This week, Gayla and I had a longer trip to St. Louis than we anticipated. I work with The Band Special 20 from time to time and they were appearing on Fox 2 News on Wednesday morning. Gayla and I decided to head up from Springfield to St. Louis on Tuesday afternoon so we could visit family and only have a short distance to drive Wednesday morning.
Well, our trip took a bit longer than anticipated. The van we were driving started cutting out before we got to the half way point. We were pretty worried that we wouldn’t make it. We arrived in Rolla and went straight to O’Reilly Auto Parts store. The check engine light was on. Luckily in older vans, all I have to do is cycle the key on and off to retrieve the error codes. Turned out the EGR valve seemed to be faulty. I went into O’Reilly to price one out and once I recovered from falling over from shock, they told me they’d have to order it. I took the cheap way out and bought $2.99 carb/choke cleaner. When I got the EGR valve off, it is a wonder the van even got us as far as it did. It was built up with so much carbon in it that you couldn’t stick a pin in it. Wesley,from Special 20 happened to stop by to help out.
It took me about an hour to clean up the valve and hook it back up, then we were back on the road. The van sputtered a few times, but we thought we were in the clear. Then…more sputtering and the check engine AND battery lights came on. I had the feeling the alternator went out too, but since it was daylight we pressed on. To top it off, we had a bit of a scare with the brakes. We just had them replaced on Monday. They just weren’t acting right. When I’d brake, it was pulling to the left. I’m thinking the repair shop didn’t bleed the brakes properly. I really didn’t want to drive all the way to St. Louis, but I spared Gayla from having to deal with it.
We finally limped into St. Louis and arrived at Gayla’s aunt and uncle’s house. I was able to test the alternator and I was correct. It was bad. We decided not to worry about it until the next day.
Wednesday was TV day. We borrowed Gayla’s aunt’s van and were on our way over to the TV station. There was no way that I was going to drive. I hate city traffic. Gayla did a fine job, I simply had to be navigator. That is pretty easy when I simply repeat what the GPS says. Traffic went better than anticipated (probably because I wasn’t driving) and we got to the station early.
We met up with the rest of the band and hung around for about an hour or so before they took us back to the little room where we could set up and play. It was faster than a bee sting. Over before we knew it. We had a good time and met some great people. It’s a good thing Gayla took so many pictures during the short time we were there, they last longer.
We left there and were back at our family’s house by lunch time. It was time to do the dreaded alternator job. It seems the engineers built the van around the alternator. Not fun to get out. It was certainly not fun trying to get it back in there. Four hours under the hood, hands and arms black, the radiator cap in my stomach and my arms bruised from leaning on them for so long reminds me why I stopped auto repair as a living. I’m going to stick to photography, design work and music.
When all was said and done, everything seems to be fixed now. At least all but the brakes. We’ll be returning those to the repair shop to fix what they started. About five hours later than we had originally planned, we were on our way back to Springfield. Finally, an uneventful drive.
So, between music and car repair…I pick music. I’ve included a few pictures of the day, more of the fun stuff instead of the dirty work. Hope you enjoy.
