Car Culture: Like Lining Up to Get Kicked in the Pubic Symphysis
I decided to drive CK to work on my way to campus to study diligently and take my Bio Lab Practical. Four blocks up the road, on the St John's bridge, I lost all power at anything greater than idle speed. I managed to make it home after dropping the wife at the bus stop. The truck was hopeless and I needed to get to class, so I bummed a ride from our neighbor.
The test went well, and I'll get the results Tuesday or so. Afterward, unable to hitch a ride back over the west hills, I had to take the Green Limousine (they aren't really green here, but they aren't green in Chicago anymore either). Normally it takes me 10 minutes to drive the 6 miles to class. Two buses, two trains, two missed transfers, 2 hours and 38 miles later I was home. I don't exagerate one bit. There is no direct bus from that campus over the West Hills to St John's, so I had to go alll the way around through the Sunset Highway tunnel to get home.
Tomorrow I get to fix the fuel system on Nancy. I wonder if Chevy was nice enough to put isolation valves on either side of the fuel filter for a drip free change out? I think we all know the answer to that, even without looking.
posted by nate @ 6:26 PM
4 Comments:
If it's flexible tubing, they're called "C-clamps." Not that I would really suggest doing such a thing to a fuel line, but I'm sure there are that have tried it.
I feel your pain with the public transportation issue. If I missed one of the UW/Tacoma express buses, I got to hop a downtown Seattle/Tacoma express and a bus between school and downtown - adding 30 minutes or more to 30 minutes of driving and an hour long bus ride. Not to mention the morning bus being so unreliable (including the accident) that it was more worthwhile for me to get up a half hour earlier to take the Sounder train instead (again a two hour total commute).
I'm sure you did much better on that exam than I will on my Sediment Transport take-home exam that I'll be turning in later today. Yuck.
They aren't flexible lines at that portion of the system, they're steel I think.
The whole transportation issue came about when we decided to build wide and flat instead of up, giving us suburban hell that doesn't lend itself to decent pub trans.
Irony: We moved to the suburbs because we valued our space, and now they're packing houses in tight enough to slap your neighbor in his bathroom from inside your own house. But its still not of sufficient density to serve many people from a single point as is desirable for mass transit. I'm of a mixed mind - I want to have at least an acre to my name, but I don't want to live more than 10 miles from where I work...
And the only place I can think of with flexible fuel lines on my car is where it wraps up from the bottom to the front of the block - then it's rigid up to the fuel rails. Just don't do what I did, and forget that it's a pressurized system (yours may not be). There's a 3 ft diameter spot in the parking lot at Nuke school in Charleston where the surface layer of asphalt was eaten away by such carelessness.
mmmmm sediment transport. Sounds like my work.
I dont have any car fixing tips but can sympathize on the lack of great public transport (at least yours is better). I still hate to drive but am hating it more and more. We need to live in better settings where we can walk to everything including work and school. Guess its up to me to start that commune....
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