tgbcvr Wrote:
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> 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]
> 82790#msg-382790
>
> 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.....
>
When I worked as a gofer(1979) one of my jobs was to do triage on cars towed in with "won't start" as the complaint. About 90% of them the cure was fill the battery, clean the terminals, tighten the alternator belt. First rule on just about anything, check the simple stuff before anything else. I assume this also applies to RR equipment? (there, that keeps it sorta on-topic
)
Last time I changed a tire? Memorial day weekend, 2014, St Regis Montana about 6 pm on Friday. My offspring & I were on our way to a sci-fi convention at Missoula when the right rear tire blew. Nothing open so I put the donut from the trunk on and drove on down I-90 at about 35-40 mph.(max speed for one of those things). When were literally in sight of the lights of Missoula, about 5 miles out, the *left* rear blew. Andi & I got out of the car, looked at it for a second and both cracked up laughing. What else are ya gonna do? No signal on the cell but a nice Hi-po stopped just as I was getting ready to hike to the next exit & look for a phone. He called us a tow. Last time either of us had the money to go to Miscon but it sure was memorable!
As to my wife, she could change the tire, if some fool had tightened the nuts with an impact (air) wrench. Of course I also taught her about cheater bars...
Hank