SHIT GUYS

I haven't been making any posts recently because I had to move out of my apartment, which was a nightmare. Sean, Kat and I were all moving our stuff out at the same time, on top of each other. Also, we were getting rid of half our stuff at the same time so it was like 3 moves going on in one 2-bedroom apartment. Good times. I did get rid of half my 1000 or so books (which is a stunning achievement for me, I must say) and Sean got $400 for them. I was planning to just get rid of them. Nice.

So anyway, I drove my truck into the city and loaded it up. I went to my friend Eric's house for the night because I had to meet the land-bitch the next morning and didn't want to go out to Snoqualime. It was 11pm and I was falling-over tired. I drove right past his house on his little small road and had to go all the way down somewhere and turn around (remember, this is my third day of driving a dodgy truck with questionable steering). I turned it around and then couldn't find his road from the other direction-- shot right past it. So I had to turn around on this almost-country road (which was still a throughway) with a 105-point turn, holding up traffic. The rear axle was scronking and gnashing and it would reverse about 5 feet before the ring and pinion gears started grinding and shuddering the whole truck. I called Eric and he told me where to turn, which I did, and then I drove straight past it again. At this point I was ready to cry or scream.

I turned around again and just parked pointing the wrong way in front of his house, which is what I should have done in the first place. Reversing was almost impossible as the back axle was completely uncooperative and making horrid noises. Then I noticed what smelled like burning transmission fluid. Eric came out and, unfortunately, so did his uptight neighbor who looked extremely pleased. I got out and fluid was leaking out of the engine area. After several awful forwards and reverses, I got the thing parked off the road.

The next day I talked to Seamus. It's not transmission fluid as there is no power transmission. Apparently it's the injector pump, which is a major deal in diesel engines (I have only worked on gas engines and didn't know). There are no spark plugs or distributor on a diesel engine-- the whole thing is handled by the injector pump. The fuel combustes due to the 12,000 to 20,000 psi into the cylinders. Oh. Basically, since the ring and pinion are hosed, the gearing makes the drive shaft jump, especially in reverse due to the way that the gears are angled. So when it's in reverse and the gears start chattering, the drive shaft yanks on the transmission/engine and the whole thing jumps. Since the diesel engine that I have is a retrofit (it originally came with a gas engine) the injection pump is dangerously close to the wall of the engine compartment. The engine jerked, slammed the pump into the wall and broke the throttle intake valve, making diesel pour out all over the place. That was what the fluid was and the smell was it burning off the hot engine block. You can see the dent it made in the steel wall.

On Monday Seamus brought his 16' trailer and we transferred all my crap into it and took it down to stroage. It was Labor Day so there wasn't much I could do about fixing the truck.

We took it down to H & H Diesel today to get fixed. It should only be about $250 which is better than the last time this happened when it was $1500. I drove it down pouring fuel out of the broken seal onto the road. Nice and environmentally friendly. Sigh. It ran out of gas when we were almost there and Seamus had to go and get more in a can.

The whole experience was AWESOME. And now I am several days behind schedule. So if I show up with my project to show off and it's not quite as polished as I'd like, don't blame me. Well, I guess you should as I'm the one who caused the damage.