Knocking seriously on wood here

I took the truck out today, and poured the coal to it, hard driving on the expressways and even a little offroading.

Dry and tight. I’m well pleased. The gauge goes to it’s spot and stays right there.

With the timing cover off, you can see that the inside of the engine is shiny and clean. Synthetic oils do a better job of lubricating engines with very little carbonizing- the molecules are manufactured, not refined, so they’re all identical and all of a specific property. So where an engine with 248,000 miles would normally be coked up and black inside, this engine looks like it was just assembled. Aside from the work, it was gratifying to see the inside of the engine so clean.

It was a bit irritating to see five factory installed leaks. Two transmission lines and two oil cooler lines, never tight from the factory. Asstards. A friend of mine, growing up, had a father that would buy a new car, take the goddamned thing apart piece by piece, and put it back together, documenting every step. I watched him do it to four cars, and a 1977 Harley Electraglide. Later in life, I followed his lead, and helped my partner Mike rebuild his Alfa Romeo. We literally held every piece of that drivetrain in our grubby little hands, and it ran like a striped ape. Pity we were both BIGGER than the car. Ah, well.

It’s good to be back in the Exploder. It neds a bath now, and a good carpet scrubbing, but it’s gonna be damned nice to be back to normal- you don’t realize how much you get used to a vehicle until you have to do without it a while.