Good morning!
Here's a wee wrap-up of my last few days.
Saturday, I met my Father-in-law early in the AM to help his church move a bunch of picnic tables. The church had purchased 20 picnic tables for church camp, but never used them because of some disease going 'round. So about a dozen senior citizens, another 40-something, and a kid in his late teens moved 20 picnic tables from the pavillion to the yard, then stacked them two-high and screwed them together. The idea being the fork truck could grip them and set them on the semi trailer and not lose any of the congregation to any heat or labor related accident.
I got there early and found the best reason yet to have a quick-disconnect for the steering wheel in an early 911.
Later that evening, Kelly and I were heading back to her hometown for her [maternal] family's annual celebration of her grandmother's birthday. The fam decided when Kelly's grandmother passed that they'd continue to get together on her birthday (or very near to it) and have dinner like they did when she was still with us. It's a nice way to keep her memory fresh in the hearts and minds of the family.
But I digress. The part of this vignette relevant to the car is that we left a few minutes later than scheduled. So I took the way with roundabouts and passing zones. Whilst passing 4 cars on the inside of a roundabout, the engine stumbled. Not enough to prevent me from passing, nor enough to cause snap-oversteer...but enough that I looked down at the gauges to make sure we didn't have a big problem...after we exited the roundabout. The stumble was momentary and was gone as quickly as it had appeared. 15 miles later, another roundabout. I didn't get to attack that one with the same fervor as the previous two, and the car didn't stumble. Fuel check showed >1/2 tank, so even with slosh, I should be fine.
We get to Kelly's cousin's house and I open the decklid. The coils on the right side are sitting higher than those on the left. My coils are not held down in any fashion. I've noticed in the past that the right side, in particular, tends to ride a little higher than the left. (These coils have springs that contact the plug, not a socket.) I pushed them back down and they sat where they should.
Hypothesis: vibration and lateral acceleration moves/jiggles/slings the ign coils right out of the engine enough to cause a misfire. No joy sparked.
Plan of attack: Secure ign coils with RSR tabs or fashion something from whatever I have at home.
Research: RSR tabs ~$30usd...but a week out. I need something in next 3 days.
Result:
I wanted to use spring-steel (flat or wire) to hold these little guys down, but spring-steel isn't something I stock in my home. I'll let you all guess what I found that ended up working perfectly, if not crudely.
SUNDAY - Aug 16 - 12th wedding anniversary
slept in
out for breakfast
quick run to Meijer and autozone for some groceries and road trip supplies
couch for popcorn, ice cream, and movies.
Kelly loves to watch movies on the couch with me and she has often expressed the desire to spend a whole day doing so. So that's what we did. No need to spend big $$$ on an anniversary.
When she went upstairs to shower and get ready for dinner, that is actually when I whipped up the ign coil retainers shown at the end of 'saturday'.
On the way to dinner, she wanted to swing through Duluth to see what was on sale so I snapped a pic of everyone's favorite jalopy.
Dinner was nice.
(The car drove flawlessly the entire day)
And back home to spend some more couch time before I'm gone for a long week.
MONDAY
Back to work *crowd boos*
Coolest kid in the parking lot *crowd cheers*
I tinkered with data logging on my way home and I think I've the general idea of how it works. Need to refine my system to ensure I get the info I actually need to dial in the tune. Wishing I'd started data-logging several weeks ago as my calibration would be that much better by now. But I reckon if I can find some time, it's close enough now (the hard way) that it should dial in pretty handily going forward.
HF tools order and oil pressure idiot light should both get delivered today. That means I'll be able to finalize my travel tool kit and possibly make a final decision on the gauge that will go in the middle of the idiot light.
Thanks for tagging along and playing along on my journey.