Stranded

I exited work today and climbed into my 1991 Isuzu Trooper. It's tan, a 5spd., with 163,000 miles on it. All in all, it runs pretty good. I received it 2 years ago with a blown engine, and $300 later had a new engine in it and had it on the road again.

So I put the key in, turn the ignition, and nothing happens. Crap.

I called up my dad, and luckily he was in the area. He came to me in the parking lot outside of the office building, and confirmed my thoughts - "bad starter."

So... because the truck has a manual transmission, it was possible to start it by getting it moving and then popping the clutch. This is exactly what we did. I put it in 2nd gear, pushed the clutch in, and my dad pulled behind me in his pickup truck. He pushed me around the parking lot until I picked up enough speed.. then I popped the clutch.

The clutch chirped pretty good (reverse torque, clutches aren't made to go that way), but the engine came to life. I drove the truck home to my garage, pulled it in, and immeditaely got it up on the lift. The lift was leftover from a local garage who got a new one installed. I picked it up for only $1200... not a bad deal at all.

The plan for tonight: Eat leftover spaghetti, rip the starter out, then try to find a working used starter in a local junkyard. If I can find one, I'll even put it in tonight.. but I think I'm going to have to send it out to get rebuilt tomorrow.

Luckily, I have another vehicle. It's my Race/Show car (2002 Pontiac FireHawk #133), but it never sees the rain.. and they want rain all week. I'm not anal about driving my Trans Am in the rain, but it doesn't have good street tires on it. I go to the drag strip alot, and run around on Nitto Drag Radials (a decent compromise between solid traction at the track and being street legal), which have VERY bad wet traction. The car has traction control, but 550 horsepower and traction control are virtually oxymorons.

Hopefully I can fix the "super trooper" tonight and keep my baby under her cover in the garage, away from the bad weather coming this way...

Woohoo! Another night without programming. I think I'm on a roll!