Can It Get Any Worse?

Well, of course it can, but right now things seem pretty dismal. While Ringo is back on the road and appears to be behaving, I still have two misbehaving vehicles – Glinda and the truck. The fuel issue with Glinda has been a real pain. After last night, I feel I’ve narrowed it down to the fuel pump. Yeah, yeah, I should’ve started there, but the frugal engineer I am was intent upon to misinterpret the symptoms and fix everything else but the real root of the problem. The truck has recently developed a horrible noise that I need the dealership to diagnose. Anyway, back to the specifics of the fleet work.

This weekend I spent part of Saturday afternoon in the garage stripping the bottom seat upholstery I’m trying to reuse off Ringo’s old driver’s seat. To do that I first needed to separate the bottom from the back which, fortunately, wasn’t too difficult. I then brought up my sewing machine from the basement and replaced a piece of rotten cloth on the seat cover. After putting some Gorilla glue over a cracking seam, I set the cover aside while I stripped the upholstery off the replacement seat bottom. Sunday afternoon I was back in the garage hog-ring pliers in hand putting black seat cover on new (to me) seat bottom frame. After bolting the seat into Ringo, I called Ariel and told her to come get her car.

Yesterday I pulled Glinda’s right front wheel up a ramp so as much gas as possible would shift away from the bottom access hole. After disconnecting the hose, I drained about three gallons out before the stream stopped allowing me to remove the fuel pickup assembly, and replace the sock that filters the gas going into the fuel line. The only problem was the sock I was sure I had was nowhere to be found. Irr. Knowing I had an inline filter farther down the line, I reinstalled the assembly without a sock. This morning I confidently sat behind the wheel and entered the beltway getting up to speed with no problem. Sadly, that confidence was dashed against the rocks a mile later when the motor quickly ran out of oomph and I barely made it to the next offramp. I nursed it home only having the engine die three times before I was able to back her down the driveway. I swapped key rings and drove the truck to work (with all its untoward noises). Tonight I replace the fuel pump.