Category: Life Lessons

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1998 Chevy Pick up won’t start

1998 Chevy Pick up won’t start

My Dad called the other day to say that his Chevy Pick Up would not start. We began by checking the usual suspects, spark and fuel.

I used my inductive spark checker held to a plug wire and it indicated that we had spark. I put my hand over the exhaust pipe and it smelled like we had fuel. Hmm.

We tried the clear flood procedure even though it did not seem flooded. Still not start.

The next night I returned with my fuel pressure tester and timing light. We checked the fuel pressure and found 50 psi. We guessed that was enough even though the spec is 55 to 60.

We had noticed that the spark was intermittent on the tester which could have been form the way I was holding it or maybe from a bad cap or rotor. So dad bought a new cap and rotor to add to the new spark plug wires and air filter he had installed previously.

We tried to check the timing and could not find any marks on the damper. I hooked up our antique timing light anyway and found that it does a poor job of insulating the voltage from a modern high energy ignition system.

He called a mechanic friend of his who came over and hooked up the OBDII tester. The tester shoed no error codes and showed the timing to be correct. Glad to have our fears of a broken timing chain put aside. But it still would not start. His friend suggested that 50 psi was not enough fuel pressure to start the truck but I was doubtful.

I went back to help Dad move the truck to his shop so he could begin the process of removing the bed and swapping out the fuel pump. I checked to see if it might be a problem with the idle air control circuit but that seemed OK as well.

Once we had towed, tugged pushed and pulled the truck into place in the shop I decided to try one lat thing before I left. I poured some gas down the throttle body and sure enough it fired up. In fact it stayed running and ran just fine.

I went to hook up the fuel pressure tester again and the engine instantly died. I hooked it to the test port and again the engine would not start. We hit it with another splash of fuel and it started and again ran fine. Seems the low fuel pressure was not low enough to keep it form running but was low enough to keep it from starting when cool.

We tried it several more times and sometimes it would start without assistance but most times it would not. So Dad is now pulling the bed to swap the fuel pump.

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11:11

11:1111:11

I seem to be noticing a lot of number patterns lately. As I talked about in a previous post, I see 12:34 a lot.

Just the other day I was working on a friends truck and the clock resets every time truck is started. When I went to shut it off it read 12:34.

But I am also seeing 11:11 often now as well. I also see other variations. Like this morning I work up form a dream and looked the clock. It said 4:44.

Look at my score from car town in the photo above. It is 1111.1.

Steve Pavlina has written about 11:11 and there is a facebook group that talks about things related to 11:11.

I am sure that 11:11 means different things to different people, but to me it seems to indicate that i am on the right path. I try to notice what I am thinking about and how I am feeling when I notice 11:11 on the clock or on some other counter. Usually I notice it when I am feeling happy and free. It seems that if I am anxious or worried I will see it before it gets there like 11:07 or something. If I am feeling sad or overwhelmed, I often miss it and see 11:13 or so.

Proverbs 11:11 Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,
but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed.

This reminds me that words are very powerful. If we speak blessings, our “cities” will be built up. However if we speak words of doom and gloom, our “cities” will be destroyed.

What are your thoughts on 11:11 and 12:34? Please share them in the comments below.

Note that this was written on 10/01/10

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The Power of Passion by Alan Hobson and Jamie Clarke – Book review

The Power of Passion by Alan Hobson and Jamie Clarke – Book review

I just finished reading The Power of Passion. This book is about the authors’ two attempts to climb Mount Everest.

I have never had much interest in mountain climbing myself. “Because it’s there” is as much a reason to avoid a place as it is to go there so Sir Hillary’s words don’t really inspire me much. For example, if there is a wasp nest or a copper head under a rock, “Because it’s there” is a very good reason to avoid the place.

A place that is freezing cold and does not have enough oxygen to support life is a place for me to avoid. However that does not at all diminish my admiration for those who have the passion for such adventure and have made the effort.

I was a bit disappointed by this book however due in part to its cover design. On the cover it describes the authors as “Everest Summiteers.” I was expecting a story about people who actually made it to the top of the mountain. A more accurate title would be “A History of a Campaign that Failed” although these writers in no other way compare to Mr. Twain.

The book describes two adventures to the mountain, the first where they lack experience and the second where they are under equipped. There is a note in the end of the book that tells us that the authors did eventually make it to the top, but this is not that story.

I had never even imagined what it is like to climb Mount Everest. I prefer to drive my Jeep to remote locations and maybe take a short hike to the look out. Just getting to the base of Mt Everest is an adventure as described it the book. Some of their “bad luck” might have been prevented by better planning but I can see how difficult it is to prepare for an adventure on the other side of the world in a remote setting like this.

I also found the title of the book to be misleading. I did not see much in the way of the power of passion being used to overcome any obstacles. I did see that the adventurers were determined to accomplish their goal, but I did not see any clear examples where passion was the obvious motivating factor. Stubbornness maybe, but not passion.

