Wednesday, April 11, 2007

It wernt the fuel pump!

OK, so, I took the truck to the garage yesterday. Now, for those who don't know, if you think that part x is the problem, that's all well and good. But you still test, test, test to see what the real problem is.

I pushed the truck into the bay, opened the hood, and realized that at that exact point, I had no damn clue what to do. So I found one of the techs, and said "Look, I think it's my fuel system. Can we test it somehow to see what the problem is?" Pop off a hose here, attach a gauge there, and try to start it.

Fuel system is good. Working properly. OK. So, if it ain't the fuel system, then it's either air or spark that's not getting to the engine. Great. 'Nother round of tests. Is there anyone who would like to guess what the problem was?

Turns out my tachometer, which was dead before I bought the truck, and which I never gave a crap about enough to fix it, was still hooked up to the coil, and was pulling enough juice away from the coil to prevent it from sending juice to the distributor cap. Thus, the engine wasn't getting spark.

Dude cut one frigging wire, and said "Try it now." Vroom. Started up on the first try. You learn something new every day.

I still need to replace the distributor cap and rotor, but that's under the heading of "maintenance", not "ohcrapgottafixitpleasework". I can drive my happy ass down to Western Auto and buy it. Cheaper than a fuel pump!

Ah well, I'd better get ready for work. Gotta do an inventory on an entire building worth of crap. And I do mean crap. Mold infected, cockroach infested, filth covered crap. Why do we have to do an inventory on crap? So that we know what exactly we're throwing away.

Joy.

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