When Janice asked me to call 911, I knew something was bad wrong. She never gets sick. She never goes to the doctor and she never asks for help. And, we never saw this coming.
It turns out that a woman’s heart attack symptoms are very different from what I learned in my years as a first aid responder. I was always taught to look for tingling in the left arm and pressure in the chest. She did not express any of that.
For a few weeks, she has been complaining of a sore wrist and both arms aching. We thought this was an injury from playing Wii sports. Her pain would usually go away by a simple massage or some tension on the wrist. The methods described on Lori Painter’s Inspire to act blog relieved the pain every time.
She also mentioned some middle back pain. Again this pain was relieved by massage.
I never realized that these were the known heart attack symptoms for women. When the ambulance driver told me she was having a hearty attack, I almost had one myself. It was the last thing I expected to hear.
When he said they were life flighting her to a trauma hospital, I was even more shocked. I realized it must be very serious.
She had already been at the hospital for 17 minutes by the time I got there according to the ER desk. I waited a bit but when I went to check on her, they had lost her int he computer system. Erlanger is a large hospital so it was impossible for me to find her without help.
A friend who works there suggested that she was probably in the Cath lab and told me where to go. I found a very helpful nurse along the way who was intrigued by the unusual name of Strawbridge. She was finally able to find Janice for me.
I got to see her for just a few seconds before she was whisked off to emergency bypass surgery. She had seven blockages that required three bypasses to correct.
I am going to have to learn more about how women present heart attack symptoms to that I will be more aware for the women in my life.
The Spirituality of DrivingSpecial Stage one Rally Tennessee 2005
In his book, The Power of Now, one of the examples Eckhart Tolle uses of people who naturally live in the moment are people who drive race cars. Being in the moment is how he defines a spiritual process.
Having driven in automobile races and rallies, I understand what he is saying. In order to be competitive and to drive safely, you need to have your mind clearly focused on the task at hand when driving a race car. If you are thinking about what you did last week, or what you plan to do after the race, you will loose time on the track and in the worst case, you will crash the car.
I have also found that driving off road makes me focus on the moment almost as much as racing. While the time pressure is not always there in the off road environment, the need to be clearly alert to my surroundings is. I have to know where my tires are at all times and be keenly aware of the amount of traction available. I can’t do any of that if my mind is distracted or focused elsewhere.
Often as we drive our daily commutes, we do not have this keen focus to the task of driving. We sometimes put driving on mental auto pilot and allow our minds to wander through all sorts of thoughts – some that make us happy and others that bring us grief.
We can however choose to use any time behind the wheel as a deeply spiritual time. By simply focusing on driving the car and paying attention to the surroundings, we can bring our focus in to the eternal now and block out thoughts of past and future.
Often it is easier to bring back attention to driving by taking a different route. For example, instead of taking the interstate, take the old US highway that parallels it. It may take a few minutes longer but just notice the feeling of release that you feel as you look at the scenery and focus on the details of driving the car.
Even a familiar road can bring release if you focus on feeling the contact of the wheels to the pavement through the steering wheel. Listen to the sounds of the engine and the whirr of the gears turning making the car go forward.
I like driving my Jeep because it gives me a great feeling of being in contact with the road. A quieter car does not give me this same feeling of connectedness. I also get this feeling form driving sports cars whose stiff suspension keeps me in touch with the road surface.
It is easy to make driving a spiritual experience. Just focus on the things that are happening right now in the moment. Forget about all the things in the past that you are driving away from. Stop worrying about the potential future that may or may not happen when you get there. Just focus your attention to driving the car right now where you are.
New Transmission mount
The BA 10 transmission uses a different mount than the other transmissions. For a long time these mounts were hard to get after Chrysler discontinued them and there were no after market part available. However, now Crown Automotive makes a replacement. Part number 8350 5567.
Years ago when mine broke, I repaired it by placing a bolt in the center to hold the two halve together. This was meant to
be a temporary repair but has been in place for several years now. The bolt had begin to loosen and more wear had allowed the mount to move around under load. Old worn jeep transmission mount
So tonight I replaced it with the Crown part.
I began by supporting the transfer case on my transmission jack. I then removed the four 13 mm nuts that hold the cross member to the mount. Next I removed the four 15 mm bolts that hold the cross member to the Jeep. Next I removed the four 5/8″ bolts that hold the mount to the transmission. This is different from other Jeep transmission that only have two bolts holding the mount. The mount also holds the exhaust but that just slips out.
To install the new mount I first warmed up the rubber that holds the exhaust as it was very cold in the shop. This heating allowed the hanger to slip easily into the mount. Next I installed the four bolts that hold the mount to the transmission.
Next, I lowered the transmission slightly on the jack and attached the cross member to the mount using the four nuts. As often happens when the mount is worn or broken, the cross member was offset form its mounting holes while on the jack. I used a pry bar to move it into place and started the first bolt.
