Chevy ES 10, Isuzu Hombre, 2.2 liter engine.
Some of the biggest and time consuming problems i ever had in US were with my vehicles.
In late April 98 May i had an accident with my 89 Ford Escort.
Got that Escort from Insurance Auto Auction in Sherwood while i was still working at Credence in 1996. I went to the auction with Lyle, my buddy at Credence (at one time i thought he was Sir Tim who invented internet, today i think he was just another actor). I was doing lots of overtime and had some money, but the auction was rigged. The moment i stopped bidding the car was sold to me though other guy bidded after so they made sure they got biggest priced i was decided to go with. 850 dollars. Car was 7 years old and was wrecked. I went to Lyle's place in Hillsboro i guess, tied the car with a cable from a tree and backed up until i straightened the frame enough so i can put a fender on. Got the fender don't remember from where. Bumper was still peeled of paint from the wreck. Threw in a radiator, painted the fender with a can and voila. However it had a problem somewhere under. Frame was broken and squeaking and every time i was accelerating it was pulling right and breaking left. 1.9 liter, for that size (it was GT figure), wide custom wheels with one bad tire and broken exhaust. It was making a terrible noise until Shawn Parker in 97 helped me fix it by simply pressing a new muffler after cutting the old corroded one.
It had a stick and Angela learned how to drive on a permit it but didn't pass the test twice, last time from a loose belt on the steering pump. I think she passed the test in 99 after we bought the Nissan that was also totalled and fixed by another "Romanian" guy, George, from Dallas, Oregon who was buying cars from insurance and fixing them for a living.
In that April we went at Tillamook and by the bay she lost control of the car, we rolled over but did not have a scratch.
http://georgesblogforfriends.blogspot.com/2012/11/shawn-parker.html
The car was also driveable but the hood was 1 inch shorter on the right side i guess. I could have waited to get another totalled car from another auction (i was told all Romanians did that way) but i went to Russ Chevrolet in Tigard and got the S10. First on lease then after three month i bought it on a finance of 190 dollars a month. Then i was working at Credence as software engineer with two guys who now seem to had been again Shatner, Nimoy, Andy Carson, other celebrities in fact all Hungarians, declared or not and i was making 25000 a year.
Another episode with the Escort before the accident. I got a cell phone (Motorola, smallest in the world at that time, a flip phone like the size of most flip phones today). I was driving towards Corvallis, because i was curious to see how Michelle, the black woman i was in contact for my project was looking like (insurance eligibility through mainframe - PC connection for a hospital in Corvallis, working remotely that was too hard for my programming level which however i finished before leaving). It was not long before the shooting in Springfield and i stopped to eat at Subway
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/fourteen-years-later-looking-back-at-a-school-shooting/ where it thought i saw a couple of teenagers talking loud and drawing attention in the restaurant.
On my way there not long after leaving Portland there was a portion of I5 that had big grooves in it from being eroded from traffic. That day for some reason i could not figure i was extremely sleepy and at a certain time the phone ring (it was Angela's break at Sentrol i guess) and she called me from a payphone and i woke up in a different landscape. I must have fallen asleep but the car was kept on the road because of the grooves.
Michele was looking ok, she was almost as tall as me and she told me from the start about her two kids. Can't really remember her face.
So in May 1998 i bought the truck. Right from the start, two problems. It had an exhaust leak under hood that made a noise like a little flying bird i could not figure what it was and also pulling severely right, something i had not fixed until 2005.
I went back to the dealer and different mechanics and one of them created a new problem, a coolant leak by loosening the coolant temperature sensor and telling me something else (thermostat housing and heater pipe) and the leak was not big enough to worry etc.. Strangely enough the reservoir was never getting empty. I replaced the thermostat housing with the heater pipe 3 times before i gave up not knowing the leak was actually at the temperature sensor.
http://georgesblogforfriends.blogspot.com/2012/09/computer-age-auto-service.html
In October or November that year i quit at Quadramed (the software engineer job) because after lunch i had so big stomach pains i could not do anything. My next job was at AVX between August 99 and August 2010 working with probably Axl Rose, Don Henley, Victor Orban and others.
Job was swing shift and i was coming after midnight home, Angela was not sleeping more than several hours at night, etc..
