Van repair

The problem with going to a very good mechanic is that he's a busy man. Everyone knows he's a good mechanic. My van sat at his shop for a week before he had a chance to look at it. As I suspected, it was a bad fuel pump. The little electric pump has 188,000 miles on it, so it's no surprise it finally wore out.

He asked me to come down to the shop to answer some questions about my veggie conversion. I'm lucky to have a mechanic that's willing to work with me on my weird experimental veggie fuel system. His concern was that that there seemed to be veggie in the lines and that the filter might be plugged. While there was a trace of veggie in the diesel, it wasn't enough to cause problems. I'm guessing that the dying fuel pump was unable to clear all the veggie out of the diesel side.

His computer revealed that the #1 cylinder wasn't firing properly. That could have been bad -bad injector expensive as all heck bad. Fortunately, it soon cleared. My mechanic said it probably had air trapped in it.

Normally the guy doesn't work on weekends, but it's the only way to catch up. In fact, he's been so busy that his wife has been unable to keep up with the paperwork. My bill won't be ready until Tuesday afternoon.

At least the timing was pretty good. My lovely wife and I have been in town watching my granddaughter all week. Since her parents are on a trip, we've had the use of their car.

-Sixbears