09/22/2024
Those of my esteemed readership who have been paying attention for the past eight or so hours oh that I took old grumpy on a Grand adventure to support military vehicle operations for the southeast Spokane County Fair.
Some seven vehicles convoyed South, unfortunately we did lose old Lumpy to a possible water leak...
But the rest of us carried on and participated in the parade in Grand style. Grumpy behaved herself during the convoy, the course of the parade, and the meandering about afterwards. It wasn't until we were ready to leave that she decided to sputter and die.
Carbureted engines have an unfortunate tendency to flood. Grumpy decided to combine flooding with a hiccup in her fuel system that manifested itself with all the symptoms of having lost my ignition coil again.
Being stranded 30 some odd miles from home with another cooked ignition coil was not a reality I wanted to contemplate, nor was it going to be possible to correct the situation on the road, hence my initial SOS.
Unfortunately Rockford is a communication black hole, with internet and cell service only found at the highest points adjacent to our Town cemetery.
Brother Ken Plager and I piled all of our sensitive items into his vehicle and headed to The high ground.
I called Laurie Benson , and then I called Ivan Urnovitz, our Grand pooba of the military vehicle collector set, to advise them of the situation and request assistance.
We then returned to Grumpy, and that stubborn old hag fired right up!
We then advised everybody that we were going to try to limp the vehicle into Spokane, but to stand by just in case we got into trouble. From then on Old grumpy ran like a champ, all the way to 4 miles from home base...
Where suddenly her engine surged and looked to run away!
I chopped power to the engine, and limped her into a nearby parking lot, all the while wondering what the hell it just happened? I didn't know if something in the transmission had let go, if another gremlin was infesting the fuel system, or what...
I opened the hood, and Ken observed while I went through some troubleshooting with the accelerator pedal, and he saw the problem.
Every single linkage attached to the carburetor is secured with a cotter pin or safety wire... Save one - the linkage that goes from the throttle to the control horn is actually fastened with a bolt and a nut...
And the nut had backed off, allowing the linkage to separate and the carburetor to open fully.
The nut was nowhere to be found.
Ken and I spent a good 30 minutes trying to come up with some Mickey mouse solution to keep the bolt from backing out of the hole in the carburetor horn far enough for me to be able to get grumpy home.
Unless I come up with the world's biggest jam nut, and was able to limp her into Home Base...
