We woke early thanks to a 7:30am alarm. Debbie had warned us that her cleaning ladies would be tearing the house apart at 8am so we had to up and about so we could be out of the way. Just as they got started we left the house to go out for breakfast on Debbie’s suggestion. Debbie had to drop her two dogs off at a play date so we drove separately. Seeing an opportunity for a test drive, we took my car, after trying to put the busted PCV hose back on. Dan insisted on helping and ended up breaking the elbow join that I’d already cracked. We gave up soon enough and just left the hose sitting in the engine bay. It didn’t make any change to the engine running except for a loud vacuum noise.

We got to Denny’s around the corner just after Debbie. When I saw her text asking where we were, I assumed she was already inside so told her we were broken down on the side of the road. Maybe a bad joke, she was sitting outside in her car, I quickly assured her we were inside. She met us and soon we were seated in a booth amongst overweight Americans. It was my first time at the American chain and it was nothing I didn’t expect. The smoothie I ordered was like a sweet cup of milk and the food was dirty but good.

By the time we were done it was time to get back to the house and meet the cleaners and for me to get started on another day with the car. I’d decided to scrap the sensors, vacuum and emissions systems I’d been chasing. Something that’s not mentioned in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” is that there’s such a thing as gut feeling. Yesterday I got the feeling that I was chasing my tail and truth is, I absolutely was. I explained my plan to do a complete inspection of the fuel system from where it flows from the fuel tank into the injectors. Dan helped me jack the back of the car up and position it on jack stands – a luxury I wasn’t afforded in Hanksville when I’d been through this process by myself. He left me to it then. He’d had a shit sleep and needed to go in for a nap.

I removed the fuel filter from underneath the car and in pouring the fuel into a clear container I found the fuel looked pretty clean and free of debris apart from the dirt from the bracket that fell into the container. I set the filter aside and got to work taking off all the fuel tank connections. It was familiar work but that didn’t make it any easier. I must have wrestled with the filler pipe for a good ten minutes before I finally muscled it off. I was happy with the amount of fuel that ended up on me, I think I made less of a mess than last time. Good thing too since I was in my host’s garage.

Dan came out to the garage to see how I was doing just as I was ready to drop the tank. Using his trolley jack, much better than the scissor jack I’d used the last time, we supported the tank with the jack then loosened and removed the two housing straps. The tank was balanced enough, but it was a shame it had five gallons of petrol in it. The two of us guided it to the ground without spilling a single drop. We tried not to let the smell of petrol get to out heads.

Eventually we got the 25 gallon tank on the ground but now we had to get it out from under the car and it wasn’t quite high enough. A lot of mucking around with the jack and the stands to get them as high as possible and with everything at the highest they could possibly be, I managed to slide the tank out with only a centimetre to spare.

Feeling pretty stupid, I pulled the fuel pump out hoping to see an obvious problem stare me in the face but I saw no such thing. Apart from a bit of shit in the strainer and a generous spread of shit sitting in the bottom of the tank, I saw nothing wrong with the pump. Now for the fun bit. In order to get the tank back in, we had to drain it. No 12V pump like last time so we picked up the tank, Dan at one end, me at the other, and poured petrol out of the filler neck into his jerry can. It was heavy and awkward thanks to the baffles inside the tank but we eventually filled the jerry. We could still feel plenty of fuel inside the tank so next we turned the tank upside down and poured fuel out of the fuel pump hole. Surprisingly most of the fuel went into the jerry can and not all over the dirt.

With the tank empty, I got my arm into the tank with a rag and cleaned up the bits of sediment as best I could. Thanks to the crap in the strainer, I wanted to put a new one on so Dan drove me over to O’Reillys. The heat hadn’t improved any and when we got to the carpark, we smelt the distinct smell of coolant. “Someone’s having coolant troubles!” we said. The same guy that helped me last night saw me and aske dif I was back for more. I explained I wanted a new strainer and he approved. I got a new one for $8 and I was set. Back outside, I noticed Dan’s car was dripping what looked like coolant. Whoops, looked like it was us that had the coolant issues. It was dripping something fierce too. Dan got underneath on the hot tarmac and I opened the bonnet, both of us trying to spot the leak. After a splash of hot coolant in the face, Dan joined me in the engine bay and he spotted the pinhole leak in one of his hoses that was sprayed a fine needle of coolant all over the place. By the time he saw it, it was almost nothing so he was lucky to have seen it. We thought about getting a new hose while we were at O’Reillys, but it was a prick to get to and the leak was near the end of the hose so we figured we’d be able to cut the hose and reattach it to the tap at the engine block. It wasn’t leaking by the time we got home so that was a bonus.

