Sorry for the long-winded post but here is a tale of last weekend's emergency repair adventure involving my '85 C20.
The past week or so the C20 had been cranking over a bit slow but still starting. I figured the battery was getting weak, so before work on Saturday I drove the truck to Walmart to get a new one. They had a cheap one and a better one (probably neither that great). Surprise, the better one is out of stock. I decided to pass. I go to leave and the starter gives one last pitiful RAWR! and then nothing, not even a click from the solenoid. I guess I'll be getting the cheapo battery after all. I put it in and still nothing. I messed with it for a little bit to no avail. I was now going to be late for work and all my tinkering had yielded nothing so I gave up and started walking the couple miles to work. I called to say my truck was broken and I would be late. Luckily a co-worker met me and gave me a ride after I had only walked about 1/3 of the way there.
I got out of work at about 9:30 PM and got a ride home. I also have a '66 VW beetle that I drive in the summer. It had been sitting since November but I reconnected the battery and got the VW running. I rounded up some tools and drove back to the Walmart parking lot to work on the dead C20. I figured it had to be something with the starter. I had saved a couple of boxes from work and threw them over the salty slush under the truck and slid under to look at the starter. When I tried to disconnect the battery cable from the starter, the whole terminal spun in the solenoid. Broken. I attempted to pull the starter but with the temperature hovering around 0, my fingers started to freeze. Walmart was closed so I quick jumped back in the VW which has no heater and headed back home.
Tomorrow was Sunday so all the auto parts stores in my small New Hampshire town were closed. An O'Reilly store 20 miles away in Tilton, NH had a remanufactured starter in stock. They opened at 9:00 AM Sunday, so at 7:00 I fired up the VW and went to pull the starter. A thermometer on a bank I passed said -10 degrees. Perfect. I worked really quickly and got the starter out before my hands were too frozen. Even in that short time my fingers were pretty numb so I hurried inside to the bathroom sink and let hot water run over my hands until I could feel my fingers again.
I grabbed the starter, got a big cup of hot chocolate, and set off on the 40 mile round trip to Tilton in the heaterless old VW. I had to scrape ice off the inside of the windshield several times while driving down to get the starter. By the time I got back, the temperature was now a balmy 4 degrees above zero. I installed the new starter, turned the ignition and, VROOM!, the truck roared to life.
I drove the VW back home and got a ride from my landlord back to the truck. I got the truck and there was still an hour and a half before I had to be at work. This experience has solidified my notion that being a transplanted Texan, I can never live in the north for the rest of my life. If only these things could happen in summer. As a side note I have to congratulate my little VW for being reliable enough to wake up mid-winter and get me around in a pinch, though I feel bad for having to subject it to New Hampshire's salt encrusted winter roads.
Now the truck starts better than it ever has and the VW is back in hibernation.
