Adventures in Motoring, Part I



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Faulkner
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Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2004 6:59 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA
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Adventures in Motoring, Part I

Post by Faulkner »

So today I took Faulkner to Jersey, to get the headliner estimate. Backed out of the garage, pulled forward to make the cut into the alley, pushed reverse again...

Nada. Faulkner, he no go. This is familiar; I bet I'm low on transmission fluid... Pop the hood, check the dipstick, yup -- I'm a quart low again. Damn pan... Put some fluid back in, I'm back in business. Wait! What's that green fluid near the front of the mat?! Yup; I'm leaking antifreeze. My mechanic told me he pulled two of the exhaust manifold bolts to permatex them, I wonder if they're worse than before... Or, if I've sprung another leak. Oh, well -- no time for that now. But it occurs to me I've got both a rebuilt engine and rebuilt transmission, and for the life of me, I can't keep from springing holes in the dike.

So I'm waiting at the light by the famed Ben Franklin Bridge, and I'm paying particular attention to a peculiar noise I've heard ever since I've painted the dashboard, coming from under it:

"..........dink.........."

"..........dunk.........."

"..........dink.........."

"..........dunk.........."

Almost like a house radiator expanding as the heat comes on, but not quite. And then -- and I don't know why it occurred to me to do this -- I touched the housing of the windshield wipers to the metal lip of the underdash.

And the wipers immediately parked!

And the "dink...dunk" stopped!

Mystery solved. If your variable-speed wiper housing ain't grounded, your wipers ain't gonna park.

Dan
"If it's new, Plymouth's got it!"
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