Heidi has been in hibernation for the last couple months. Thanks to living on a free bus route, Brianna and her husband, Nich, only need to use one car. His (much) newer vehicle is the one that’s been experiencing the salted roads of southwestern VA while Heidi has been patiently awaiting the arrival of spring and the resumption of fun, topdown motoring.
Her hibernation, however, came to an end this weekend due to a clunking from the front end of Nich’s car. Before starting her up, Brianna requested some guidance about how best to awaken her. I gave her the following instructions:
1) make sure the battery is fully charged - you can do this via the jumper cables hooked from Nich's battery to Heidi's and running his car for about 15 minutes at idle
2) check the oil and make sure it's well above ADD
3) unplug the middle cable into the distributor cap and place the disconnected end near something metal so it can spark
4) crank the engine until the TEMP/PRESS light goes out, but only crank for 5 seconds followed by a couple second of rest so you don't overheat the starter
6) reconnect the cable to the distributor cap
7) she should start right up with just a slight blip on the gas pedal.
This Saturday was the day, and while driving back from the NJ auction, I did a little coaching. Lo-and-behold, she started right up and idled smoothly. I told them to take her for a drive of at least twenty minutes before turning her off. That would make sure she was fully warmed up and her battery fully charged. The last text I got from Nich was, “It idled really well. Fluids were still high. And it drove smoothly.”
TYL
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