Well, I'm kinda been MIA around here. My weekends have been somewhat time-consuming.
I was able to wash and wax (with a liquid clay bar) the truck. It's getting tougher and tougher to maintain the shiny coat. (Feeding the truck oats just doesn't seem to help.
) I also was able to change the oil and filters on the truck as well as lube the suspension joints and pack the wheels. Because of a questionable fuel delivery problem, I replaced the fuel filter and the fuel pump. Prior to replacing the fuel filter and the fuel pump, the truck hesitated once while heading down to the Rocky Mountain Street Rod Nationals a few weeks ago. The show was enjoyable as always with a few fresh rods. I can appreciate the creativity and work (and $$$) that they put into these rods. On my second outing a couple of weeks later, I was cruizing through Denver and, along the way, I caught up with a nicely-customized blue 80s Chevy with a silver semi-ghost flames that had been statically dropped. It was being trailer'ed. A sign of things to come... After stopping in Denver, the truck hesitated again. But, this time much worse. Suffice it to say, I ended up leaving it in Denver and trailer'ed it back home after the weekend was over. I was heading down to a memorial among a few other activities. One of those activities was a rafting trip down the Arkansas river. It was my first time rafting. Coincidently, on the morning of the rafting trip, I was shown an article in the local newspaper of someone slipping off of a rock and falling into the Arkansas river the night before. A sign of things to come... Unfortuately, I don't know if they found him yet. We started the rafting trip hitting a couple of short rapids. It wasn't bad at all. But, the thought was a bit premature. We hit the first rapid of Three Rock Falls very hard. I then realized that I wasn't locked in place. (They had me on the lead paddle.) Well, I ended up going down the class IV minus rapids of Three Rock Falls in my PFD (personal floatation device) instead of in the raft. Aside from a few bumps and bruises from the river rocks and boulders, I made it back into the raft. Fortunately, the rest of the rafting trip wasn't quite as eventful, but exciting none the less. I'd like to try Three Rock Falls again, but this time in the raft.
The following weekend, I was invited to go 'rock' climbing at Three Sisters (large granite outcroppings). Since they didn't use equipment, I figured it was more like rock hiking. But, come to find out it wasn't. It was a combination of rock hiking and climbing only at a smaller scale. But, it was still very challenging. I managed to stay upright throughout the course.
Then, the last weekend I headed down to work at the annual festival... grilling corn. Yup, grilling corn manually in front of a large 8-burner grille in 106* temperature. At least, we were under a shade tent. But, it was all for a good cause. We ended up grilling peaches and cream corn... or as one of the senior lady customers said "peaches and sugar". I don't think we did as well as last year, but the increase in price probably offset the sales. I have a year to get ready for the next one. BTW,
Slonaker, the corn was very tasty.
Well, it turns out that the gasket on the base of the carburetor has a hairline crack in it and would expand as the temperature increased, causing a vacuum leak and the probable hesitation. The rotor and cap was also replaced. I have a few other things to do to it like replacing the trans gasket and replacing the valve cover gasket on the driver side. As much as I dread using adhesives on valve covers, I'm going to have to resort to using some this time around. I've tried both rubber and cork gaskets with not much luck. The truck just hit the quarter-century mark, so it'll be all 'down'
hill from here (or near future) on out...