Friday, April 14, 2006

I'll Never Be Your Beast of Burden....

There is actually one thing I dread MORE than plumbing. Working on vehicles. If you recall, I let the "Beast" sit for 6 months before actually fixing the problem which cost only a few $ in the end. Well, the beast decided to act up again this week. I drove it to a property last Saturday about 5 miles away to pick up some bricks that were generously donated to us by a Houseblogs reader. He is fixing up this place and will be selling it very soon!



Any interested parties should email me so I can charge an exhorbitant referral fee. Did I mention the unique brick patio? Er I mean motorcycle storage area....

This is the furthest that the "Beast" has been driven since September last year! So, I load it up with bricks and start having trouble keeping the motor running. Regardless, I get it back and unload it, then when it was time to return for the remaining bricks, the engine would not start. I ended up running the battery down and had to charge it up over night. On Sunday I went to get the rest of the bricks because the "Beast" was being co-operative. With the thing loaded up with more bricks do you think it would start? Nooooo way!
Well, there it sat until Thursday. I changed the spark plugs, the plug cables, the distributor cap, the rotary arm and added some transmission fluid. Would it start? Yes, but then it died again!
I took the battery home and charged it up again.

Well, the only thing left to play with was the ignition coil. So I got to do that today. Guess what? That was it! I must admit, it certainly is running better! So after almost 5 years, my Ford "Beast" has cost me a grand total of $130.00 in repairs and maintainance. This little escapade being around $37.00 of that.

In future I may refer to the "Beast" as a "Rolls Canardly" (you know, like a Rolls Royce or a Rolls Bentley) because it can roll down a hill but can hardly roll back up one!

No comments: