Sorry for the lack of posts, not that anyone really has been following, or that there was much to follow anyway. However, while I intended to do more posting, I recently had to do some major facebook status changing from "engaged" to "married." Is it sad that this has been my one status update in over a year? Regardless, getting married takes a lot of work and time. I barely did anything and I was exhausted from it all. Aside from that I have recently lost my reliable internet connection, and am in process of switching providers. All told I haven't been posting regularly; shame, shame.
Anyway, while I haven't been posting, I have been doing some work on the car, and making some progress. As we rejoin our tale, our hero has finished piecing back together the torn fuel delivery system and re-routing the emissions houses, only to find that- the battery is dead! Lucky for our hero, he battery is new and has an 84 mo. warranty. Now, if only he could find the reciept!
Yes folks, my battery had died during the weeks of slow labor without any running/charging off the alternator. When I took it to be re-charged, the folks at O'Reily's told me after 2 hours that it had "deeply dishcarged cells" and could not be charged. (Note this is exactly what the folks at Advance Auto Parts told me after 30 seconds hooked up to their machine, unfortunately I didn't buy it from them, so I had to take it back to O'Reily...wah wah). Never fear, my 84 mo warranty ought to land me a brand spanking new battery in no time. But without the receipt it was a huge ordeal of looking up my phone number, the date of purchase, method of purchase, verifying, checking, re-checking, voiding, crediting, voiding credity, calling india, checking the score of the ball game, and finally giving me my new battery. All in all only a waste of a perfectly good Saturday.
However with my spirit and my Oldsmobile in need of some high voltage shock therapy, I took the battery back, hooked it up, and prayed. The first crank produced nothing. I had however thought there was something else I should try. I cracked open the aersolized bottle of carburetor cleaner, sprayed a stream onto the choke plate, waited 30 seconds, then cranked again.
Wurr, Wurr, WUURRR, BOOOOOM, chugchugchugchugchugchugchug...
Oh what beautiful onomonopoea! Folks, I had a running car. Never mind that it sounded like I was gassing it through the floor boards at the Indy 500. The Delta 88 was alived! I shut it off, cranked it a few more times and satisfied myself that it was indeed running of it's own power, not just carburetor cleaner.
Feeling lucky and wanting to fix the "gas-through-the-floor" high octane juice the beast seemed to be feeding off, I removed the clamp which holds my thermostatic regulator in place and attempted to adjust the Rich/Lean attenuation. This was my first mistake. Next was to put on and hook up the air-filter. Then worst of all I closed the hood. Somehow, this made the car cease to run (though it would still start, simply wind down and stall after 5 seconds or so). Removing the air filter, tweaking the adjuster, and leaving the hood open seemed to get it back to running. At this point I noticed smoke or steam from the rear of the engine compartment and decided to shut it down.
With the mixed blessing of a "running" vehicle I am now waiting to diagnos and fix the problems. There are still hoses and tubes which do not seem properly hooked up or sealed. There are still parts for which I have no name or knowledge of function. And there is still an engine, very much in need of a bath. But as with Zen, I must clear all of this from my mind in order to achieve the true goal of having the Delta 88 rule the highway. There is not success without failure, and too much stimulus clouds the mind. Keep on trucking, until next time.
Thom
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