Had quite the weekend with the ol girl, was quite excited to get it out and take it to dinner Friday night but it sure turned out to be Friday the 13th for me. Told my buddy it wouldn't take me to long since I got a battery ordered in to replace the one that went bad while sitting since they tried to give me a 700 CCA battery instead of the 850 I had it took a day longer than I wanted. Had already taken off the brace when I did the rad stuff. Well of course the new battery wouldn't properly drop down into the tray and the wires didn't want to reach the terminal well. So I move the battery half way up the tray and tie it down good so it won't move, after some tinkering the terminals seemed like they were locked down good and then run in to shower and head out cause I know my buddy is on a time frame to get back to give his dog its pills by 7.
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After dinner with a buddy and his wife, I figure I am going to cruise it around a little since it was supposed to be the only nice day of the weekend and possibly one of the last of the season. Since the fuel gauge hasn't been working right I decided to stop at Sam's Club to get some gas to be safe rather than sorry, first problem was a couple days prior I dropped my phone while loading out scrap and it luckly hit right beside the case cracking the screen. It worked for a day or so and then acted up, so had to switch to my old phone until they are able to get someone to come out to replace the screen. My old phone apparently can barely call or text cause it constantly loses signal and can't even open the play store to get apps. Which took me to my first problem of getting gas, I usually just use the app so don't worry about having the old expired card which wasn't much of a task to chase down the guy working there and have him scan me in. Once I am filled up I go to start the car and leave and she won't have any of that, so pop the trunk to hook up the jumper pack.
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The jumpers never really love hooking on to the terminals cause they are pretty large, so fight with that a bit and still no go. After a bit I realize now the negative terminal is loose from trying to get the jumpers to latch on. Go over to the guy working there to see if he has any tools cause the small set I have with the car doesn't have allen wrenches in it like I need to tighten the terminal. So have to run over to Sam's to go buy something to be able to tighten it, they have 2 sets of large tool kits and a small battery powered screw driver and bit set. Decided to go for the later so even though it is overpriced isn't as bad as the other 2, head to check out and realize again can't check out cause of the card. Go to the front desk and have to wait a while after back and forth trying to see what I can do about purchasing this so I can get the car away from their pump. Manager finally gives a code to be able to bypass and pay. Head back over and try to tighten the terminal for it to become clear that it had come loose because it won't tighten enough anymore but give it the best it had. So message my buddy I met for dinner to give him the good news of my luck, he calls me cause we had talked about working on the leak at the intake the day after if I can get the parts. Which I had planned on calling to see if they had that night before the night STARTED to fall apart. So while we are on the phone I reach in just to see if tightening it anymore would help, cranks and gets really close to starting but since I wasn't in the car to gas it dies just before. So get in and try again and she does turn over, get back out and pull the jump box off so I can scurry home as quick as I can.
After getting about 5 minutes down the road onto Streets Run which is a road that dances back and forth over train tracks multiple times once I get over the last of the tracks wouldn't you know that my foot goes to the floor with the gas pedal. Thinking I had a pretty good idea what it was I drift the car down to the opening a little where I can get a littler further off the road, pop the hood and see yup the throttle cable popped off and can only find the nut sitting on the intake. Now I am sitting in almost pitch black cause this spot has no lights. Once again this back up phone being the worst ever and not even able to have the flashlight feature which comes in to play obviously, so I call my buddy this time to have him guess what else could have come up on the ride home. He offers to come help and I say no thanks not yet I think I should have a zip tie lying around and can make that work. So get back to looking for it and no luck, find a couple of screws I have sitting in the center console and decide to try one of those in the smaller hole slightly back some, I was able to cross thread it on cause it is too low to get a straight shot at it and seemed to grab while tightening so was hoping it would be good enough. So hop in and put it into gear but it just won't work for me, it does move slightly just cause its in gear so I limp it down some to another clearing to mess with it some more cause that had a little more room and of course a car or 2 end up behind me but as luck would have it there was no signal there and wasn't able to get it any better. So give it another drifting shot and just keep going into oncoming lane down the road so it was easier to make the next bend and then find another spot. Still not able to get a signal to get back with my buddy who I was afraid was just going to come and start searching cause I told him where I was.
I am finally near some houses so decided I am going to knock on a door to see if I can get a zip tie to get this together enough to get up the 2 miles or so it is to get home. So I pass the first house cause it looks pretty dark as I am approaching the second I see a guy come out of the first so I go back to ask him. I start with this is a really weird question but do you happen to have a zip tie, he cracks up and says that is a pretty odd request but goes over to his truck and looks. Felt like I got lucky cause he did end up finding one that was a little bigger than I had been hoping but give it a shot and thank him a ton. Back to working in basically pitch dark cause the only help the phone will give me is by going to the texting part it is a white screen I turn towards where I am working and basically looking like this
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Well get it hooked the best I could come up with and give it a shot, at first it is very hard to push the gas and then next thing I know back to the floor again
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Go to send this pic to my buddy since I got signal again for a second thinking I will have to bite the bullet and take his help, but this never ends up sending at all. The guy that gave me the zip tie turned out to be a guy that graduated a few years ahead of me comes back out and gives me a little flash light to use and says this got to be better than using your phone. I said thanks a ton again and by chance you got any more zip ties, then he finds like 10 of them still all the same zip, but say I am def going to find a way to make it work. Give it one more shot and got lucky that it worked without breaking this time, so I get it together run over to the dude to give him his stuff back and say thanks one more time. I tried to give him some cash for his help but he wouldn't take it, so I message my buddy once the signal comes in for a second and tell him I think I'm good. Hop in the car and go, then try my best just to limp it without putting much pressure on it. I wanted to just leave it at just a bit of throttle even running the stop signs because I didn't want to let off and push again, but of course the last bit of drama was just anxiety to me that i got stuck behind someone going slow so had to let off and then back on luckily without any problems.
Got more to post about from the Saturday wrenching but I am tired of typing at this point
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