...so on my way back from the ski hill this afternoon, I had a heater hose fail. First sign was the power steering going out, which I shrugged off as unsurprising and kept going till I noticed the distinctive maple-syrup smell of fresh cooked leaking coolant.
Pulled over and the stuff was spraying out of a failed end of a heater hose right at the waterpump. Unsurprising that slippery coolant sprayed on the PS belt made it stop working. Luckily its in plain sight. Got the knife out and ripped it off the nipple, cut it off clean, stuck a male/male plastic hose barb in the clean end and put a new bit of hose from my supply in my toolbox onto the waterpump nipple. Tightened down the hose clamps, and walked a couple hundred yards to buy some bottled water (their tapwater was pretty gross, plus I didn't have a bucket and they wouldn't lend me one) to fill the radiator back up. Used about a gallon, and it only leaked for maybe 10-15 minutes.
Tomorrow I will head down the the salvage yard and pick up a better looking example of this custom molded multi-diameter hose with Ford springlock ends.
Lesson learned: I should have replaced the hose last summer, but no one had it in stock (within 48 hours even) and the Ford part was 120 bucks. Who wants to pay that kind of bank for a rubber hose?
Other lesson learned: Being paranoid and carrying around a bunch of weird stuff like a half dozen diameters of rubber house, barbed connectors, and clamps is not such a bad plan. I spent maybe 15 bucks on those odds and ends, and if I had gotten the thing towed into a shop I'd be stuck in bum[fizzle] New Mexico. I'm going to start accumulating more seemingly random [shizzle] to carry around in the emergency supply just in case. Gotta think about things that could ruin your day and how you could McGyver together a way to get home.
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I once had a heater core line spring a leak when I was doing irrigation work, and it was no hassle to repair it considering the huge assortment of fittings in the truck
I've got my N/A setup, a starter, two timing belts (one kit), my tools, jack, coolant, oil, various intercooler pipe odds/ends, Red RTV, silicone spray, canned air, electrical tape, radiator hose, zip ties, nuts/bolts and of course, washer fluid. All in my trunk, keeping my subwoofer company! Oh, and a one man bleeder vacuum pump All I need is a full sized spare and a spare turbo and I'll be set
You are right, I should know that. I've read a freaking book on automotive plumbing.
Its always nice when you have a truck full of something that comes in handy to fix something else entirely. I've welded a plastic endtank with an extruded polyethylene gun meant to repair ski bases, AFAIK that repair is still good.
edit: That is a pretty good collection man. I've got my winter tires/wheels in there right now because I'm too lazy to carry them up to my apartment...someone asked me what they were for last week so I had to answer "Well, in case I get four flat tires." 'But doesn't this van already have a spare?' "Yeah, but who wants to use a donut, and what if I get five flats?"
Wikipedia is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) in which participants play editors of a hypothetical online encyclopedia, where they try to insert misinformation that they are randomly assigned when they create their accounts, while preventing contrary information from being entered by others. Players with similar misinformation to promote will generally form "guilds" in order to aid each other.
Add a tow rope and a come-along and you can self recover when you get stuck, or pull a smashed fender or body pannel out of a tires way so you can drive home from an small crash.
Piston position=(stroke/2+rod length)-(stroke/2*COS(crank position in radians))-SQRT((rod length^2-(stroke/2*SIN(crank position in radians))^2))
Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
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