Sparking a Revolution...

An interesting title for what will probably be a far less interesting post, but, here goes anyway. Jenni and I went home to Prairie du Chien this past Friday. She drove the van and I drove the truck. I was taking the truck along for two reasons. One, her folks had used our treadmill this summer and now that winter was upon us I wanted it back. It's too cold to run outside. Two, there were maintenance issues with the truck that I wanted to get resolved and her Dad has a garage. Yes, Mom, this will be another post along the lines of "Car Talk". I hope you can just grin and bear it. :)

Saturday morning I got started early. The truck had been missing pretty badly of late, especially when it was coldest, like in the mornings. I had changed three of the plugs in the truck a few days earlier, but could not get the last one out with my tools. I thought it may need her Dad's air wrench to break it free. Turns out, no pun intended, that I was able to finally get it out with a breaker bar, but all the threads came out with it. Bummer...guess I halfway expected that, though. I started calling around to see who had a helicoil kit. Nobody in that whole town had one. Not NAPA, not CarQuest, not any of the garages. I had to fix this before the day was done, though, because we leave for home after church Sunday morning and I knew it would be even harder to find a place open on Sunday. I got online and started searching for auto parts stores in the little towns nearby. I finally got a hold of someone, a NAPA in Postville, IA, that had one. I told him to hold it for me and I would be right there. Jenni and I, her Mom, and the girls all piled into the van and headed for Postville, some 30 to 40 minutes away. After picking up the kit, Jenni and her Mom went into a sewing shop in Postville and looked around for a few minutes. Upon arriving home, we ate lunch and then I headed right back out as my available repair time was getting short. The kit worked beautifully. I had never done a helicoil before so I was a little apprehensive, but there was nothing to it really. It worked just like the directions said. It had to sit for at least an hour to let the RTV set up, but after that I pulled it into the garage and changed the oil and filter. I was then ready to run it up and down the road and couldn't wait to hear all four cylinders banging away merrily under the hood. Well....it didn't exactly happen that way. The truck had never run worse. It was clearly only running on three cylinders. I was dejected. What had I done wrong? I talked with Jenni's Dad for a little bit and we both came to the conclusion that it might be plug wires. Well, there was no place in town that was still open that carried the wires for this truck. Oh the joys of owning a foreign car. I had the blessed prospect of driving it all the way home on three cylinders.
Just before leaving on Sunday afternoon, I got under the hood one last time and shifted the plug wires around hoping that it might make a difference. Amazing!! Whatever point in the wire that was shorting before was no longer shorting. The truck purred like a kitten all the way home. I knew even more certainly now, though, that the plug wires were at fault. I got a new set after work yesterday and installed them while Claire played with her classmates after school.
The truck had been getting roughly 300 miles to a tank of gas before this was done. This is about 27.5 miles to the gallon. When I first bought it, it would get about 320 per tank. I filled up before leaving Prairie du Chien yesterday and when I reached a half tank I had gone 180 miles. This makes it seem like I might get 360 miles out of a tank or 350 at least. If I get 350, that would be about 32 miles per gallon. I am excited to see.
Hope everyone has a great day.