Someone told me today that experience is the best teacher and it also
encourages you to buy all the right tools. I don't think he knew how
prophetic his words would be!
I got stuck in traffic today for about 25 minutes on the freeway. My
car's not idling the best right now and it tends to bounce around a
bit. After finally getting off the freeway and on to clear road my car
started running like crap, major missing and diminished power. Then I
started smelling gas in a big way. I looked in the rear view and on
the roadway I could see a line of something following me, I swerved
the car a bit and sure enough the line swerved with me.
I pull off into a parking lot with a shade tree (never know how long
it's going to be) and opened the hood, gas was pouring from the rear
float bowl overflow. This is not good because I have never been in
this kind of maintenace territory before. Ok, call AAA just in case
and they tell me it's going to be two hours. Sounds like a good time
to learn about float bowls to me!
I fortunately do have some tools with me, enough to get the job done
but not the easiest way. Off comes the air cleaner assembly and the
top of the float bowl...never been here before. I pull the top off and
something falls through the engine compartment to the ground. Hummm, I
pick it up and it's a brass nozzel kind of thing with a clear ball at
one end and a thread at the other. It becomes quckly apparent that
this is not correct. So I clean it off, screw it back in (with the
little washers that were at the bottom of the float bowl), put
everything back together and start her up (keep in mind I'm giving you
the condensed version here), call AAA and cancel the tow.
For about the next 5 miles it runs very poorly, missing a lot and just
sounding like it need to take a big huge cough. Then all of a sudden
it starts running great! Lots of power, no missing, hummm...just a
little air in the fuel line?
Anyway, I'm happy to say I did my first roadside repair today and it
was a success. I think the guys doing lawn work in the parking lot
thought I was nuts. A chick pulling out her tools, looking like a real
mechanic and whistling all the while. I'd say today was a good day!
~~Laura Hoey
'70 2000
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