It's not the fuel pump.

Posted by bronson Wed, 02 Nov 2005 17:50:00 GMT

12:30 pm Oct 31: stop at the Valencia Shell for gas.
12:35 pm: blow too many fuses trying to start the motor. Replacing the pump motor had appeared to fix the problem but apparently only for a week. Luckily - 1:00: Buy a new fuel pump. BP is in Valencia.
Stranded in Valencia, unpacking the car
(including gas welding rig) to access the pump.
3:00: replace fuel pump. Still blowing fuses. That must mean that the fault is between the fuse and the pump.
4:00: Wire fuel pump to the rear dome light. Yes! The fuel pump now works fine. Fuel rail pressurised. But the car still doesn’t start. There must be some other device critical to the engine hanging off that fuse. I need to replace it. Go buy more fuses from the Shell station.
5:00: Now everything is blown. The plastic on the new fuse has melted and bubbled but still flows current. Dawning realization that Shell has sold me a defective fuse. Something else in my electrical system is now blown instead of the fuse. That’s a show stopper. What a Halloween.

Darkness is falling. I need to be in Winters tomorrow. Despair!

5:30: Start calling around. U-Haul costs $360.00. That’s hard to justify, especially because I’ll be stranded in Winters at the end of it. The nearest minivan is in the Burbank Airport. I need to move all my stuff so a sedan just won’t do.
7:00: Enterprise has a truck! $70.00/day, unlimited mileage. Fantastic.
8:30: Visit Eve and Brennan for an hour.
9:30: leave Bakersfield for Tehachapi to grab the trailer.
10:30: There is a lock on the trailer (for good reason – there’s a crazy woman who wants to steal everything up here). But no key for the lock. So… Take the hitch apart. It was a stunningly beautiful night up there. Mountain breeze, stars everwhere.
11:30: All hooked up, time to leave.
Arriving in Bakersfield at first light.
1:30: Arrive in Valencia. The 3 hours of sleep I got the night before are beating me about the head. Pull into a parking lot and crash in the truck.
3:30: Wake up. Load the Rover onto the trailer. After struggling to use axle straps as a come-along, a guy shows up with a $50 portable winch. A few minutes later, the Rover is loaded. I gotta get me one of these.
4:30: Leave for Bakersfield.
5:30: Drop the Rover in front of Eve and Brennan’s.
11:00: Arrive in Winters. Now it’s time to start moving. Ouch. But, given the circumstances, the last 24 hours have gone pretty well.

Lessons:

The Coleman Cold Heat soldering tool sucks ass. It’s got no thermal mass. It can melt solder, but it can’t make it stick to anything. It’s about as effective a soldering iron as a cold monkey wrench. Save your $15.00.
The Silverado has a great engine but awful seats and suspension. Talk about swampy. I’m getting afraid that the SUV-addicted American car industry is going to have to learn the lessons from 1973 all over again.

Update: Added the photos.