...and the moral of this story is..??

[Danr55]

Once upon a time there lived a middle aged prince. He was a happy man as he had invested way too much money in a toy. Since he had wanted this toy for many years, he held no anxst for the invested dollars. One day while he was enjoying his toy, is suddenly started to act up. It began to cough and sputter and surge and buck and he couldn't figure out what was wrong. So he adjusted the timing. He reset the valves. He messed with the carburetor. He hired someone else to mess with the carburetor. None of this seemed to help. One night in frustration, he pulled the air cleaner off and was about to start tearing things apart just to be tearing them apart. One of the neighbor kids came over and asked what he was doing. (All of the neighbor kids loved it when the prince played with his toy.) So he explained the situation to the kid. The young man happened to be taking auto shop in high school and he commented on something about a distributor cap and a crack. Well, the Prince had just recently put a new cap on this particular distributor so he said that couldn't be it. (REALLY DUMB STATEMENT!) Anyway, to make a long story short.. After all of the BS the prince had gone through and the money he'd paid, all of his issues boiled down to a defective distributor cap. It had a small piece blown out of one of the wire housings and it was invisible with the air cleaner on. With the air cleaner off and the motor running, you could clearly see that the cap was shorting to the retaining clip. New cap.. no problem. The moral of the story is don't always assume the worst. Start with the simple stuff first and listen when young people talk. Sometimes they have some very important stuff to say.

Signed, The Dumb Prince in Mesa

[LMH]

Out of the mouths of babes!
Larry

[mikiec]

Linda... Dan's crown is tarnished.

Glad it's fixed.

Mike

[lovehamr]

Originally Posted by Danr55

(All of the neighbor kids loved it when the prince played with his toy.)

Sayeth Michael Jackson.








It was just to ripe my prince!

Steve

P.S. Glad your beast is up and running again.

[Bob Broberg SPF667 460BB]

Dan, all of us "smart car guys" spent 7 days trying to diagnose my problem that arose on our way to Laughlin, NV last October. Went through entire fuel and electrical system. Replaced lots of parts. Even expensive ones. Turned out to be Distributor gear. After we fixed the whole problem I called John Panfil at Anthem Motors (I had made 2 different appointments for tow and DX (diagnosis in medical terms) and told him the SX (medical term for symptoms). The first words out of his mouth were "did you check your distributor gear?". Well, DUH! Should have called you first.

AZ Bob

[Danr55]

Lovehamr, I take no offense and on occassion, I offer myself for sacrifice at the alter of humor.. By the way, I like your avatar. I think I was married to her once upon a time.

Mikie, I told her that story last night and she laughed. Her comments were not similar to yours.

Bob, I wish I'd have called John first. I'm glad it was simple.

By the way everyone, I am now acting as Darren's (The kid down the street) agent. We do diagnostics for a price.

[rokndad]

Dan, don't feel sheepish. I did the same thing with lots of expensive parts and a ton of time. It was the batteries!! Duh!!

[DAVID GAGNARD]

As they say, $hit happens!!!!!!!!!
Since my early days of driving cars with points and condensors, I learned (the hard way) that after a tune-up and the car still ran like crap, I could have installed defective parts, so I made it a habit of starting the car with out the air cleaner after dark, just to check for spark arcing..........You'd be surprised at how fast those old factory plug wires go bad..........to this day, I still start and check my car after dark for that very reason..........

David

[MaSnaka]

Imagine the stories Darren (kid down the street) is telling....what a boost to his ego. Good thread.

John

[LRcobradreamer]

I try to remember the KISS prinicple, Keep It Simple Sam (could substitute a different word for last S, but I won't go there). Eliminate the simple, easy things first, then move on. I admit I sometimes forget, but is memory the first thing to go or the second as we age, I forget.

Glad you got it fixed.

Lee

[Tom Kirkham]

Just goes to prove the old adage:
Most carburetor problems are in the distributer.

[imagine2frolic]

Did you give the kid a ride?

[Danr55]

The kid is scared (and rightly so) to get in the car. He says it goes too fast. I hate it when that happens.. (NOT!)

[byron w]

Dan, How about the vacuum cap on the base of a Holley??? Ask me how I know that one. LOL

Byron

[Bill Bess]

The story about the "fresh kit suggesting a simple solution"...check the cap for a crack, reminds me of a story my great aunt told me once.

There was this guy that was changing his flat tire and he was parked next to a mental institution. He removed all the lug nuts and placed them on the ground.

When he went to reinstall the lug nuts, he couldn't find them because the lug nuts had sunk into the muddy ground.
He was puzzled as what to do because all the lug nuts were missing.

An inmate standing behind the fence and watching the tire changer said, "Why don't you just take one lug nut off of each of the other three wheels and then you can be on your way".
The tire changer was very happy to use this suggestion and did.

After he was done with the tire change he said to the inmate, " Your pretty smart, how come your in a mental institution"?

The inmate said, " You don't have to be stupid to be crazy".

Old story, Bill

[CHANMADD]

I remember trying to start a car, with my wife telling me "It's the condensor" .Well 2 hours later I changed the condensor and hey Presto!! Some times they do know!!

[Danr55]

You guys with your condensors and batteries and power valves and Lovehamr with his Avatar sure make me feel better.. I wonder if driving the for an hour this afternoon has anything to do with me feeling good? Nah.. couldn't be.. could it?

[mikiec]

My ex fixed a washing machine by kicking it. Broke her foot, but the washing machine lasted 3 more weeks.

Mike

[Hollywood]

Tell Her Next Time To Use Her Head Mike. My Wouldn't Know A Condensor From A Can Of Condensed Milk. It Always Seems To Be The Easy Thing We Think Can't Be The Problem But Is.

Nice To Hear We're All Human After All.... Except Lovehammers Avatar!!!

[lovehamr]

Let me preface this by saying that I have an awesome wife. For instance; by profession she is a firearms instructor for a very large federal agency and can spank most men with a hand gun with one arm, then tear the guns apart and put them back together, all while explaining what all the little pieces do. Really! She's cool!


Doesn't look like a gun person does she? LOL

That being said, I learned early on in our relationship that I don't want her helping me in the garage.

Lesson #1: I asked her to sit in the driver's seat and hold the brake with the car in drive. MY bad. The master cylinder was starting to go and would leak down over time. I warned her of this and told her that if this were to happen then to quickly pump the pedal once and all would be fine. Well I took to long, the pedal leaked down and she couldn't do anything but push harder. That didn't work. That car rolled forward into the body of a 70 Boss 302 and pushed that into the house. OK, that was stupid on my part. I shouldn't have expected it to go any differently.

Lesson #2: While removing the top loader from my other Boss my plan was to use a small 1 1/2 ton jack to hold the trans while pulling it back and then lowering it. This was well before the days of my having a lift or trans jack or anything you might call correct for the job. So there I was under the car balancing the trans on the little jack pedestal and asked my beautiful, blonde, gun toting, future bride to pull the jack handle toward the rear of the car then lower it when I said to. OK, I asked her to pull it to the rear ...................which she did, with all of her considerable might. Right out from under the back of the car without the trans. Has anyone ever tried to lay on their back with their arms outstretched over their head?...........holding a top loader by the input shaft and tail shaft. Yes, there was a loud CLANG as the trans dropped to the floor. That was my last wife/garage lesson.

The only other lesson that I apparently needed was the; “when she’s slamming cabinet doors in the kitchen after saying that she was hungry a half an hour ago its time to take her out to eat no matter how much grease you have on you” lesson.

We’ve gotten along great since I learned that one!

Steve