IAC Greetings From New England
Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 5:11 am
On the schedule I had an entry, "Niagara Falls - crazy and you know it". It was, too.
Cindy just had to dangle in front of me an enticing riot of music that I love some 300 miles from the preceding day's appointment, and another 350 miles from the next morning's call. So I said,
( ) "gee, I'd love to, but . . . "
( ) "what? are you crazy? do I own a private jet or sumpin?"
(X) "when does it start?"
As customers scrambled to re-arrange their schedules, I asked Chloe, "are you up for this?" Checked the valves (didn't need a single tweak), checked the compression (135/135/140/145)(carbon build-up on the left? seeing as ther numbers were 15-20 psi higher than the last one?), stuck in a set of plugs for the first time since I have owned this car, and took off into the rain and plummeting temperatures towards upstate. You would have done the same to hear the Gipsy Kings:
Stuck in a visit with Herrnkind in the Leatherstocking region to help finance this reckless pursuit of Experience, it is worthy of its own thread, and therefore has one:
The morning of the concert, I visited the Department of Motor Vehicles in Albion New York to renew Chloe's registration, grab a set of plates for the Lexus, and went to the old barn to exercise the plucky Squareback:
For the first time in my VW ownership stretching back some 34 years, a Volkswagen of mine? would not start? "What? What? What?" says I in disbelief. "Dayam, I have to preserve the battery here and stuff." That battery, sitting all winter and summer, is planning on playing only briefly here. Sure, it is easy to diagnose everybody else's no-start, but when it is your own car, you don't get to play "maestro" "hero of the morning" "guru". You have to just get in there and find out why. My breaker point test pointed out the culprit . . . the breaker points. Although they gave me a nice spark out of the coil when I opened them with the screwdriver, they were very intermittent about it. That led me to believe that the screwdriver was doing the actual electrical conducting against the moveable point's arm to the ground. When I took them out, the contact surfaces were blackish crusty oxidized damp. Filed the points (took a bit of sawing to get down to fresh metal), and the battery gave us just enough to fire up.
After driving a little ol' 1600 engine all summer, this Squareback engine was treated to some Chloe Scales Mountains brisk rpms. Such a nice little car.
The concert was a beautiful wall of 12 string guitars (sample below):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usxz6d2EJRY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp8W-RlZgK4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqpYNWBkIVE
especially when Canut Francois Reyes led.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W0h51SNBbY
I managed to drive a Pontiac Bonneville all the way there and all the way back. Cindy remembers how many of our drives included flashing lights dancing on the headliner of VW Passats, Mercedes 450SELs, Lexus LS400s, and BMW 530s, as I "explained" our various hurries to various cops. Not any more. I drove that Pontiac like an old Volkswagen bus. "Am I driving fast enough?" "It'll do." Man . . .
Started off for Connecticut the next morning at 5:15AM. "I'll beat the rain if I don't dally," I noted to myself. At 6:30AM, "where's my wallet?" Drove back to Cindy's, "there's my wallet, just under the Pontiac's driver's door, yay!" now totally sodden in the now thoroughly falling rain. Long Day's Drive:
Had a good day with drozdenko and Ethan in the suburban scrum of teeming Connecticut, working on a Vanagon and drozdenko's Westy. They have the sort of banter I enjoy. Pretty much offered sparse instructions to drozdenko and left him to re-setting the torsion bars on the Westy while Ethan and I did a tune-up on the Vanagon and persuaded the horn to work. Drozdenko knocked it out pretty efficiently, I might add, he was done by the time Ethan and I test-drove the Vanagon.
The next day's driver's door latch repair required some improv. The symptoms were that the inside lock release was not unlocking the door. An old spring in my "springs and whatnot" bag saved the day:
Off to Kittery Maine, NOW.
Colin
Cindy just had to dangle in front of me an enticing riot of music that I love some 300 miles from the preceding day's appointment, and another 350 miles from the next morning's call. So I said,
( ) "gee, I'd love to, but . . . "
( ) "what? are you crazy? do I own a private jet or sumpin?"
(X) "when does it start?"
As customers scrambled to re-arrange their schedules, I asked Chloe, "are you up for this?" Checked the valves (didn't need a single tweak), checked the compression (135/135/140/145)(carbon build-up on the left? seeing as ther numbers were 15-20 psi higher than the last one?), stuck in a set of plugs for the first time since I have owned this car, and took off into the rain and plummeting temperatures towards upstate. You would have done the same to hear the Gipsy Kings:
Stuck in a visit with Herrnkind in the Leatherstocking region to help finance this reckless pursuit of Experience, it is worthy of its own thread, and therefore has one:
The morning of the concert, I visited the Department of Motor Vehicles in Albion New York to renew Chloe's registration, grab a set of plates for the Lexus, and went to the old barn to exercise the plucky Squareback:
For the first time in my VW ownership stretching back some 34 years, a Volkswagen of mine? would not start? "What? What? What?" says I in disbelief. "Dayam, I have to preserve the battery here and stuff." That battery, sitting all winter and summer, is planning on playing only briefly here. Sure, it is easy to diagnose everybody else's no-start, but when it is your own car, you don't get to play "maestro" "hero of the morning" "guru". You have to just get in there and find out why. My breaker point test pointed out the culprit . . . the breaker points. Although they gave me a nice spark out of the coil when I opened them with the screwdriver, they were very intermittent about it. That led me to believe that the screwdriver was doing the actual electrical conducting against the moveable point's arm to the ground. When I took them out, the contact surfaces were blackish crusty oxidized damp. Filed the points (took a bit of sawing to get down to fresh metal), and the battery gave us just enough to fire up.
After driving a little ol' 1600 engine all summer, this Squareback engine was treated to some Chloe Scales Mountains brisk rpms. Such a nice little car.
The concert was a beautiful wall of 12 string guitars (sample below):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usxz6d2EJRY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp8W-RlZgK4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqpYNWBkIVE
especially when Canut Francois Reyes led.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W0h51SNBbY
I managed to drive a Pontiac Bonneville all the way there and all the way back. Cindy remembers how many of our drives included flashing lights dancing on the headliner of VW Passats, Mercedes 450SELs, Lexus LS400s, and BMW 530s, as I "explained" our various hurries to various cops. Not any more. I drove that Pontiac like an old Volkswagen bus. "Am I driving fast enough?" "It'll do." Man . . .
Started off for Connecticut the next morning at 5:15AM. "I'll beat the rain if I don't dally," I noted to myself. At 6:30AM, "where's my wallet?" Drove back to Cindy's, "there's my wallet, just under the Pontiac's driver's door, yay!" now totally sodden in the now thoroughly falling rain. Long Day's Drive:
Had a good day with drozdenko and Ethan in the suburban scrum of teeming Connecticut, working on a Vanagon and drozdenko's Westy. They have the sort of banter I enjoy. Pretty much offered sparse instructions to drozdenko and left him to re-setting the torsion bars on the Westy while Ethan and I did a tune-up on the Vanagon and persuaded the horn to work. Drozdenko knocked it out pretty efficiently, I might add, he was done by the time Ethan and I test-drove the Vanagon.
The next day's driver's door latch repair required some improv. The symptoms were that the inside lock release was not unlocking the door. An old spring in my "springs and whatnot" bag saved the day:
Off to Kittery Maine, NOW.
Colin