The root of all evil

We finally found the root of the truck problems. To make a very long, and somewhat boring, story short it was the fuel pump.

While the fuel pump was suspected early on, it was ruled out by just about every mechanic who laid hands on the truck. In fact, I think they all suspected the fuel pump as a possible cause, but upon further questioning, it was ruled that it could not be the fuel pump.

The reason it was ruled out is that the truck would maintain speed when you got it up to speed on the highway. Even though it was rough to get going sometimes, and sometimes top speed was only 40 MPH, it was always able to maintain that speed…until Saturday.

While changing the timing chain and a few sensors that mechanics said were probably the cause, I even did the “bang on the tank while the truck is running” trick. The idea is that if it is your fuel pump and you bang on the tank while it is running rough, that shock may kick the fuel pump into action. Though the test does not rule out the fuel pump as the problem, if it does run better, it is almost assuredly a fuel pump problem.

I have changed sensors and timing chain (which desperately needed it anyway) and reset the timing and checked all the vacuum hoses and replaced the gasket in the glove box. But because the truck was not showing some classic fuel pump symptoms, it was determined that it was probably a computer problem. The reason that was suspected is that each time you started the truck, you would get a whole new set of symptoms. If it ran poorly after a restart, then starting it again may give you better results. That certainly did not indicate fuel pump.

Then there was Saturday. This was the day the transmission had been rebuilt. We got back on the road to make it the last couple of hours to the border. I could not hold highway speed. The 1 hour 20 minute trip took 3 hours. Most of the time we were cruising along between 40 and 45 MPH. Not fun. Every time we slowed down the truck would die. Each time you hit a speed bump. Every town that you had to go through. It was fun restarting the truck several times while waiting in line to cross the border into Texas.

As soon as we got across the border we headed straight to the place we are staying. We pulled in and that is when the truck would no longer start. The fuel pump completely died. It no longer kicked in when the key was turned on.

1300 miles and 2 weeks traveling, it at least waited until we pulled into our destination of a few days before it gave up the ghost.

I borrowed** a bicycle and made a few 10 mile round trips to the parts store to get the truck going again. We called a church that we had visited before and they sent someone to give us a ride for church Sunday.

Monday morning we borrowed** some gas cans from the same place where the bicycle came from to empty the 20 gallons of gas that was still in the tank. There ended up being another 10 gallons in the tank that we were unable to get out because we did not have enough cans.

My wife is becoming a pretty good mechanic’s helper. Also, since we did not want to risk blowing up the house we were staying in if something went wrong, she did a good job of helping me push the Suburban to a less damaging location if something went BOOM. (BTW, 9 year old boys are not real helpful when trying to push a Suburban.)

**Listen to the upcoming episode of the podcast to hear where the bike and gas cans came from.

Book Review: Duel in the Sun

I had seen this book last summer when it was new. Since I knew nothing about Dick Beardsley nor Alberto Salazar, I was not really interested in reading it. When I heard about the book through a recent episode of Phedippidations, I really wanted to read the book.

I picked it up last month on my trip to California. Unusual for me, I paid full price for the book at Borders Books.

One of my joys in reading a book is to read it to those around me. Most of the time my wife just endures the book along with me. This time though it interested her in reading the book herself. It could also have to do with the fact that we started on a 3 week trip and she did not have a book to read of her own. Our reading tastes are so different that the only time we read the same book as the other is when we are reading books to our kids. However, she picked up this book and enjoyed it as much as I did.

While the book was well written most of the time, I had a couple of complaints about it. There were times when the author was writing about one of the runners, but the description really seemed like he must be talking about the other. I could not fit those two sections into the full story properly in my mind. I finally decided that there was either poor editing going on and something got moved to the wrong spot, or that I just was not following the story as closely as I should have.

The book jumps from the ’82 Boston Marathon to the lives of the two runners both before and after the race. While I did not have a problem with the concept, I did have some trouble following the time line. It would have been a great help if the author had included a few year numbers in the text. Many times he would say things like “three years later…”, but you would have to go back several pages to find out when the current events were taking place so that you could add the three years. Sometimes I was not sure if the events in the story were before or after the marathon.

