Saturday, May 27, 2006

Flywheel Day

Saturday morning has finally arrived, and I can divert my attention from my very onerous workload for the day and focus on changing the flywheel in my wife's truck, our only vehicle. Sadly, despite having recently changed the bendix on the starter (on my back in the snow), the truck won't start, and the application of the key just results in a lot of spinning.

I have no mechanical background, but necessity being the mother of initiative and having no commercial garages here I've been forced to learn, mostly by trial and error. I can now field strip a two-stroke snowmobile engine and put it back together again in less than 90 minutes, and the thing will usually start-up, as long as I haven't put the pistons in backwards.

The flywheel, though, is way beyond my meagre puttering skills as it involves pulling out the transmission. Ergo, I have had to hoof it for most of the last month, which generally hasn't been so bad since I've been on the road so much, but faced with at least 3 weeks in a row here, I am getting tired of lugging groceries back from the store on a daily basis.

I have been awaiting the return of Yuri, my friend working at the neighbouring mine, but he has decided to do a double rotation. But as luck would have it, a mechanic for the local airline is now in town and has agreed to help me (or, more accurately, agreed to let me help him) replace the flywheel. He has the unlikely name of Quentin McCallister, and I've already nicked him as McCaliper given his profession.

With any luck, the truck shall be resurrected in about 9 hours time, and I'll be mobile again. The wife, though, still has to walk.

*U*P*D*A*T*E*

Man, am I ever embarrassed!!! After removing the torsion bars, lowering the front suspension, taking out the drive shaft and a myriad of other greasy repair tasks it was revealed that the flywheel I was going to replace was in PRISTINE condition - just a problem with the starter. So what should have only been a half hour job maximum ended up being five hours of totally unnecessary work.

Quentin was not amused. He chased me out of the garage in a shower of box wrenches and metric sockets and told me, inter verba profanissima, to pick the truck back up later. I think I'll ask my wife to come along with me as protection - no one messes with my wife and lives to tell the tale. More later. Expect blood.

6 Comments:

Blogger Pat said...

"The wife...still has to walk."
Silly dreamer!!
Good luck!

9:14 AM  
Blogger WrathofDawn said...

Silly McCaliper. If he's so smart, how come he didn't figure out what was needed before you did all that work?

I hope no blood was shed. Gotta watch out for them there polagrizes...

4:00 PM  
Blogger Cheshire Cat said...

ROTFLMAO!!

Sorry, Nanuk. I was thinking the same thing as The Wrath of Dawn; why didn't he not take you at your word and check out the starter first, before doing all the other work?

Still, at least your truck will be fixed, your wife will be happy, and you will probably be out a bit of alcohol for the McCaliper. ;-)

5:06 PM  
Blogger marty said...

Usually checking the oil is enough of a mechanical event for me.

9:30 AM  
Blogger The Phosgene Kid said...

You should have just abandoned it and stolen another, that's what they do here in Phoenix.

12:24 AM  
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7:44 PM  

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