Re: The Commute From Hell!

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

As the putrid festering facial boil erupted, Curt Cleavinger
<curt_cleavinger@domain.elided> yelled:

>> Well, it was my turn this morning for the commute from hell!

> This must be the day for it!

Well misery loves company!

>> Why is it that an engine will never fail right as you pull into your
>> driveway?  Any one have any ideas?

>Do the two idle circuits share an air bleed? Did your air/fuel guage
>tell you anything while it was acting up?

I'm 99% sure there's a separate idle circuit with separate air bleeds for
each side of the carburetor.  I figured that if one air bleed were to plug
up, the engine might idle really bad, but it wouldn't die.

I did look at my air / fuel mixture gauge and it didn't show a lean
condition when this started happening.  It looked perfectly normal.  But I
should add that it becomes less and less sensitive as the volume and temp
of the exhaust gas decreases.  I would further think that if the ignition
had failed, the air / fuel mixture would have shown very rich due to the
amount of unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust.  But, it all happened so
fast and I was busy trying to restart and keep moving to avoid being run
over on the freeway, that I really didn't have much time to study the
gauges.

>Pop the hood, and see that the engine side of the upper 
>radiator hose has pulled off of it's fitting. I didn't even have
>a screwdriver with me to loosen and retighten the hose clamp - 
>STUPID!!

Curt!  Can you say Swiss Army Knife???  I've *always* carried a Victornox
Swiss Champ in a leather belt holster for the last 10 years and it has
saved my butt on many such occasions.  This particular model even has a
small pair of pliers in it.

>Time to assemble an emergency tools/spares/fluids kit for the 
>Travelall.

Funny you should mention this!  This past weekend on the way back from the
NW Binder Roundup, Joel B., Tom H. and myself transferred a Traveler top to
Tom's Terra.  The large phillips head machine screws which hold the front
of these tops to the windshield were almost impossible to remove.  We
ultimately had to resort to drilling the screw head off.  Problem was that
while Tom had a cordless drill with him, neither of us had any drill
bits... on a Sunday!  Tom and I had to make a 20 minute round trip to my
place of work to borrow some from the maintenance shop.  Joel had to hang
back and watch my kids.  All went pretty well and as we were packing up to
leave, Joel said to me "Mental note: Add drill bits to tool kit!"  How
right he is.

Glad your radiator hose situation turned out OK.  I do have a tip to offer
I learned from a local friend (Rick Wild)... use *two* hose clamps on each
end of the upper radiator hose.  This not only holds the hose better, it
eliminates annoying seeps without excessive clamp tension.  And to boot,
you have extra clamps available if needed elsewhere in an emergency.

Take care,

John
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