Ahhh! I left out the most exciting story of our vehicle repairs. Prior to going to the family reunion, Annie’s Generator light came on and stayed on. Belt tight ….. check, wiring ok…. check. Now we have two choices, voltage regulator or generator. As always, start with the cheapest solution first. So down to the Bug Stop to pick up a voltage regulator. The one on Annie is filthy and looks original. It is still the old regulator with moving parts.

I pull it out and put in the modern regulator. Hold my breath, turn the key, and………dang it! Generator light still on. Dilemma, Family Reunion that we are hosting is coming up fast. We need Annie to transport five people and all the decorations, food, luggage, and other stuff to Crockett, Texas. I could replace the generator, putting myself in a real time crushing bind to get the job done. Or I can trade cash for services to The Bug Stop and have them replace it for a hassle free and quicker fix. Bug Stop it is.

So Matthew climbs in the bus with me and Cat follows in Jeep-Jeep. We crank up Annie and away we go!. We are about 3 minutes out when all of a sudden, the engine starts reeving up high. Is the accelerator pedal stuck? This has happened in the past but I thought I fixed that didn’t I? A quick tug upward on the pedal with my foot confirms the pedal is not stuck. Pop Annie into neutral and it’s still reeving fast. So I quickly pull over into a nearby shopping center parking lot and pull under a shade tree just in case I need to do some work.

I shut off the engine and hop out to go back and take a look. As I’m getting out, Cat has pulled up behind me, is getting out of the car and is saying, ” Is there supposed to be smoke coming out of the side vents.?” I rush back and see smoke. Thinking the engine has overheated due to the high reeving, I reach down and lift the engine door, just as Cat is saying, “Careful, it might be on fire.” Too late now as I am already pulling the door up. Now I’m hoping my eye brows and mustache don’t get burned off.

Holy Back Draft Batman! There is a small fire on the top and back of the carburetor near all the wiring! I rush to retrieve the fire extinguisher that I keep under the back bench seat. Cat yells, “You want me to put water on it?” I reply, “NO! It might be a fuel fire!” I sling open the side door, flip up the seat and proceed to toss all the junk that had been accumulating over the years on to the floor. AHHHH!!! WHERE’S THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER??!!! Oh! It must be in the closet! More Junk tossing. NO FIRE EXTINGUISHER! Cat asks, “What do you want me to do?” I say, “Get Matthew out of the car!” Matt hears this and immediately exits as Cat assists. He quickly goes back to Jeep-Jeep and gets in as per Cat’s instructions. Meanwhile back at the ranch, I tear off the jump seat cushion to check there, but still no fire extinguisher!!!! All I can think is, “Where the heck is that extinguisher that I know I have carried since I got Annie back in 2005?” then I’m thinking, “OK. Gotta call 911 but she’s gonna burn before they can get here. Poor Annie’s gonna burn. Crap!!!”

Then I hear this sweet voice from Cat, “Fire’s out”

I walked to the back and sure enough, it’s out. “How’d you do that baby?” Cat replies, “Well, I had a bottle of water. You couldn’t find the extinguisher, the fire was still relatively small, and I didn’t want Annie to burn. So I figured, what the heck. So I tossed a small amount on the fire to see what it would do. The fire got smaller so I dumped the rest of the water bottle on it and it went out.”

Oh Honey! You are fantastic!!! My wife the heroic fire fighter!

Upon examination, the fire had left some crispy wires and the accelerator return spring was stretched out. Now I’m thinking, where the heck is that extinguisher? We called for a tow truck and pulled Jeep-Jeep in the shade to wait. Cat told me that while I was examining the damage, she went back to Matthew and praised him for his quick response and obedience. Matthew was like, well Ok, what’s the big deal? Cat then explained the bus had caught fire. Matt immediately said, “FIRE?!!!” Turns out he had no idea what was going on, he was just doing what he was told. LOL…

As we were waiting for the tow truck, I went back to the bus to roll up the windows and secure everything for the tow. As I was rolling up the driver’s door window, I just happened to glance to the storage area behind the driver’s seat. What did I happen to see? The dadgum fire extinguisher!!!!! GEEEEZZZZ!!

Now I remember! A while back I was digging through all the junk under the back seat looking for a tool or something and I saw the extinguisher. I thought, “Ya know. I need to move that someplace where I can get to it quickly. Because if the bus ever caught fire, I would have to dig through all this junk just to find it and by that time, it might be too late. It needs to be somewhere close so I can get to it quickly from the driver’s seat.” So I moved it to the little storage slot behind the driver’s seat. DUHHHH!! A lot of good that did.

So Annie was loaded up and taken to the Bug Stop. As it turns out, the fire was caused by a small crack in the fuel line. Although it sounded bad, it wasn’t that bad. All they had to do was replace some wires, the condenser, a slightly melted fuel filter, fuel line, and the return spring. As for the original problem? The Generator was fine, it just needed some new brushes.

Now for the fire extinguisher issue. The one I had was a small kitchen fire extinguisher and probably really wouldn’t help that much in a real fire situation. So when Annie came home, she was outfitted with a real fire extinguisher.

