That Parrot Wouldn’t Voom If You Put 4 Million Volts Through It

The above title is from a Monty Python skit.

My truck is undergoing a repair. That it has been doing so for weeks is probably my fauly. Let me explain.

I was driving into town a couple weeks ago and got about 3 miles from the house and my engine overheated. I have an OBD device connected and used my cellphone to see that the water temp was over 212 degrees. I opened the hood and let it cool off, but I had to cancel my trip and when the engine temp died down I drove back home. I saw that there was tater at the bottom of the back of the radiator and figured it had  a seam that gave way. I ordered a radiator and also bought a new thermostat. After replacing them I saw that the engine at idle was still going over the 180 degrees that the termostat was set for. I guessed that the water pump was bad so had a friend bring one by. I figured the water pump because the vehicle has over 200,000 miles and they do go bad. The friend, who has done repairs before said he would change out the water pump as long as it was a simple things. I looke donline and since this is a first generation truck, all indications were that you just remove the radiator and fan and pop in the water pump. That online description turned out wrong!

As we got into things it turned into the project the guy had not wanted to sign up for. The more we removed the more had to be removed. Out came the radiator, the fan and the shroud, theair handler attached to the throttle body, then the power steering, the power brakes, the serpentine belt and then the timing belt. We replaced the water pump and put things back only to find that the timing is off and it would not start. We took things back apart and tried the timing again, and again. At various times we had to take a break for a day or more because of weather and tiredness. I ordered a new timing belt because the old one did not have indicators on it which make it easier to align. We installed that and although the engine started and idled, it threw 4 codes talking about timing being off. We took another break and I got some engine flush and even though the water pump and radiator are new and clean, it could not hurt to flush the engine itself as I don’t knwo when it was last done.

After the flush, I noticed that the water temperature at idle is 185 degrees and seemed steady rather than going over 200. So THAT might have been the problem all along. Granted, it does not hurt having over $500 worth of new parts because I would not have replaced any of them normally until they failed (and probably at the most inopportune time). Still, I am sure that if I had started with the radiator flush I could have solved the problem. I may or may not have had the radiator ssue but I have not tested it and don’t really care.

So to get ready to adjust the timing yet again, maybe just by moving the belt one notch, I caused yet another problem. We had found a wire loose, perhaps from a sensor and could not find where it goes. I strung a wire to it and hooked up my voltmeter and turned on the ignition. I accidently turned the key too far and the engine tried t ostart. There was a loud bang, almost like a backfire. Previously I had taken the 4 bolts out from the roitating piece connected to the fan which the serpentine belt turns the fan. I had trouble removing it and figured I would do it later. When the belt started turning it, the fan flew off and two of the 5 plastic blades cracked. Where the pieces are is anybodies guess. Anyway I ordered a new fan blade assembly. I also ordered two solenoids. These I originally thought were just sensors but it turns out that they can adjust the timing slightly if the computer tells them to. Although I cleaned then and reinstalled the old ones, I’ll put the new ones in when they arrive.

So I have borrowed a car until Tuesday. The parts will hopefully be here Monday. ven if the truck is still out of order and even though I am buying car parts, I am probably still saving money bacause I am making less trips to go shopping in town.

I still have an ATV to fix, I am still mowing the farm and the crew has been weed whacking. I sprayed some weed killer but it keeps raining, Just today we had an inch of rain within a couple hour period.

My neighbor is putting in an electric fence and he put a bunch of “Y” posts in already. It turns out that he missed the property line and ended up about 20 feet inside my property. It turns out that Google Maps has my property lines on its map so by walking until my dot is on that line, I can show him where he started deviating. It normally would not be a major problem except that 20 feet was a buffer so that I had an extra area I could drive the tractor or truck along to exit the property instead of the driveway or when I am cutting grass with the tractor. The fence posts will just be stuck in the ground without cement so he could move things if he had to. The problem in other locations might be that if you encroach on a neighbors property and take care of that portion, the land might actually change hands. In our case, it would not. We both hold leases on our properties and the lessor is the same in both cases. We own (so to speak) what is above ground, houses, crops and so on, but the lessor owns the land. But still, it makes sense to put the fence where it belongs, on his side of the property line. Because it will keep piugs away from both our farms, I will be footing some of the cost of materials.

I have green coffee beans and with all this rain the pas tfew months I expect to have lots more coffee. I am using most of the beans to propogate the rest of the coffee trees to replace those that were lost. I will then grab the last few fruit trees and plant them and then I should qualify for my new 30 year lease. It has been a long time coming. I will have someone else manage the coffee for me, as I have not been the most efficient in finding pickers and doing maintenance. I enjoyed doing a lot of the work to bring the coffee from tree to cup, including advertising, selling and fulfilling orders however it is a full time job and I am more that 20 years retired already and it is time for others to enjoy that work.

I still have not cut down a few trees in the way nor adjusted the solar panels to their final angle (darm all that rain), so those projects are still in the wings.

I will still have plenty of projects to do (I hope) but you never know how long you have left. Too mahy of my friends, relatives and classmates and television stars I grew up watching have died. I woud love to actually retire again and stay that way.