Wife broke my car!!!! High Low High

High

Drove down to visit parents for lunch, about 20 miles each way give or take. First full family journey. Me and the wife in the front, kids in the back. Just as it should be.

Marvelous journey, bit of rain, windscreen wipers still funny, but they did a job. 50mph is definitely the fastest comfortable speed. No problem with that though. Really REALLY pleasant.

Had a nice lunch, mum does a lovely roast and the mandatory rice pudding. ALL gone as usual! Talked car with me dad most of the afternoon, he's dug out all of his old mechanics manuals that cover the era perfectly.

Nice drive home, tried out a slightly different route more back roads the better. It really suits the car better.

Dropped daughter to gymnastics, wife learned to drive the column shift around the car park, she's really enjoyed it, and hasn't stressed me out too much either. She's a bit heavy handed with the gears .. Well to be expected (hehehehe...). She's ready to drive Amy home. All good, everybody happy. great stuff!!

Low

She set off home, pull out. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. Approached left turn, down to 3rd, then back up to 4th. All good. Then flat spot, "just a little pump on the accelerator" I said, "almost faint so hardly noticable, that'll get her through". But gets worse and worse and worse... Broke down.

Wife broke car first go!! Typical :-) Pulled the car to relative safety using the tow rope over my shoulder. Really funny, got some weird looks, wife laughing her head off!! A random bloke, gave us a little tow for 100 yards to be off the road a bit. I'm still relatively amused at this stage too. Already called my closest mate, James, he's on his way to give us a hand by this time. He and I had been through all that breaking down stuff  way back in the day, although it wasn't the way I'd planned to show him the new toy for the first time. What the @%$#!

By this time, the wife has suggested that I have run out of petrol. "No way I said!"... But you guessed it. That WAS the problem. Got towed home, put a couple of litres in. Still wouldn't start. Tash remembered the same problem she'd had on a friends barge and the solution was to blow through the fuel line. In the mean time another mate, Mark had called back. He suggested the same thing by blowing back up into the tank and then re-priming.

Did the blow back with an old football pump, son could hear bubbling from the fuel tank, so all good there. Re-connected the fuel line and re-primed the fuel pump (car of this age has a manual priming pump - love it!!!) Pumped the accelerator, sure enough, petrol is starting to appear around the accelerator pump piston push rod. (admittedly that's in places that it it shouldn't appear but .. one problem at a time!!)

High

Cut a long story short, all of this faffing about, she's working fine again. Upshot, fuel gauge cannot be trusted. Need petrol can and the footie pump as part of the "emergency pack" Added .. Done.. And will keep an eye on miles covered versus petrol used and try to keep topped up to avoid the situation again. Must add fuel filter and clean out the carb bowl. Bound to be gunged up.


But that's it for today. All's well that ends well

Still need to do oil change. Next weekend :-) Carb will need attention too. Later.