Tuesday, October 12, 2004

On a lighter, but frustrating note... My out of gas adventure!!

I live about 50 miles from work. My wife gets payed every thursday and I get payed every other thursday which means thursday is a day of few funds until I get payed or get home that evening depending on the week. Well this thursday just so happened to be a week in which I got payed, however I do not get my pay check until I get to work. This left my pockets rather empty until then and unfortunatly so was my gas tank. On my way to work Thursday morning my car, a beautiful 1976 Chevy nova, Ran out of gas. It gets great gas mileage mind you because of it's manual transmission and 250 cubic inch inline 6 cylinder engine and 2.73 rear end, but unfortuantly great mileage only last so long and this morning my limit had been reached. I get out of the car and get my gas can out of the trunk and proceed to walk down the street. I had 1.41 on a pay pal debit card and I intended to use it. I only had about 20 miles to go and it would be a stretch but I could do it. As I walked a man in a truck stopped by me and asked me if I needed help. I gladly accepted and got in his truck. He drove me to the closest gas station (kinda glad for this because it was rather far) and I purchased my $1.40 worth of gas. We get back to my car and I get out of his truck. He reaches in the back of his truck and gets out a gas can of his own. Before I can stop him he is puting the liquid inside in my gas tank. He then makes a comment along the lines of, " This is chain saw gas, it's got oil in it, that one can isn't going to be enough." He also made such comments as, "It''ll probably run better and clean it out". Well the damage had been done so I poor my can in and he's off. I start my car and proceed to work. There's a problem. My car did not like his 2 cycle fuel/oil mix at all. It began bucking and surging and would not accelerate over 40mph. I immediatly blame the oil filled gas and proceed with work in the hopes that it will all burn out. Not too far from work now the car stops again. It won't start. My first thought was that it ran out of gas again. I walk to Walmart, which is not within walking distance and it has a gas station. I call work and have a co-worker bring me my pay check. I cash it there at Walmart and get some more gas in my can. We get back to my car and I put the gas in. There was another problem. It just didn't want to start. With some trying it would, but would not stay running long. I finally got it to move enough to get it to the side of the road and my co-worker drove me to work. After work me and another co worker go back to fix the car. After many trips to a near by auto-zone we managed to clean the burnt oil off of all the spark plugs and replace the fuel filter, which was seriously clogged with oil! We finally got done about 9:00 that night and my car runs great again. Moral of the story? Don't let strangers put 2 cycle mix in your gas tank.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey outta curiosity what kind of gas mileage does that thing get? i'm thinking of getting a '71.