Re: Changing flat tires (and other basics too, OT)

I’m not a car guy, nor am I technically inclined, but I know enough around cars to listen if there’s unusual noises - and not just turn up the radio. As about an eight year old I had a mechanic hero’s moment with our old Beetle, shortly after it was bought from us by my cousin. Link to that car in a Volkswagen thread here [ngdiscussion.net]

It wouldn’t start and my cousin couldn’t figure out why, and he is literally a nuclear scientist. And after a half hour of poking around my dad was stumped too. I wandered by and on a hunch said the battery cells had probably gone dry. I had likely just heard that somewhere, but knew it might apply and merely repeated it. There was some serious scepticism but on unscrewing the caps and looking, what do you know. Dry as a bone!

And for something railway related, this luck struck again about 15 years later. One winter night we drove my sister-in-law to a small country station to put her on The Canadian. It was about -40F and as we waited for the train, the car headlights got dimmer and dimmer. I checked a couple cells and they were dry too, but fortunately the station washroom was open. Grabbed a couple Dixie cups (remember them?) filled them with hot water, and they cheered the car right up. No cell phones in those days, and if the car had died we may well have froze to death. Whew.....

Cheers,
Ralph



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2020 06:17PM by tgbcvr.