Note to self … any time there’s a chance of needing the “spare” laptop … expect to have at least an hour’s wait time while it wakes up. The problem with that is … when any kind of a spare is needed, it’s needed right now. Since a family member needs to arise early enough to be to work after most of an hour’s drive by 6 a.m., common courtesy dictates that whatever I have to do after her bedtime means leaving her in peace, quiet and dark. Since I’d forgotten a promised deadline, here I sit.
I suppose I’m spoiled. Too many years dealing with things that will start and run with only air, fuel, spark and enough starting momentum to create the initial compression to make an engine run. Even the occasional wintertime “building a fire” beneath a diesel engine to get it to start at 20 below is tolerable.
(A 4-inch exhaust pipe elbow braced so it will stand up by itself. Position it beneath the crankcase of the diesel engine you’re dealing with, then lay the hot end of a propane weed burner near the bottom end. Throttle it down so there’s no visible flame coming out the top and wait a few minutes. Do pay attention because grease and crud that’s solid on a below-zero piece of steel will soften, melt and run downhill when heated. Should this “downhill” pour the above into a live flame … there’s a good chance it will create more flame than is needed to warm and start the recalcitrant engine.)
I forget the occasion, but some time back almost all of the family were at my mother’s home in Nampa, Idaho. My brother coming from the Sacramento, California, area was having an adventure. He was driving a Ford Ranger pickup with a canopy over the rear. Under the canopy were his almost and early teen sons with appropriate mattress and blankets. They had some electronics for entertainment. Some of the adventure was that the power cord to the entertainment, which was plugged in inside the cab, kept coming loose.
The other issue was that somewhere along the way, the automatic transmission stopped shifting into overdrive. As we were surrounding his buggy and discussing it, he said from what he’d read, to change the transmission filter, which meant dropping the transmission pan, meant also removing the exhaust system.
My two late-teen sons perked up on hearing this. With the Ranger pickup somewhat up on blocks, they wriggled under and decided that a by-the-hour shop repair would probably remove the exhaust because the book said so – but …
I couldn’t get close enough to see what they were doing and was actually relieved that they didn’t ask for my help. In short order, they coaxed the pan loose from the bottom of the transmission, replaced the filter, reinstalled the pan and filled it with fresh transmission oil.
My brother took it out on the highway to “smoke test” it and came back with a Cheshire cat grin. A fresh, clean filter was all his rig needed. My sister-in-law was marveling at what polite and helpful sons I had. She didn’t realize that they had taken it as a challenge, and doing something the experts said couldn’t be done amounted to quite another “feather” in their caps.
Time marches on and I’m now the family patriarch. A while back, my kids started a reunion of my end of the family. The instigator found a private campground lakeside by Conconully, Washington, that his family liked. It had tent camping areas, RV parking areas and RVs available to rent. I had no cellphone service.
With sketchy cellphone service, a text will be sent when the signal bounces just right and receive in the same manner. When I woke up from my Sunday afternoon nap, there was a fresh text from my oldest son, the one with some physical challenges. It recorded it with the time received, which was about when I woke up. He’d gone on an errand and his car had overheated and he was stranded. Of course, I couldn’t call out to see just where he was. I found that my daughter had cell service and asked her to call him.
She grinned and told me that her other two brothers had already been there, got Mitch’s car patched and were back. A radiator hose had cracked; they shortened it and reclamped it.
It felt like déjà vu. I don’t remember ever fixing a car for those two sons, but I’d spent time showing them how. It’s nice to wake up to a recap of what happened instead of waking up needing to go fix something.
