/frame/neg battery terminal. If you find most have modest resistance and some have infinite then you know those are burnt out.
December 26th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Is it the new car or old car that is ill?
December 27th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
well, the old car (which is younger than my new car) is the one that has a brake problem. The new car (which is the one older than you) is hard to start when it’s cold—but if I plug it in overnight, it starts right up. I’ve checked the glowplugs and they seem fine.