I swear, I am the definition of lazy lately.
I have three rigs, all of which are undriveable right now.
The Beast, my 67 Ford 4x4 started crapping out on me last week on my way to work.
I got there finally but it was a hit and miss struggle.
It felt like there was water in the distributor cap.
Spit, sputter, back fire, miss fire, no power and I had to baby it just to get off a stop light, after it warmed up, about two miles from work, it ran fine.
Same thing on the way home.
I parked it and started beating the daylights out of my moms Pontiac Grand Am.
She is in Arizona for the Winter.
I gotta say, for a V-6, that thing hauls ass.
Anyways, I finally got off my dead ass today and went to the nearest idiot squad, who actually HAD what I was looking for for once and got a cap, rotor, points and condensor for a forty five year old rig.
I came home, got the dang thing under the car port and opened the hood.
I am damn near six foot tall and it is all I can do to see the top of the engine.
I yanked the air cleaner off on my tip toes and messed with the fuel mixture a bit, something that is verboten normally.
Then I snapped the clips off the cap and pulled it off and sure as the pure driven snow, there was moisture inside.
I swapped it out, one plug wire at a time, a lesson learned the hard way years ago, put on the new rotor and fired it up expectantly.
Yeah, it still ran like crap.
I had a suspicion the timing chain was going to hell a while ago and had cranked the disributor around until the vacuum advance ran up against the hose clamp screw on the bypass hose.
I finally went and got a screw driver and loosened the clamp to rotate it, retightened it and cranked the distributor around as far as it would go.
Presto- Change-O
It purrs like a love starved kitten.
The distributor has to go, it is as sloppy as some guy named Joe but the timing chain is definitely shot.
Yay.
Back in the day I would be out there until two in the morning, cursing and happy, wrenching away.
Now, I have three rigs that are messed up, don't run or are untrustworthy and I can't seem to find the energy to get off my dead butt to even open the hood on them.
I can't blame this on a mid life crisis either, at 52, I am way past that.
I am just plain tired after working all week, my feet hurt,my left shoulder is so messed up I can hardly turn my head and I just don't wanna.
It's time to pay.
Pay someone else to do this work.
I hate that but I am just getting worn out.
Just like my vehicles.
I have three rigs, all of which are undriveable right now.
The Beast, my 67 Ford 4x4 started crapping out on me last week on my way to work.
I got there finally but it was a hit and miss struggle.
It felt like there was water in the distributor cap.
Spit, sputter, back fire, miss fire, no power and I had to baby it just to get off a stop light, after it warmed up, about two miles from work, it ran fine.
Same thing on the way home.
I parked it and started beating the daylights out of my moms Pontiac Grand Am.
She is in Arizona for the Winter.
I gotta say, for a V-6, that thing hauls ass.
Anyways, I finally got off my dead ass today and went to the nearest idiot squad, who actually HAD what I was looking for for once and got a cap, rotor, points and condensor for a forty five year old rig.
I came home, got the dang thing under the car port and opened the hood.
I am damn near six foot tall and it is all I can do to see the top of the engine.
I yanked the air cleaner off on my tip toes and messed with the fuel mixture a bit, something that is verboten normally.
Then I snapped the clips off the cap and pulled it off and sure as the pure driven snow, there was moisture inside.
I swapped it out, one plug wire at a time, a lesson learned the hard way years ago, put on the new rotor and fired it up expectantly.
Yeah, it still ran like crap.
I had a suspicion the timing chain was going to hell a while ago and had cranked the disributor around until the vacuum advance ran up against the hose clamp screw on the bypass hose.
I finally went and got a screw driver and loosened the clamp to rotate it, retightened it and cranked the distributor around as far as it would go.
Presto- Change-O
It purrs like a love starved kitten.
The distributor has to go, it is as sloppy as some guy named Joe but the timing chain is definitely shot.
Yay.
Back in the day I would be out there until two in the morning, cursing and happy, wrenching away.
Now, I have three rigs that are messed up, don't run or are untrustworthy and I can't seem to find the energy to get off my dead butt to even open the hood on them.
I can't blame this on a mid life crisis either, at 52, I am way past that.
I am just plain tired after working all week, my feet hurt,my left shoulder is so messed up I can hardly turn my head and I just don't wanna.
It's time to pay.
Pay someone else to do this work.
I hate that but I am just getting worn out.
Just like my vehicles.
6 comments:
You see.
Working hard as shit for 30-40 years takes its toll, my friend.
You have to find that one thing, that one activity that recharges your battery. Don't talk yourself out of it, just do it!
52 isn't old, just well seasoned.
It's time to pay.
Pay someone else to do this work.
I got to that point about a year and a half ago.
Thanks for making the text a more contrasting color.
66 is even more well-seasoned but I still fix my own bikes. I don't trust the children they have doing that now.
Can't afford 'em either.
Ha, but Gordo, I've worked on bikes and I've worked on cars and I have to say that working on bikes is, in general, *far* less physically demanding. I put a skid plate on my KLR 650, it was a case of, unscrew the old plastic crap, put the new one on. On my Jeep, I had to drop the gas tank with the skid -- a Big Effin' Deal, bloody thing is bulky and heavy even after you siphon all the gas you can get out of it and you gotta wriggle the mounting brackets around the axle pumpkin to get it out -- pry the gas tank out of the old skid, wriggle and pry it into the new skid, then somehow manage to balance the bloody thing on a jack while wiggling it around the rear axle housing so that I could get the bloody bolt holes to line up... I tellya, after that I was friggin' *blown*, that was hard friggin' work. Whereas working on that primitive old KLR was just pure fun.
So I'm still doing any work on my Jeep that I don't trust anybody else to do, but routine shit? Fuckit, let the goddam dealer get some of my dough. I just ain't feelin' it anymore.
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