Shyeah. Took the truck out this morning @ 1:30am to go get some Taco Bell. My mom said she wanted to drive it, so I let her. On the way over to Taco Bell, she killed it. (I have the idle set a little on the low side, so off-idle it sorta stumbles, and it'll die if you dunno how to wok the throttle JUUUST right.) So anyway...I've been having problems with the starter lately, and I knew it was in need of being shimmed. Well, guess tonight was just that night. When she killed it, she went to fire it back up, and all I heard was the starter going "WHIIIIIIR". So, I knew it had finally hit the wrong spot on the flexplate. So, I pushed it to the side of the road (luckily, by a RR track, so there was a big open space right there.) Just then a cop came by...it was a female officer, and she asked what was wrong, and I tried to start it to show her. Then she's all "Pop your hood." and I"m like "What? Why?" and she's all "Pop your hood!" So, RELUCTANTLY (I say that because I have NO smog equipment on my truck.) I went over and popped it. As she started walking over to my truck, she's all "Yeah, I used to have a C10 that would do this all the time." So I was like "OHHHH, ok." (With a huge sigh of relief) She tried turning the fan, to make the flexplate move. (Which I knew wouldn't work, because my belts aren't THAT tight.) So, I tried to start it again. Still nothing. So she called for a tow truck (We have AAA+, so we get free 100 mile+ tows, but we were only like A mile away from the house.) So, she leaves. Then as we're waiting for the tow truck, a guy with a 70 Chevy LB pulls up. (I was thinking like, WTF because his truck actually looked worse than mine!) So a guy jumps out and he's all "Sounds like your starter needs to be shimmed. Wanna try to get the flexplate to move?" And I'm like "Uhh, sure." So the guy reaches in his toolbox in the bed and pulls out a thing and he's all "Here, lemme try my flexplate turner." So HE gets under the truck (No way in hell I was getting under there, because I know better...with a lowered truck + HOT headers = NO NO.) and he moves the flexplate, and yells try it. So I tried it and it ALMOST started, but went back to spinning. So he goes back to his toolbox and get a ratchet and he's all "Lemme see if I can adjust the starter to get it to grab." Few seconds later, he gets out from under it and tells me to try it again. VOILA! It started. He even told me a neat trick for shimming the starter JUUUST right. It was pretty amazing that someone would just randomly pull over to help someone, especially @ 1:30am! I guess since he owned an old chevy truck aswell it's all good.
So, you know what I'll be doing all day 2moro. SHIMMING MY STARTER!
06-15-2003, 05:36 AM
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