I jacked the transmission back up into place and I then started the other three before tightening them all down. I then lowered the jack and checked the torque on all the bolts.
Yesterday Jenny showed up at church saying her Jeep was making a funny noise. It sounded like it was from the drive shaft.
I drove it back to my shop and noticed that it only made noise on deceleration. Even the slightest load from the engine made it quieten down.
I guessed it had something to do with the pinion as that is the only thing that would move around depending on load. Her Jeep Cherokee has the Chrysler 8.25 rear end.
At the shop, her Jeep would hardly back up but went forward just fine. I used 4wd to back up to pull into the shop.
Once on the lift, I inspected the drive shaft first by feeling of the U joints to see if either was hot. Then I felt the differential and noticed it warmer than normal. I suspected a pinion bearing.
I pushed on the rear of the drive shaft ans saw the pinion move. There was a lot of movement so knowing this is a tapered bearing, I suspected it must be loose.
I quickly dropped the drives haft and soon saw the trouble. The pinion nut had backed off. I guess if it had not been for interference with the u joint it would have come completely off.
I remembered that a couple of years ago when I replaced the pinion yoke that I did not use lock tight on the threads. This time I did.
The punch marks I made before were still visible, so I put the nut back to align the marks and the preload felt about right by hand. So I left it there for the lock tight to dry.
A test drive indicated that the noise was completely gone. I guess we caught it in time before th ring gear was damaged.
This made our trip home excitingScott and I had an eventful trip home from Wrenchfest.
The fun started early Sunday morning as we were pulling the trailer from Matt’s house where we slept to Neal’s to pick up the leftover parts Jeep. I was enjoying looking at all the old homes along the route as Matt narrated. He then pointed out the second house on the right which I commented as I drove past – “Hey that house has the same siding as Neal’s” Scott and Matt both quickly pointed out to me that is was Neal’s house and I really should have stopped there. Luckily I found an easy place to turn around and got the trailer positioned in the driveway.
The biggest challenge for loading the Jeep was that it had no brakes. No hydraulics due to broken rusted lines and no e brake due to no cables. After some careful consideration we hooked a tow strap to the hitch and got several guys to act as an anchor. I then drove the Jeep onto the trailer by quickly bumping it in and out of drive to control the speed. We got it loaded and strapped down with no more excitement.
After saying our goodbyes we got on the road around 11 am.
Just south of Elizabethtown, while climbing a steep grade, we heard a loud pop and then a loud sputtering sound. As I pulled to the shoulder I noted that the sound followed the engine speed like a bad exhaust leak. Scott jumped out in the pouring rain while I popped the hood. He noticed a broken bolt on the exhaust manifold and confirmed it must be a blown manifold gasket. We decided there was nothing we could do there on the side of the road in the rain and there was no harm in driving it further other than our ears so I pulled back onto the interstate while Scott found some ear plugs in the center console.
A few miles later we stopped at a truck stop for fuel and took a closer look at the engine under their canopy. Feeling around for the leak to make sure it was not melting something important, I noticed it was not coming from the obvious place where the bolt was broken, but below that. I kept feeling around until I found the escaping gases were coming from a mysterious round hole in the block. I thought some sort of EGR line had broken off although I did not remember there being any thing there.
After a bit more looking, we realized that the hole was the metal part of the spark plug and the ceramic part was still attached to the wire but embedded in the fender liner.
Realizing now that the gases coming out were not hot we drove on to look for a parts store. I almost always carry a tool bag but not this trip. My ratchet and plug wrench were home in the shop. Otherwise I would have stolen a plug form the Jeep to fill the hole.
Thirty miles down the road we found a Walmart. They not only had a tool kit with a plug wrench but the correct plug for the Suburban.
Armed with the proper implements, I quickly extracted the old plug base and installed a new plug. It started up and ran nice and quiet and smooth compared to the last 40 miles. We even got a break form the rain during the time it took to swap the plug.
Leaving the interstate for the back roads I had to drive slowly as there was often enough water to make the front of the Suburban hydroplane which is no fun with 5,000 lbs attached to the rear bumper. It took about 6 hours to make the trip that had taken 4.5 hours Friday night.
After dropping off Scott in Sparta, I head for Cleveland. I noticed lots of flooding as I passed through the nation’s largest sink hole called Grassy Cove, Tn. Coming up out of the sinkhole in the fog I got quite a shock as I hit a big rivulet of water coming across the road that was deep enough to shake the truck as I hit it.
As I started down off the plateau into Spring City I saw lots of blinking lights ahead. I thought there had been a wreck, but once it was my turn to go, I saw there was a rock slide blocking the down lane and it was being cleared away.
As I drove into Spring City I saw houses with water up to their porches. And I I turned to head south on US27 I drove through water that must have been six inches deep. I them decided to cross the Tennessee River at Watt Bar dam and head home on the interstate.
I finally made it home over nine hours after leaving Neal’s in KY. I parked the truck and trailer by the barn and went to bed glad to be home after a fun weekend.