As you can see, there will be no more mad searching for the extinguisher in the future. However, let’s hope it will never need to be used.

See, I told you this was the best story of our vehicle repairs! Thanks Cat and Michael for reminding me to include it.

Well, there has been a lot going on in the last year. I started with good intentions of blogging on a regular basis, but as you can see, that has not been the case. Well, let’s catch up. Then we will see if I can be more faithful in our adventure updates.

Let’s start with our repair adventures. First came our Jeep which is named Jeep-Jeep after the monkey like character from the old Popeye cartoons that would hop around saying, “Jeep-Jeep!!”. As typical with Jeeps, It has terrible overheating problems. We tried changing out the thermostat, fan relay, and coolant sensor to no avail. We struggled through one of the hottest, driest summers in Texas in 30 years. Often times relying on Annie as our main form of transportation. Now I have lived in Texas all my life and have driven cars without AC since 1983. However, no AC in 116 to 118 degrees stinks. Even when you are moving, it feels like a blow dryer on high heat is blowing in your face.

So after eking out a summer of heat and no problems of overheating driving in the fall and first part of winter we saved money and planned on addressing the overheating problem by replacing the radiator and cooling fan prior to the next summer. As we were preparing to replace the radiator, I discovered that the transmission fluid line running through the radiator had developed a leak. This means I had coolant in my tranny and tranny fluid in my radiator. NOT GOOD. Fortunately we had the new radiator, but now we had to buy a new water pump as well because it was beginning to squeal. So, at the end of January, we tore the front end of the Jeep apart and this is what it looks without the front grill, bumper, and radiator. 

In addition, we had to flush the engine block and drain and replace the tranny fluid and filter. Cat is such a wonderful woman. She was with me every step of the way, covered in grease from head to toe just like me.

Yeah! We had Jeep-Jeep running, now Annie had some relief and we had two reliable daily drivers. Well that is until February 2nd, when some @#&*%#! moron decided to put a brick through the front windshield of Annie. 

I had been working on Jeep-Jeep which required me to move Cindy Lu out and put Annie on the street. When I was done, I went in for supper, and I forgot to put Annie back in the driveway. I never leave any car in the street overnight because there are too many idiot teens roaming the streets with nothing better to do than to be dumb asses and damage property. Well, sure enough, around 9:30, Glen heard a loud bang and we went rushing out to find poor Annie with a destroyed front windshield. If I could only find the hooligan(s) and be left alone in a room with them for about 5 minutes. I don’t think they would return to a life of crime when I was done. 

$300 and two months (to save the $$$) later and Annie had a new windshield and a happy smile.

Meanwhile, I decided to see if I could solve Cindy Lu’s overheating issue. After consulting with Kelly, the owner of The Bug Stop, I changed the oil to Shell Rotella-T 15W-40 and adjust the valves. Ta-Da! It worked. Now she runs just fine with no overheating issues.

When it rains, it pours. Around March 28, the tensioner pulley on Jeep-Jeep decided to disintegrate on the way home from work. We abandoned her in a nearby parking lot, got a ride from a friend, and took the next day off and returned with Maggie, our 1993 Nissan Maxima, to conduct the repairs. In about an hour, Jeep-Jeep was back up and running.

Oh, about Maggie. It’s a long story but Maggie was my daughter’s car. She was using it to get to school in Lubbock about 6 hours away. However, Maggie’s timing chain is about to go out and she is no longer reliable for such a long drive. It’s going to cost about $2500 to have the chain replaced as the engine has to be completely removed. Oiy! The car is only worth about $800. So my mother-in-law bought the car and uses it for local driving. On the day I used her to get to Jeep-Jeep, she was road worthy but could not pass inspection due to a faulty high beam switch, which required the removal of the airbag and steering wheel to replace. That has been done and now she tootles around town quiet nicely. 

We finally had all the cars up and running that is until about two weeks ago. We took Annie for a 3 1/2 hour road trip to Crockett, Texas for a family reunion. She made it fine, but once we got there, the solenoid decided to go belly up. This required us to push start her to get home. Not so bad tho. We only had to push her once when we got gas on the way home and where we stopped for lunch. Now Annie sits patiently in the driveway until I can save up the $165 to get a new starter motor and solenoid. I figure if I’m going to be crawling under the bus, I might as well replace the whole assembly. It looks like the starter is original anyway. Not bad for 41 years old.

Whewww!! Well, that should do it for now. (Well, there’s still a little pesky tranny fluid leak I have to resolve and the replacing of a bolt in a torsion bar to stop a wobbling in the steering that has cropped up in Jeep-Jeep)  Some people ask why I drive old cars. Well, VW’s are easy to work on as is Jeep-Jeep. But most importantly, I don’t have any car payments. Sure, I have to spend some dough on repairs to keep them running, but it’s still far less than a monthly car payment would be. They are pretty reliable and get us from point A to point B in style. We just love when we are stopped a  red light in Annie and people are pointing, smiling, and taking pics. 

Cheers for now and keep on Dubbin’