Stephen H. Long Trail 1819 — 1820

Day 39: October 1st, 2008 Pittsburgh (Car Work)

Today I slept pretty well. Around half past seven I get up and make myself ready. Around nine I drive over to Wal–Mart and get a fuel stabilizer, a bottle of oil and screws to fix my trolley. Then I quickly drive over to Pep Boys to buy a new oil drain plug. I take a regular one and a piggy pack version.

Then I drive back to Helen and put on my working cloths. After this I drive over to David. Because the engine oil is still pretty hot I decide to wait a bit and fix my trolley first. This works better than expected with these screws. The support is again dead certain strong.

Then I start working on the oil drain plug. I put all necessary wrenches within reach to be able to screw in the new oil drain plug as fast as possible — at least this was the plan. After I am completely soaked in oil I must realize to give up on this idea. The oil must be completely drained. The new plug does not bite. Not before using a file the plug eventually starts to hold on. After screwing in the plug multiple times in and out I must realize that the threads at the beginning are almost gone. Hopefully this will seal now. Seems like I will screw in the other plug next year.

All this already costs me several hours. Therefore I am definitely not in the mood anymore to search for my vacuum leak. So I only looked for the actuators to locate them. There is one on the driver side close to the transmission tunnel. This is a spot which I can reach easily and which I will try first. Then there must be another one on the side, probably on the passenger side behind the side cover. Maybe I will be able to finally fix this next year.

Also the rust is starting to worry me. Back where the exhaust pipe ends the whole rear must be done. Also both doors are rusted through at the bottom. But for now I just change my tires. David stopped by in the meantime and was able to help me out with a bottle of motor oil, because I haven’t had enough anymore. The tires are then changed rather quickly.

Then the fight of putting everything in the car starts. The Hi–Lift must be moved in front of the rear bench and also all the other stuff, that is sitting behind. Then I am able to squeeze my tires in. Well fitted this way I drive back home. There I first remove all the stuff in my cooler and put the rest in the house which is still laying around in the car.

Now it’s time to take a shower to get rid of all the motor oil. After this I definitely feel way better. Now it’s time to collect all the stuff together which will stay in the car like deodorant and several other things. This keeps me again busy for a while. Helen has already started her dinner in the meantime. Unfortunately, I am not able to convince her to join me for dinner at Lone Star. But I would like to be with people again. This is now the second to last time that I am able to have dinner before I am back home.

After everything is fitted in my truck I write again my diary. When I am writing the part where I change my tires, I remember panic–fueled that I have forgotten to retighten the tire screws! So I immediately go outside and indeed, some screws are already very loose. This has never happened to me before!

After I recovered from this shock I finish writing my diary. Around half past seven I have finished this task and I leave for my dinner at Lone Star. There I receive the same server as yesterday. But today the service is way better. Around nine I pay and drive back home.

There I sort all my pictures in Nikon Raw and JPEG pictures. Then I delete all the JPEG pictures which are completely unusable. But these are way less than originally expected. Around eleven I go to bed.