Friday afternoon, the afternoon we figured we’d get a call saying the truck was almost finished, we headed to REI to get a tarp and plan a backpacking trip for the weekend until our truck was ready. The phone rang, it was Kelly, our mechanic in Tahoe. Bad news…the engine was not good. “If it were anyone else, I’d just put it in, y’know. I didn’t make any money on it, you guys brought it to me. But you’re a friend of a friend, and I just don’t feel right about doing that.”
The head gasket leak's externally which isn't so bad, but isn't so great either, and there's a heli-coil in the engine head for one of the spark plugs, which essentially means not good. (stupid confusing car lingo) So, we called the junk yard we got the engine at and they said that they had gotten a Toyota truck in but they hadn't yet looked at the engine of it, and it was hit in the front end, so they would call us back when they got a chance to check it out. Well, we called again near closing on Saturday because they hadn't called us yet, and they said they hadn't gotten a chance to look at it yet, and to call them Monday afternoon. Saturday afternoon I went wine tasting with Dee (free booze and snacks, sweet!) and had a great time getting to know her better and just talking about all sorts of things. Sunday morning my throat was feeling itchy and coated, and Kevin wasn't feeling so good either, so we both took it easy all day. In the morning we tried to go to the UU church but we were waylaid by a road closure for a marathon, and then got sort of lost, and ended up in a park. The rest of the day we watched “Funny People” (good movie) and went to bed early-ish.
Monday we called the junkyard and they said they had two engines for us to look at, so we went to take a look. One engine was already out of the vehicle it had been in, apparently a guy had put a deposit on it, but hadn’t come to pick it up in over 30 day’s. This first engine came out of a 94 Toyota truck that had 300,000 miles on it, but they were telling us that they didn’t think the engine had that much on it. It just didn’t look right to us. The second engine, the one still in the truck that they had gotten in on Friday looked better. That truck is a 93 Toyota, manual transmission with 198,000 miles on it. The front right end of the truck is mashed, and the fuse box is destroyed, so they couldn’t start it using the truck, but they’re taking it out today and will do a compression check on it to know if it’s good or not. Kev and I both feel better about that engine than the one already out of the truck. And, since it’s more miles than the one we originally got, we might be able to talk them into a discount or something. Cross your fingers.
The plan is to go check out the two engines again today and pick one. Then we’ll take the engine up to Tahoe this afternoon, pick up some stuff from the truck to go backpacking, and tomorrow head out to Point Reyes National Seashore to do some backpacking around for a few day’s.
Wish us luck!
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