| | I house sat for Nick and Elizabeth in Tampa this Memorial Day weekend while they absconded with the kids to Lake Placid for the annual Mullins family get together. My job was to watch, play with and feed the puppy: a 6 month old spaniel of some breed named Rufus. On the way to Tampa, I realized that the car was rapidly losing coolant again (a repeat of the incidents of last summer when I realized that coolant was seeping through an apparent crack in the head gasket into my oil pan.) I stopped twice on my way there to refill the radiator with water (it was disappearing so fast that after 20 minutes the car would be getting ready to overheat.)
When I got to Tampa I refilled it again, thinking it would be fine for driving up and down the street for food & whatnot. I was wrong. I made two trips to the shopping center directly behind the place where they live for donuts and pizza. On the second trip, I started the car to an awfully violent crank up. When I got out onto the road, I saw little wisps of the white smoke of death.
I managed to make it to Wal-Mart and back the next morning where I purchased a desperation can of K and W Permanent Metallic Block Seal (the stuff I used successfully last year to give the car another year of borrowed time.) The car made it through the 20 minutes of idling with the mixture in the radiator, but that would be the cars' last significant run time. After I shut the car down for the 24 hour dry time, I noticed that much of the mixture had ended up expelled somehow from the engine onto the ground beneath my passenger side wheel well. The car was not to move from that spot again. Yesterday, I refilled the radiator one last time and started the car up. The idle was rough, but the car idled nonetheless. I got out to inspect and found water dripping from the exhaust. About 3 minutes later, the car stalled, never to crank again. My last attempt ended in a dead click.
So now I've got to borrow mom's car and go on my lunch break to the tax collectors office. I couldn't find the title in the storage unit, so just to be rid of the car, I'll need to pay the $36 for a reprint so I can have Goodwill or a junkyard tow it away. Such is the end for this poor Spirit.
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| | Posted 5/26/2009 7:57 PM - 3 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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