SOmetimes….
you forget what it was like to have to maintain things.
Last night after finishing the upper lawn I drove the tractor downhill to hit the lower lawn, wherupon it died. I futzed with it for a while, but then gave in and came up the hill for several hours to work on the Doctor’s truck.
We did front shocks and left upper and lower balljoints, and he was headed back down the road, happier and safer. Well, actually, he crashed here overnight and headed out in the morning.
Me, after mass, i went down and looked at the old girl having assumed whatever it was would self-correct- but it had not.
Anyone who does internal combustion knows that for a gas engine to run you have to have three things: Compression, fuel, and fire. I knew there was plenty of compression, and I was confident in the fuel, but I figured I better check for fire. I yanked the plug and put in a graduated gap, and no fire.
I’d forgotten that engines built before electronic ignition often needed to be maintained.
I yanked the cover and tested the gap, and sure enough it was around .045. I’m surprised it was running at all. The published data puts the gap at .020. So I regapped, and reassembled, and it fired on the first turn.
I’d only forgotten it for a minute. But it comes back, yes indeed. I even remembered the spec offhand.
I just need to be closer to the vehicle that has points and further from the electronics. I like that more.
Hear, hear. Marvelous developments in efficiencies (both power and economy) with electronics, but I do miss the simplicity of old-style points and carbs.
So Doc was here and noone bothered to tell me?
Not exactly a social visti, broad.
and when you have been hit with a blast of EMF, the sparkplugs will keep on a sparking *grin* Agree with Aaron above, the wiz-bang tron stuff is great … but I miss the old days of looking under the hood and seeing nothing but battery, engine, carb, filters, distributer, alt, radiator, and assorted hoses/belts.
My father is 74 years old. He has been working on cars his whole life. Right now the newest vehicle he owns is a 20 year old Buick that his brother-in-law gave to my Mom before she passed on. Dad hates it, but drives it because it gets good gas mileage.
My sisters constantly nag him to get a new car and he refuses. He doesn’t want anything that he can’t work on himself.
Last month he opened the hood on my brand new Dodge looked around for a moment and then asked “Where’s the fucking engine?” All he saw was a mess of hoses and wires.
But he likes my old Dodge PU. According to Dad, it’s old enough that it still has a real engine in it.