I also did not like the use of profanity. I have complained about this in many reviews through the years as I have read books and write about them. The argument has always been “Well, people really talk that way.” While I dislike it, I do agree that there are some people who talk that way. Unfortunately that is becoming more and more common. But this book went too far in my opinion. Not only was the cursing included in the dialog, but it was part of the descriptive text as well.

Finally, I thought the book was very unsatisfying. I finished the book feeling like there was much more to the story. Had the story just been about the marathon, then there would be a specific conclusion to the events. But the book was more about the lives of the runners themselves, then we don’t know what the conclusion is or will be. I would have been much more interested in the book had it just been about the race.

As a whole the book was very interesting but dissatisfying. I now know about the lives of the two protagonists, about which I knew nothing before. I don’t feel I learned much about the race though. In fact, the book never says directly who won. It only tells you who did not lose. Also, the official time of the “one who did not lose” was never stated, only that he was 2 seconds faster than the one who did not win.

If Border’s had a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee on their books, I would be glad to return this one and get my money back. It was not a horrible book, but I was not completely satisfied either.

Duel in the Sun, John Brant, 2006 Rodale Press. 203 pages.

Transmission Rebuild

We have had a constant problem with our truck, which I will detail in another post. The one thing that has never given us a hint of trouble is our transmission. It never shifted too smoothly from 3rd to 2nd when in Drive (shifts perfectly in Over Drive), but that has been the only thing I have ever noticed from it.

We had just left camp and were headed up to the border to do some shopping when I became quite sleepy. I asked my wife to drive and I would try to get a 15 minute nap. The truck was running rough, but was at least drivable.

She took over and I zonked out quickly. I had been asleep about 30 minutes when I sensed something was wrong. My wife puts off some serious tension in the air when she is stressed while driving. I almost always know when she feels pinned in between concrete barriers or other vehicles. She does not have to say anything, but I wake up.

This was one of those moments. She had been driving and slowed down for a rough spot in the road. As soon as she got through that area the truck lost forward propulsion. That was not strange since we have been having power issues with the engine. But this was different. The engine was running, but the transmission was not engaging.

She pulled us over to the side of the road as much as possible between two hills. A bit of testing showed me that it was definitely the transmission. Strange thing was that we still had reverse.

These things rarely happen where you have cell phone service.

Three hours later I was finally able to flag someone down and he helped us back up (without getting hit) to a spot where we could pull the truck totally off the road. He then took us to a gas station about 30 minutes away.

The gas station is strategically located at the crossroad of 2 major highways. Because of this, there is almost always a federal police officer waiting to catch speeders. While I am skeptical of the police in this particular area, I have never had a problem getting information out of them. They ended up calling a tow truck and getting a price quote for me.

From the time we broke down until we were settled into a hotel was about 7 hours. And our pockets were almost $200 lighter.

The tow truck driver picked the Suburban and me up the next morning and took us to a transmission shop he recommended. He did not charge me for this little jaunt across town. Very kind man.

From the time I arrived with the truck until they were delivering it back to me at the hotel was less than 4 hours!

I watched them tear the transmission apart to see what the problem was. The planetary gears were shattered. It was quite interesting to see the assembly with all the cracks and broken metal off of it. They replaced the broken parts and put new seals/gaskets in the tranny and had us back on the road. It cost less than $300 for the operation.

Fortunately for us that it died on the Mexican side of the border. While parts are more expensive there, labor is much less expensive. Had we had the same malady happen on the US side of the border, I have been told it would have cost us between $750 and $1200.

We made the rest of the trip into Texas without incident. Though we arrived a day later than expected, we finally made it.

Running report

I have not been able to get on line enough to update my running log. I think I ended up taking about a 12 day break with no running. However, I was able to run once in Tampico when I got to where we were getting ready for camp. I have run in Tampico before. I was able to find a nice route and ran about 3 miles. When I came home from my run my wife met me at the door and laughed at all the bugs that were stuck to my face.

I also ran at camp on Tuesday. I had two other fellows run with me. One used to be a runner, but has not run in a few years. The other was a soccer player, but was not used to endurance running. We ran about 4 miles. The former runner stayed with me and pushed the pace a bit. But his lack of fitness caught up to him in the end and he requested walk breaks. It was an out and back course, so we picked up the soccer player on our way back. I won the sprint at the end of the run.

