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Tuesday, Jun. 17, 2003 - 8:04 p.m.

Several �firsts� yesterday (WARNING � LOOOOONG entry today)�

Lease drove the Grand Am to Springpatch yesterday, her first day driving her coworkers in the carpool rotation.

No problems driving up.

The way back?

About 5 minutes out of Springpatch, the �CHECK ENGINE� light came on.

Not good.

(BTW- shouldn�t the little light on your dashboard be red, not orange? And shouldn�t the phrase �CHECK ENGINE� have a few !!! after the words? Just wondering�)

She said she could feel the car shaking, and she was having trouble keeping the car at the posted speed limit, let alone the flow of traffic.

She tried to call me at home, but I had already left to go to Codeman�s first rec league softball game.

She made it home, and called the lovely Chelsea�s cell phone (knowing that she would be at the softball game, too).

It was already halfway through the 1 hour time limit that rec league games are allocated, so I told her to just stay home, and I would check the car out when the game ended. I tried to reassure her that it wasn�t anything major, because she made it home.

It�s not like we never drive her car on the highway or anything. We have driven at least 1000 miles this spring, visiting the high school baseball diamonds of several towns within an hour or so from Mohall. We even drove to Springpatch on consecutive Fridays, back in May!

Codeman�s game was over right on time (with the adults from Lease�s Cableco loosing to a bunch of middle-aged, beer bellied graybeards 18-6), and I was under the hood in less than 10 minutes.

I checked all of the logical fluids first (all fine), checked for disconnected vacuum hoses and spark plug wires (none), and looked for any puddles underneath the car (ditto).

I then turned my key and started the engine.

It sounded fine, but the �CHECK ENGINE� light was still glowing ominously on the dashboard.

Since it was already 7:30, I had only one option- I drove the car to Auto Zone� (home of cheap auto parts, and over 15 different types of fuzzy dice for your rearview mirror!)

I asked the guy behind the counter if he would use his hand-held doohickey and check to see what codes were set off in the car�s computer. If you didn�t already know this, A.Z. will do this for you at no charge (instead of driving to the local dealer and paying them $79 to do the same thing).

The only code that came up was �misfire detected- cylinder 3 �.

That meant one of three things (according to the clerk, and he sounded right):

1. Bad sparkplug wire in the third cylinder. Or�

2. Bad sparkplug in same. Or�.

3. Bad fuel injector (Yikes! The injector alone runs around $100, plus having it installed?)

I decided to go with the first two items before panicking. I was out the door with a set of lifetime wires ($29.99), and 6 new Platinum sparkplugs (required by the manufacture - $17.86) , and I headed home.

The light was still on, even after the clerk ran the codes. He told me that one of two things would happen: either I would have to go to a dealer to have it reset, or if I fixed the problem, the light would automatically go off on its own.

Since it would soon be dark (and there is no way I can reach the spark plugs on the backside of the engine without taking the engine off of its engine mounts and rocking the engine forward�wait a minute- I am not a mechanic. The back three will have to be done by my friend�s shop, simple as that�.now, where was I?), I decided to try replacing just the wire to cylinder #3. Hopefully, that would solve the problem...

After burning almost the entire surface area of my left hand, trying to work the new wire into the tiny area BEHIND the engine (it couldn�t be one of the three cylinders on the FRONT of the engine, now could it?), I was finally able to hook the new wire up to the sparkplug in cylinder 3.

I started the engine up, and I pushed the accelerator several times to rev the engine up a little.

Sounded good. I had to take it for a test drive, just to be sure.

I headed out of the driveway, and I noticed something very good- while I was looking down at the dashboard, checking to see how much fuel Lease had, the orange �CHECK ENGINE� light went off!

I hit the highway south of our house, and quickly accelerated up to 65 mph.

The engine just purred. Make that roared (that�s what a V-6 is supposed to do).

Lease drove to work today, and reported no problems at all. Hopefully, the one wire was the problem (they were the original equipment, so 5 years was long enough to go without changing them).

Saturday morning, after the engine has all night to COOL DOWN, I will replace the rest of the wires, and the sparkplugs for the easy-to-reach front cylinders, too.

The back three plugs will have to wait until I can get Rick�s men working on them�.


Oh yeah- Codeman�s first game?

He was inserted into the batting order in the 3rd slot, and started the game in left field.

Since he was young enough to be the kid of most of the players, they were happy to have his healthy body to add to the team. Several of the players wanted him to play their position so they could be the D.H.

He managed to hit the ball his first time at the plate. It fell for a single into shallow centerfield. I think he thought he missed the ball, but he hit it where they weren�t. That�s what slowpitch softball is all about (unless you can hit the ball over the fence all the time).

He went to second base on another single, tagged up on a fly ball and went to third, and then tagged up and scored on another fly ball.

This freaked out the guys on the team. The guy standing next to me said, �Damn, you can tell he is young! I haven�t tried to tag up and advance on a fly out in 15 years!�

He had fun, even thought he struck out swinging in his other at bat. He caught a couple of fly balls, and did a good job of getting the rest of the balls hit to him back into the infield.

The rest of the guys razzed him some about tagging up, and they all seemed to enjoy adding him to their squad.

All I can say is that I enjoyed seeing him having a good time playing ball.

It�s has been a while since he had any fun on a ball diamond�..

Antique - Futuristic


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