Rocket J, Are you out of escuela at the moment? Welcome back, even if only for a short break. Hope all is well w/ you & Mrs. Squirrel. Spring will be here before we all know it. Tom B.-all my nuts for the winter are gone?
On Jan 16, 2007, at 4:36 PM, Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott wrote: > ...were it not for the record low temperatures, my solo camping trip > from San Diego to Fort Bragg and back last week would have been > excellent. Mellow Yellow performed admirably. The "OXS" lamp came on > somewhere around Bodega Bay. I thought about it and thought about > it . . > . finally recalled that it was pretty much a 30,000 mile indicator. > Mileage had been 15.4 mpg and it stayed that way so I stopped worrying > about it. Two days later, somewhere around Caspar, the engine > hesitated > for a moment. "Uh oh," I thought, "that bucking behavior that I > thought > I had fixed when I sealed the air manifold leak is back!" But no, it > never happened again. > > On the return trip, I had breakfast in Mendocino and when I came > back to > the van, I noticed that both front tires were worn past the tread on > their outer edges. Visions of hurtling to my death hundreds of feet > off > the edge of the road when a tire blew on a turn got me thinking that I > better do something, like maybe swap the front and rear tires to > give me > fresh rubber. I asked the next flagman that stopped traffic (when you > drive on Highway 1 on the West Coast you get stopped a lot for road > work) where I might find a service shop. He suggested the shop 1/2 > mile > further along, in Elk Grove. The Elk Grove garage (1901) is America's > second-oldest continuously-operating auto repair shop (has > horseshoeing > equipment, too). Former Studebaker dealership, too, from when the > locals > had plenty of money to spend. Scott, the very nice new owner, put > Mellow > Yellow up on the lift and poked around. "Well, there's your > problem," he > said. The upper ball joints were no longer happy campers. So he > swapped > the front and rear wheels. Checked my tire pressure, took a look > underneath, declared it pretty clean. > > "Tire rotation," he said. "Ten dollars." > > I made him take a twenty. > > -- > > Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott > 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus > 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana") > 74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano > KG6RCR |
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