I was commuting about 30 miles i guess and truck was using about 15 gallons for 400 miles on freeway and 23 mpg in town.
In 2004 i went for three months to Romania. When i came back the truck was totally different. Exhaust pipe and catalytic was heating the floor (and transmission). Fuel consumption went about 15% higher. So i tried to do the things i could. I replaced first spark plug wires, than spark plugs, put back the original, replaced coolant and put green one not knowing it was more toxic (that in shop at Macavei, the guy who looked like Leo Iorga, the Romanian rock singer from Compact), i replaced the ignition coils. Replaced the fuel filter myself in the parking lot and made a big smell.
Can't remember when first clutch failed. Maybe 2006 or 2007. I went to Macavei in Oregon City and he replaced the master cylinder. That day i got so sick in his shop i thought i was going to die. Waited for hours in a parking lot for a towing cause i could not drive anymore. The engine was stinking due to coolant being spilled on or oil leaking from the gasket cover.
However the next day all the brake fluid from the clutch leaked on the parking lot again. It was not the master but the slave cylinder that needed to be replaced and i think it was the first job i done at Steve (I went once before 2004 in there when it was a guy who Steve said it was his father, Chang, who passed away in the mean time, to replace the heating hose on Angela's car cause i kept adding coolant and finally figured it was a hidden hole that looked like a screwdriver hole in the heating hose while Angela was sicker and sicker. By that time Steve's English was much worse than now).
Don't know how many times i went to Steve to complain about the exhaust leak and bad mileage. He said the same as Macavei, not to worry and especially not to spend more money since gas was cheaper than repairs.
It was after the clutch failed too more times and the catalytic 3 times i started to try to figure out why. The same problems i could not figure after i returned from Romania in 2005. A bad fuel pressure regulator. An intermittent signal from computer to fuel pump relay. Leaking coolant sensor. Numerous vacuum leaks. Oxygen sensors. The extra fuel was burning in the exhaust and catalytic also heating the transmission that boiled and some 1/3 of the transmission oil was missing, also Juan, the only mechanic at Steve pulled shavings of metal from transmission with a magnet.
http://georgesblogforfriends.blogspot.com/2015/11/grommet-vs-connector-in-power-brake.html
http://georgesblogforfriends.blogspot.com/2012/07/fuel-pump-relay.html
In total for both vehicles i spent maybe 3 times the amount of money one would normally spend for car maintenance.
On @ September 1st my truck stopped in the middle of the road because i stalled the engine (it happens to me every once in a while). But i could not restart it. Maybe because i forgot to put fuel in it. Mileage on the trip odometer was 400 miles and the total capacity of the tank is 17 gallons. It is possible the fuel pump being old it failed while overheating because of trying to start it for so long.
I towed the truck back home and i though i saw the driver's face in the news the next day. He looked like English football player Wayne Rooney. In the same evening i saw one more guy in the news, an American football player who looked like the second towing driver, i forgot his name.
I tried to crank it more and wouldn't start. I looked in the fuse box and saw the fuse for the fuel pump was burnt and replaced it and it burnt again. Then i looked at the trip odometer and gauge an finally realized i had no fuel. I walked to a gas station nearby and bough 2 gallons of gas and added and after it sputtered a few times it burned the fuse again.
The truck is at Steve's shop, Lucky Autobody and they cannot figure what happened. Last time this afternoon they told me they have to replace the ignition module with the coils (the ones i replaced myself in 2005) before they can test the fuel pump and that was the drop that filled the glass. I don't believe fuel pump cannot be tested directly with simply applying voltage with a fuse somewhere on the circuit.
Also i read on forums that if you run out of fuel the pump needs to be primed before being able to use it. However i remember i ran out of fuel once in Lake Oswego and i called a towing truck and they added some gas and it started and did not burn fuses.
Today i talked to several shops around and i found a mechanic who agreed to test the fuel pump before anything else. Had to explain him the fuel pump relay signal is hard wired to the ignition switch (not module, semantic coincidence).
Also i found the email address of a guy at Carr Chevrolet in Beaverton who agreed to bring the truck there, pending finding a time in their schedule. Have not decided yet where to go.
How big of coincidence could be this. Stalling, running out of fuel, breaking the fuel pump and ignition module in the same time?