What was fun about that run is that we were on a dirt road the whole time. But when we left the dorm room it was dark. Dark. There were street lights about 2 kilometers from where we started running. I knew the road was straight and the lights were on the right side of the road. We just ran straight towards the lights and tried to keep them a bit to our right. As far as I know, none of us stepped off the road. When we got to the section with the lights we were thankful for them. There were many potholes and mud puddles around the lights. I am sure they were all over the road, but we never fell in one.
It rained the rest of the week and therefore did not run since the only option was the muddy road.

Our first morning in Texas, I was able to go out for a run. I ran about 3 miles again. I got to run through an orange grove. That was fun. A bit of trail running. When I got to the back of the grove I turned the corner and was staring at the farmers house. I did not know there was a house back there. I ducked back down a row and made my way out of there. I am not sure what he would have thought if he saw me running through his yard at 7:00 on a Sunday morning.

Camp Week

We were in camp July 16 through 21. Here is a quick breakdown of each days highlights.

Monday
We started camp without too many problems. Most all of the campers arrived that afternoon/evening. Because the camp was near the big town of Tampico, many people came into the city and we provided rides for them out to the camp. This meant that everyone with vehicles piled in as many as they could. There were 50 of us in 5 vehicles. I had the largest with a Suburban and then we went down to 2 small Nissan pick-up trucks. But we made it.

The biggest excitement of the day was when the evening service was over and my wife went to get our daughter out of the children’s class, but she was not there. No one even knew she was gone until my wife started asking about where she was. Apparently she had slipped off about 10 minutes before the class was over. Panic ensued. There is a swimming pool and a lake with a sloped bank just outside of the children’s class and before you get to the dorms. My wife found our daughter in the dorm room by herself.

One of our speakers was not able to make it until Tuesday afternoon. His wife was to teach the “low verbal” class. This class is for those who do not know signs well. Some would be because of retardation while others just simply have not learned signs and therefore would not understand well in the main service.

Tuesday
That was the first full day of camp. I found out that the service I had scheduled myself to speak in which was to be 1 hour long was not long enough. We had a full song service with a choir special and a biblical drama. That cut my teaching time to about 25 minutes. I worked the rest of the week to shorten the pre-teaching activities but was never able to free up more than 35 minutes for myself. I had planned to teach for the vast majority of the hour.

We also got to go horse back riding that day. Like the swimming, I chose to sit that activity out. Not that I dislike horses or swimming, I just had so many other things to be working on as director.

Wednesday
This was the day I learned one of the privileges of being me. I had been waiting at the meal times until all the campers had gone through the food line before I went and stood in line. This was not out of kindness, but laziness. I would rather sit at the table and talk with my wife than stand in line. The cooks noticed this and started bringing me food while the ladies were still in line waiting for theirs.

Director’s position has privileges along with the responsibilities.

Thursday
By this time we had gotten used to our daughter slipping off to the dorm room. Only one person passed out due to heat exhaustion. I slept through lunch to be able to get a longer nap in that day since I knew that getting people to bed on the last night of camp would be more of a challenge.

During the evening service I was in another class teaching the “low verbals” and I missed the preaching of the main service. The preacher is a pastor from Colima (near Guadalajara). I do not know him well and was really looking forward to seeing him preach. By the time I got out of my class, they were already into the invitation for the main service. Apparently God used Alex and touched hearts in a great way. It was the largest response from the campers.

There were only slight problems getting everyone to bed. I finally went to sleep about 30 minutes after “lights out.” I didn’t think that was too bad.

Friday
We got an early breakfast and started cleaning the camp. Because of my years of experience as the final inspector on Saturday clean up crews at the other camp where I worked, I have learned to be heartless in getting people to clean. But trying to rally a bunch of Deaf to do a general task is not as easy as with the hearing. When everyone is ready to go, you have to get in people’s faces as individuals to tell them what work needs to be done.

I was satisfied after a while and then we had to call the camp manager over to do an inspection. While she worked with my wife to put the final polish on the dorms, I was finishing up the final details to get everyone on the road.

Final results
We had 93 campers. We are not sure if the number of salvations was 3 or 4. I should know when I get back in Mexican cell phone range and I can text message one of the pastors. No fist fights. As far as I know there were no “stupid Jr. problems.” That is what I call petty arguments that people get involved in when they act like 8-12 year olds.

It was a wonderful week from my perspective.