There is one scene in the story where a climber nearly dies and he is motivated to live through a satellite phone conversation with his young children. His passion for his family may be the underlying lesson but it is not really made clear in the story. The story seems to be more about people working together as a team to save a fellow climber even though they had decide before they left that they would not make such a sacrifice if faced with the choice.

I did learn one interesting fact about adventuring that made reading the book worthwhile. I learned how adventures such as these are financed. I had always imagined that the climbers were somehow independently wealthy playboys who had nothing else to do but go risk their lives on a mountain.

I had never grasped the concept of an adventure sponsor before. It turns out that the most difficult part of the journey for these guys was raising the money to go. The effort required to organize and finance the trip was so taxing on them that it sapped the energy they needed to actually make the climb. Having organized large events before, I can relate to the amount of effort that must be required to organize an expedition to Everest.

The dealing with sponsors must be incredibly nerve racking and mentally challenging. There is certainly some travel involved so it would be physically challenging as well. Also there would be the interruption on the physical training required for the trip.

I really enjoyed reading the stories of the challenges faced by the climbers and the stories of how they worked together to make sure every one got home alive even if they did not make their goal of reaching the summit. I can’t imagine the pain of coming that close to the goal and having to turn back. I am not sure I could have turned back. I might have been like so many other climbers and made my way to the top only to die on the descent.

I admire their courage and ability to make good decisions in the harshest conditions possible. They were exhausted, could not get enough oxygen and were freezing cold. The cold alone would do me in not even adding the other factors.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and I would like to read more about their campaign that actually succeeded. There is only a brief note at the end and a promise of another book that I have not yet found.

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Always Use New Valve Stems

Always Use New Valve Stems

When I mounted Scott’s tires a few months ago, I did not have any valve stems in stock and I did not want to make the trip into town to get some. The ones in the rims looked fine so I just left them in place.

Then last week, Scott had not one but two valve stems break off due to the rubber cracking.

Last night I swapped in new valve stems for him. I broke the bead on the front side and used a pair of diagonal cutters to cut out the old valve stems. I pressed new ones in place and aired his tires back up.

I put them on the balancer for a tune up of the balance while I had them off.
[phpbay]valve stems, 10[/phpbay]

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Life in a haunted house.

When I was about 12 or 13 years old, we moved into a rental property in Greenwood Springs Mississippi. It was very convenient for us as it was just a mile or two down the road from property Dad had just bought where he planned to build us a house. In the evenings we would go and work on clearing out the house place and such.

My grandfather, Daddy Straw spent a lot of time with me during the time we lived at this place. He would take me hunting and teach me other skills that a boy my age needed for life in the country.

We had lived there a few months before we started noticing strange things happening. One of the first things I remember out of the ordinary was when I gave my mother a magnolia blossom as a gift. Normally these seem to wilt quickly once cut from the tree but for some reason, this one just never withered. I set it in a bowl of water on the dining room table and it stayed fresh for over a week. We finally got tired of it and threw it out but it still looked as fresh as the day I cut it from the tree.

The next strange thing happened one evening when we were all sitting around the dining room table after dinner. We heard a noise in the kitchen and we all looked up in time to watch the doorknob turn and the kitchen door open. We were expecting it to maybe my Grand Daddy Straw as he sometimes came in the back door instead of the front.

But to our surprise, the door simply closed on its own and no one was there. Then our attention turned to the other door to the dining room. This door led to the rest of the house. Just as before, the doorknob turned and the door opened on its own and then closed again as if a person had just walked through the room from one door to the next.

After a while, we got accustomed to sharing the house with our invisible roommate. We knew to look for missing shiny things under a certain board in the closet and to expect small items to move around when no one was looking. We even decided that our dog was not crazy for jumping on and playing with an invisible friend in the yard.

Never did any of us ever feel threatened by the ghost. We felt she was female and began calling her She. Once, my mother was ill and sleeping alone at the house. She said she felt a presence wake her up and as she awoke, she saw a white figure at the foot of the bed gently shaking her to wake up. Once she awoke, the figure was gone but she realized that the pilot light had gone out on the gas heater and the room was slowly filling with gas. The ghost had protected her.

The only scary time I ever experienced was one day after hunting rabbits with my Grand Daddy Straw; I went inside to put up the butcher knife I had used to clean the rabbits.

I tossed the knife onto the counter near the sink and turned to go back outside to get the rabbits. As I turned around, I heard the knife fall on the floor. I did not think anything about it, I just figured I had missed when I tossed it on the counter. I was more careful as I set down the knife by the sink and turned to go back out.

Again as I turned and headed out the door, I heard the knife hit the floor. Still, I thought nothing of it as the countertops were not quite level and I assumed it had slid off after I set it down. So this time I picked up the knife and carefully placed it on the countertop. I put it all the way back against the backstop near the sink. As I lifted my hand away I made sure it was stable and was not going to slide off again.

This time however as I turned to go back outside, the knife flew across the room and landed near the door on the opposite side of the room. This time, I decided to leave the knife on the floor and go back outside. I am not sure why she did not want the knife on the counter, but she made it very clear she did not want it left there.