I put the new strainer and pump into the tank and closed everything up. I had half a mind to replace the sending unit as well because I am determined to never again touch the fuel tank on this car and drop it to the ground. Dan helped me manoeuvre the tank underneath the car, back onto the jack and reattach it to the car. We managed to limit the amount of shit that went into our eyes in the process and we had an easy enough time reattaching all the fuel and vacuum hoses.

Tank in, I needed ten gallons of clean petrol to put in the tank before turning the car on. Since we only had a single five gallon jerry can at our disposal, it would mean two trips to the servo. We emptied the fuel from the jerry can into Dan’s tank and he drove us down the road to the closest servo. He demanded ice cream for his services which I happily paid. I decided to get the best stuff available in premium fuel, something the Astro had probably never tasted in her life. We took that jerry home and poured it into the tank.

To get the second jerry can full, we decided to make the most out of the trip and head over to discount tire to replace Dan’s punctured Mexican tyre. They’d forgotten to call him but had the tire in stock ready to be put on. Once there, they told us it would be over an hour so we wandered the shopping complex as we’d done a month ago when he got his first new tyre. We ended up at the go kart place because it had a bar and Dan thought maybe a pool table. We got some ice waters and sat down on the couches anyway, totally freewheeling the establishment. We hung out a good half hour watching the different work and friend groups go racing and play miniature bowling until Dan got a beer. Once he’d finished that, it was an hour later so we wandered back to Discount Tire. The van hadn’t moved so we sat in the waiting room and read all the sex sections in the Cosmopolitan magazine they had there.

When the car was done, a man came out into the waiting room announcing “Mr. and Mrs. Gooding?!” He he, we looked at each other, then said, “Yep! That’s us!” We got the car and drove away. We stopped at a servo for another jerry can of premium fuel then went to Autozone. While at the tyre shop, I’d been messaging Dad and he’d convinced me that I should replace the fuel filter, even though it had only been in place for 500 miles or so. I heeded his advice and forked out the $15 for a brand newie. He also convinced me that I should check the fuel line between the injectors and filter for blockages. I knew I should have done so, but didn’t want to faff around disconnecting the fuel line from the injector assembly again, but Dad was convincing.

Once we got home, we put the fuel into the tank, I installed the new filter, keeping the one I took off as a spare and I disconnected the fuel line from the injector assembly. I employed Dan as help to get under the car to see if there was any blockage in the line when I blew on it from the engine bay. The first attempt resulted in him getting petrol right in his eyes when it sprayed out of the line. Whoops. We rushed into the bathroom, navigating around Emmi who was over for the night, and I held Dan’s hair back while he gave his eyes a good wash. One more attempt later and he confirmed there was no shit coming out of the fuel line and no apparent blockage. Right, that was all I could do then.

I primed the fuel system by turning the key on and off a few times, listening to the fuel pump through the filler pipe and hearing it whir away as it should. A few key cycles later, I turned the key and she started first go, no problems. I’d talked about taking her for a test drive, but it was late and I was hungry for dinner and a dip in the pool. We dropped the car off the stands back onto the floor and I did a quick clean up before we retreated inside for the day.

Emmi was excited to see me and we were immediately out into the pool to play. We did more standing on shoulders and threw the new beach balls around the place. When Dan brought my dinner out of a salad sandwich, I retired to one of the lounge chairs by the pool while Emmi continued to splash around. The dinner was perfect and the outside temperature just as good, it was nice to just sit by the pool and relax. Emmi was having none of that though, I got in for one last play before I could sit by the pool again. Debbie brought out a present for me then. Dan had warned me she’d wrapped something up for me so I knew what was coming but it was funny when Emmi got mixed up and announced that “Sarah has a present for Momo!” I unwrapped my gift wrapped in newspaper to find it was a blue summer dress. Awww, thanks! It fit perfectly too. Debbie brought out some key lime pie then which we enjoyed by the pool before it was Emmi’s bed time so they went inside to prepare.

Dan, Cleo and I followed after putting the protective net over the pool and found Emmi on the couch with Popo while Momo was putting Ava to bed. After being in Dan’s room a while, Emmi soon joined us and we played a board game of catching fish before reading a couple of bed time stories. We started with The Magic School Bus then finished with Peter Pan. Momo appeared then and we announced Emmi was ready for bed. She said goodnight to Uncle Daniel and I piggybacked her into the kitchen where she did the same to Popo before Momo took over the “putting to bed duties”.

I blogged a while then we watched a bit of TV before bed, hoping against all hope that we’d be able to drive up to Flagstaff tomorrow.