good news #2: our car works again! turns out the spark plugs were all black (they should be silver in colour) and that's why the car wasn't starting. we thought the turbo was tuned to higher temperatures, and it is, but that wasn't the reason for the car never starting on the first try... or at all last week. so 4 spark plugs and $20 later, we have a fully functional car that even starts on the first pull. this is big! so goodbye little fire engine. you served us well.
good news #3: i used my weekend well. friday night we caught up on all the tv we had missed last week. i went out every night last week so didn't get a chance to watch anything. 24, prison break, others... it was nice. i maybe even rewarded my tv watching with some ice cream.
saturday we bought the spark plugs (see #2 above) and went to bayshore to spend the gift certificate i had. it took a while, about a million stores, lunch with matt and julie who we randomly ran into, and then we finally went into benix and co., a house store and went wild!
we went over to matt and julie's place and played games. again, cranium pop5 was a hit. j and julie kicked our butts.
sunday was like an extra weekend day. we were so pleased to have the car working again that we took it out around town. i got some underwear (too much information?) and some flashlights for our trip. i also found some black shoes for work (thank you, zellers) but didn't manage to find a purse. i'm not a purse girl, but i'm trying to be. any tips?
the cats were being so cute and i couldn't help but take their picture over and over and over.
and to top it all off, i had a baseball meeting. i froze through the whole thing, but it was fun. and now i know what i'm doing this summer.
countdown:
house - tomorrow!
moving - saturday!
costa rica - 18 days!
4 comments:
busy busy busy!
Don't forget to take pictures as you're moving. We have about 3 pictures in total between the time we started packing and the time we had everything (nearly) in their right spots, and I wish we had more for some reason.
and also, here's a link: http://www.spark-plugs.co.uk/pages/technical/diagnosis.htm
although you (or j) probably know this stuff already. Black plugs don't happen overnight. I'd spend some time tweaking the fuel/air mix I think. Possible side effect: better fuel mileage!
aieee!
yeah everything!
oh yeah, j thinks that since the car is running rich (due to the turbo being tuned for warmer weather) the spark plugs have been collecting carbon for months (well, almost a year really) and that the reason the car hasn't been starting first pull for the past couple of months is because of the goop on the plugs.
now that it's running again we can hook up the laptop and play around with the air to fuel ratio and (hopefully) improve the gas mileage.
it was just nice that it was a pretty cheap fix: $50 for the rental fire truck and $20 for the spark plugs.
I wish I had a car that I could hook my computer to. That's, like, uber cool.
And I'd say J is right on in his assessment. A good couple of months of running rich (say, since the chilly weather arrived) will foul the best of plugs. And it really does help to ... exercise... the plugs occasionally. Get everything nice and hot, and get that turbo spinning. Short, cold trips and idling around the city is bad for plugs unless you've got your mixture bang-on and even then.... much better to get regular exercise. And more fun.
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