Truck and Girl

Sunday, July 30, 2006

This needs to work.

Turns out if you leave a car sitting around for a while, the starter is often the first thing to deteriorate. Actually, I totally made that up. It was true in the case of my Bronco II.

When I went out to meet the dude who drove my truck on the back of his truck from Southern California, he was able to start the truck once, but then it conked out. I had it towed (eventually) to the Firestone on Mission. I asked them to perform a mechanical inspection (tires, brakes etc) as well as an electrical inspection (since I knew that there was an issue with the starter, because the chap who'd towed the truck told me as much).

I got a call during the operation from Donnie (turns out he's nice). He said they couldn't complete the electrical check because there was a short somewhere in the starter system (above). Not really understanding, I agreed to the additional cost. (Hate that!)

Anyway, in the end, the truck needed a new battery, a new ignition switch and a new starter relay.

Thinking all was well, I drove off. First stop was the car wash. That was fun. Pay $3 and get a high-pressure squirter thingy for 5 minutes. I started the truck again to leave, and a horrid noise came from the engine. I wondered if I had dislodged something with the force of the water, but no... I headed straight back to the garage.

As I entered, Donnie and his 3 or 4 chaps approached the whirring, smoking car they'd just fixed. Opening up the hood, we saw that the motor was running about as fast as it could, and turning off the ignition had no effect.

What does happen if a car sits too long is that the solenoid degrades and may fuse. If that happens, the starter circuit remains closed (I think), and turning off the ignition switch doesn't stop the engine anymore.