The road curved and twisted as I sped through it as fast I could. I needed to get to the chalet to meet the gang on time. The cars in my rear view mirror were getting smaller and smaller when my truck let out a small bang and began to sputter unevenly. I released the gas pedal and without hesitation, pulled the truck off the road onto some gravel.
I quickly got out of the truck and walked around to look for any signs of failure. None of the tires were flat so I started wondering if I blew a radiator hose or something like that. Looking underneath the truck and the ground which I drove over and back to the highway, I couldn't see anything leaking from my truck. I then got back into the truck and tried starting it again. It coughed and sputtered and was not able to idle without me having to give it some gas.
I pulled on the remote switch for the hood latch and popped it open. Scanning the engine compartment, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. No steam or sprayed liquid except for one thing, the number one spark plug was dangling in the air held by the spark plug wire assembly. I couldn't believe it. For the past two hours of driving, the spark plug had slowly been working itself free until there finally wasn't any more thread for the engine to hold onto. And all that time, I had not noticed any sort of change in the engines operation. I temporarily breathed a sigh of relief. This could be fixed if I had the proper tools and was way better than a blown gasket or tube.
I stood there wondering how I was going to fix it. I didn't have BCAA and I didn't want to call someone way back in vancouver or even squamish for a tow truck. Plus, now there was no way that I was going to make it in time to go mountain biking with my friends. I didn't have my spark plug socket wrench with me but instead, I thought of something else. I taped the one spark plug to the end of a smaller socket tool with some electrical tape. I had my small toolbox with me. The plug was not broken and could still be used. I inserted my makeshift socket tool with the plug into cylinder head and screwed it in until the tape was too weak to turn the plug against the engine. It was good enough. My fingers alone could not have held the plug as it was still really hot. I attached the spark plug wire back on and packed my small toolbox away. The hood fell down closed and I got in the truck.
With a turn of the key in the ignition, the engine came to life as normal. I waited for an opening before pulling back out onto the road. The road curved to the right and to the left before the first sifns of Whistler showed up. A large sign and some houses and buildings. I was surprised realizing that I was so close to Whistler and only ten minutes away from the chalet where my friends were. They were supposed to go riding around ten or eleven in the morning. It was now almost half past noon. When I found the place, some other people had also just gotten there as well. The people that were already there were still just getting up or eating breafast.
After I unloaded my luggage and gear, people finally started getting ready to go for the ride. It wasn't until two in the afternoon that we were on our way to the trailhead. Some people didn't ride and stayed at the chalet to keep an eye on the turkey. There was approximately twenty of us crammed into this one three bedroom chalet which we rented for the weekend. And tonight, we were going to have an after Thanksgiving turkey dinner in addition to celebrating three birthdays.
Next episode: A River Runs Through It.
Posted by LeanPorkLei at October 25, 2004 02:03 AM | TrackBack