 
I told of an engine cleaning adventure in Isabelle in January. I also mentioned an earlier, similar trip in my 55 GMC. Well, I had some engine cleaner that I got on sale at one point, and decided that I would clean the engine with it. I was intending to do some rewiring, and it would be better to do the cleaning now, with the old wiring harness. After I sprayed it on the engine and surrounding greasy parts in the engine compartment I decided that I didn't want to rinse it off in the driveway, but rather, I would drive down to the spray and wash.
This particular spray and wash is one of the few I know of these days that has the engine cleaner selection, so I figure it is fine to clean your engine there. Plus, the water doesn't go into the storm drain. Isabelle ran great on the way over. I had sealed the gas tank, and she had fresh gas. All seemed good. I cleaned up the engine. I also sprayed out some of the gunk that accumulated above the firewall. I didn't know it, but this splattered my face with bits of mud. I did try and protect the carburetor from the water spray.
I got in and tried to start Isabelle. She coughed, wouldn't start, backfired, and cranked and cranked. I took the damp air filter off by unscrewing the top nut and removing the nut, washer, and top assemply. I tried starting the engine some more without any luck. A big guy with a gold front tooth came over from the next stall and asked what was wrong. I told him I had washed the engine. He asked if I left it running. I said no, and he exclaimed that you should always leave it running. He said I had probably got water into the distributor, but if I let it sit it would dry out. I popped open the distributor. It seemed dry. I continued cranking and got the engine to run after ten minutes or so. After stalling several times I limped her to the vacuum station, and figured if I paid another buck fifty for a vacuum the proprietor might let me hang out a bit more with my sick truck as she dried out a bit. I left a big black stain on the side of the bay where I'd back-fired onto the wall. Remember, too, that I'm wandering around with bits of mud all over my face.
After the vacuum I was able to start her up again and leave the car wash. About a block down the road she died, and I pulled over to the right near a bus stop. There were a couple guys hanging out in the bus stop, and it didn't appear they had any intention of catching a bus. I waited a bit, then crank, crank, cough, bam, cough, crank, frup, frup, grrrrr... running again. She died, but the men in the bus stop were starting to take an interest. They didn't look very friendly and I got the impression that they were looking for a way to afford their next six hours of chemical brain hack. I really didn't want to hear what they planned to proposition me with. I decided to stagger Isabelle to the parking lot of a bowling alley across the street and continue my mission of clearing out any water in the carburator.
I found a place out of the way under a tree. I figured it was far enough from anybody that might care about my cranking and coughing. After awhile I noticed a man about sixty, with four days of beard, a white t-shirt, blue boxer shorts, and flip flops wander toward me looking a bit grumpy. There was a chain link fence between me and a single story apartment complex. He came over to the fence and complained that the exhaust was coming in through his window. I told him that I would get the truck moved and he wandered back to his apartment. I cranked some more and got her started; however, every time I accelerated she died again. I was able to slowly get her halfway across the parking lot. I ended up pushing her a bit. She is quite heavy, and I couldn't push her far. I continued with my mission of cleaning out the carburetor with lots of coughing, cranking, starting, idling. She did seem to be getting a bit better, but she simply couldn't stay running when in gear.
I noticed the man came out again to see what was going on with me and my truck. I wandered over to the other side of the chain link fence and stood next to him, staring off 100 feet to where Isabelle sat diagonally across four parking spaces in the center of the mostly unused back lot of the bowling alley. He apologized for being so grumpy and I said I understood, and was sorry I was creating such an annoyance. He told me it sounded like my timing was off. He said, "look at you, it looks like it exploded on you". I said that I washed the engine, and that was how I got the dirt on me. That seemed to reassure him. I told him it ran well before I washed the engine, so I didn't think it was timing. He said, "You probably plasticized the distributor." He said it with closure, and I thought he meant I had hurt it with heat. I said, "No, I don't think so, I looked inside it and it seemed OK." He asked if I had covered it with a plastic bag, and I said no, and he said that I had probably messed it all up. He said that even humidity in the distributor can mess things up, and that I should have covered the coil, distributor, and carburator with plastic. He was obviously getting a bit disgusted with me and my idiotic ways, so I decided it was time to wander back to Isabelle for some more cranking and coughing.
She did a little better when I got back. I was able to drive around the lot a couple of times. She still died, though, and I didn't want to stall going across the intersection of the big street between the car wash and my house. I found another spot further away, next to a dumpster that was in back of a gas station. I decided that I would take the carburator off, drain the gas and water from it and see if that helped. I pulled the carburetor off, no problem, drained it, washing my hands a bit with the gas that drained out and wiping them on some towels. I had a horrible time getting the accelerator back on so that when I pushed the pedal it opened the throttle and when you let up on the accelerator it returned. First I forgot the spring, then I kept on hooking it up to the wrong hole, or I figured that the spring went in one hole but the accelerator rod went in the other. The spring goes in the same basic place as the accelerator rod does.
A few more cranks and I heard this horrible grinding sound. I decided it was time for another approach to the problem of being two miles from home with a '68 GMC that didn't run. The Shell station was open, and I asked the man on duty if they repaired cars. They had bays and lifts, but they didn't do any work on the weekend. I needed some help.
I called my wife from the pay phone, as I had forgotten to bring my cell, and asked her to bring the tow strap from the workshop. She had to pack my son into the Sienna, (Big Ethel) so it would take a bit of time. In the mean time I got some water from the grocery store and stood on the corner of the intersection and waited. We decided that out of the box a Toyota Sienna doesn't have any really good places to hook a tow strap to. The bumper is all wrapped in plastic, and I couldn't find any hooks. Really, it is just a stretched Camry underneath. I have done some pretty creative towing and got away with some miracles, and really shouldn't push my luck any more than I have to. Early one morning in the winter of '86, a friend of mine showed up after hitchhiking back from Kelso, where he broke down in his split window VW van. It even had a crank hole in the rear lid for starting the engine. He and Paula, the girl I drove down to Arizona later that year in June, had taken a failed late night drive. They spent a long time trying to get a ride, got cold, and lit a campfire to keep warm. I drove back down to Kelso with Mark and Jean in my '84 Mazda long bed pickup. We hooked up a tow strap to my rear bumper and their front bumper and started back with Jean and Mark riding in the bus. Going freeway speeds the trip from Keslo to Olympia is about an hour. We didn't travel quite that fast. The bus would wander into the other lane, blown by wind and the draft of other vehicles, and an '84 Mazda pickup is not very heavy, so you can imagine how dangerous that was. A Washington State Trooper passed us, though, and left us alone. We got home safely, but I remember as I drove alone in the truck, being buffeted back and forth by my tow, that I made a pact with myself and whoever would listen that I wouldn't attempt a towing like that again.
My wife drove me home and we had lunch. I briefly struggled with the notion that rather than pay for a tow, I should do like I did in '87 and find somebody to buy Isabelle for $50 and a ride home. My wife disuaded me, luckily. I called a local tow company and met them there five minutes later. It turned out that the driver was a brother of my neighbor. It was a flat bed tow truck that hoisted Isabelle onto the bed. Isabelle is safely home, now, and ready for some fixing.
I suspect that I messed up the starter; however, there is also the mystery of the air cleaner. Remember how I removed the filter? Well, there is a missing piece. I believe there is a piece of threaded rod that is missing. I don't know for sure if it fell into the top of the engine or not. I don't remember removing it, now it is gone, and the engine makes a horrible noise. To be safe, I'm pulling the heads and intake manifold. Even if the noise is just the starter, I feel compelled to violate the rule of "don't pull the heads just to peek" rule to make sure that everything is happy.
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