Road Troubles Abound
In the last 7 years of touring, we have never really had that many ‘car’ issues...until today. The day started out like any other day except for a haunting memory of something one of our friends said in a prayer the night before. During the last moments of our last concert in San Gabriel CA, the MC for the event prayed something similar to the following:
“Father protect Jacob’s Well as they drive home tomorrow. Keep their car running well. Even if their call DOESN’T run well, Lord may your will be done and may you be glorified through it all. ”
It was the first time someone had prayed something about our car NOT making it and you better believe I took note of that. I had never really thought that our car would break down. Heck, we have a 2002 Toyota 4-Runner SR5 towing an 8 foot Wells Cargo trailer. It’s a great rig and we’ve NEVER had any problems. Knock on wood....but their’s no wood around to nock on....YIKES!!!
So the day started out well. We left the LA area and were out in the middle of a section of Interstate 5 I like to call, NOWHERE, when all of a sudden I felt a slight shudder in the car. I took off my headphones and just listened for a few moments. The shudder became consistant very quickly. Having been a 1974 VW bus owner, I knew immediatley what was happening. One of the pistons was mis-firing and we were losing speed rapidly. We pulled over near an orchard or Mandarin Oranges and began to diagnose the problem. We checked some spark plug cables but without the proper tools, we were pretty much stuck. The next gas station? 45 miles away. Knowing all we could do was drive, we took it easy and limped the car to the next service station. The service station luckily had a one man tire center. The only problem was that there was an abnormally large sign posted on the front of the building that read “WE DO NOT LOAN OUT TOOLS”. Great. Obviously this sort of thing has happened before here.
Kevin, being Kevin, disregarded the sign and proceeded to ask the hispanic man inside wether or not he had any tools to pull out some spark plugs. Kevin, eyeing the large red tool chest in the corner of room was suprised to hear the gentleman say “don’t let anyone else know but feel free to pull around back and I’ll let you use my tools”. Ok, so much for the sign. After getting the tools we needed we began to diagose the issue. Sure enough, we had a mis-firing spark plug that was black as black...it was burned out. The tools we had helped us diagnose the problem but they were not going to help us fix the problem, because we needed SPARK plugs, not tires. The gentleman told us in his thick spanish accent that the next town was another 40 miles away. We debated to get towed but I knew that if we got up to a decent crusing speed (now knowing it was just a spark plug), the car would run fine. It’s just in the lower speeds and hills that the car would feel the lack of power and begin to shudder.
Fast forward to Stockton CA. We decided to keep going another 80 miles with little issue until we found a auto parts store. $54.00 later we had new plugs, new socket set, 12 cans of XS energy drink we bought off some guy (who probably stole them) for $5.00 and high hopes of getting back on the road. We still had 5 hours to go to get to Grants Pass Oregon. After about an hour, we pulled the culprit plug (check out the phone cam journal for a photo) in all it’s burned up glory. Baaaaad. We replaced the plugs and the car puuured again! Hallelujah!
We headed back out to I-5 and began heading north. I put my headphones back on and began to drift off into a deep sleep...hoping to wake up in Grants Pass.......
....until...
....SHUDDER....SHUDDER....PUT PUT...COUGH...WEEEEEEEZE. What the heck is wrong NOW!?? Knowing that this was NOT a spark plug issue, I naturally looked at the gas guage. The gas said 1/4 tank remaning. But it felt like we just ran out of gas.....
...Come back later and read the the outcome!
“Father protect Jacob’s Well as they drive home tomorrow. Keep their car running well. Even if their call DOESN’T run well, Lord may your will be done and may you be glorified through it all. ”
It was the first time someone had prayed something about our car NOT making it and you better believe I took note of that. I had never really thought that our car would break down. Heck, we have a 2002 Toyota 4-Runner SR5 towing an 8 foot Wells Cargo trailer. It’s a great rig and we’ve NEVER had any problems. Knock on wood....but their’s no wood around to nock on....YIKES!!!
So the day started out well. We left the LA area and were out in the middle of a section of Interstate 5 I like to call, NOWHERE, when all of a sudden I felt a slight shudder in the car. I took off my headphones and just listened for a few moments. The shudder became consistant very quickly. Having been a 1974 VW bus owner, I knew immediatley what was happening. One of the pistons was mis-firing and we were losing speed rapidly. We pulled over near an orchard or Mandarin Oranges and began to diagnose the problem. We checked some spark plug cables but without the proper tools, we were pretty much stuck. The next gas station? 45 miles away. Knowing all we could do was drive, we took it easy and limped the car to the next service station. The service station luckily had a one man tire center. The only problem was that there was an abnormally large sign posted on the front of the building that read “WE DO NOT LOAN OUT TOOLS”. Great. Obviously this sort of thing has happened before here.
Kevin, being Kevin, disregarded the sign and proceeded to ask the hispanic man inside wether or not he had any tools to pull out some spark plugs. Kevin, eyeing the large red tool chest in the corner of room was suprised to hear the gentleman say “don’t let anyone else know but feel free to pull around back and I’ll let you use my tools”. Ok, so much for the sign. After getting the tools we needed we began to diagose the issue. Sure enough, we had a mis-firing spark plug that was black as black...it was burned out. The tools we had helped us diagnose the problem but they were not going to help us fix the problem, because we needed SPARK plugs, not tires. The gentleman told us in his thick spanish accent that the next town was another 40 miles away. We debated to get towed but I knew that if we got up to a decent crusing speed (now knowing it was just a spark plug), the car would run fine. It’s just in the lower speeds and hills that the car would feel the lack of power and begin to shudder.
Fast forward to Stockton CA. We decided to keep going another 80 miles with little issue until we found a auto parts store. $54.00 later we had new plugs, new socket set, 12 cans of XS energy drink we bought off some guy (who probably stole them) for $5.00 and high hopes of getting back on the road. We still had 5 hours to go to get to Grants Pass Oregon. After about an hour, we pulled the culprit plug (check out the phone cam journal for a photo) in all it’s burned up glory. Baaaaad. We replaced the plugs and the car puuured again! Hallelujah!
We headed back out to I-5 and began heading north. I put my headphones back on and began to drift off into a deep sleep...hoping to wake up in Grants Pass.......
....until...
....SHUDDER....SHUDDER....PUT PUT...COUGH...WEEEEEEEZE. What the heck is wrong NOW!?? Knowing that this was NOT a spark plug issue, I naturally looked at the gas guage. The gas said 1/4 tank remaning. But it felt like we just ran out of gas.....
...Come back later and read the the outcome!
posted by Jacob's Well | 10:23 AM
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