The Week in Updates

Monday night my friend Doug came to help me work on my car. He thought it was the relay and so we looked at that and then conferred with my handy dandy book, "How to Keep Your VW Alive". Then we went looking for the starter. I jacked up the car and took the tire off and put a screwdriver across the connections on the solenoid, connecting the starter to the battery and my engine turned. That was exciting, although it was pouring rain throughout our work. So then the book says, that the problem must be that there is dirt and rust in the solenoid and bang on it with a hammer. The car started right up after that. :)

Then it died the next night. :( I was rushing home with a friend to meet other people to go to a soccer game between a local team and a British team. My car died right by the stadium, so people weren't happy and the police came and helped push start it. Eight of us walked to the stadium and were greeted by a line of police, we couldn't buy tickets at the gate. So we turned to the scalpers who had received free tickets from the provincial government, the problem was there was a lot of discussion since there were 8 people trying to get as many of us to have seats together. The police pushed forward and one came and took the tickets and grabbed hold of one of the people selling them. So we missed the game, because the ticket outlets were already closed. Some of us went to a a bar and listened to jazz instead.

Wednesday night, the screwdriver connection resulted in nothing, so I figured my starter needed to be replaced. Took it to a mechanic the next day and replaced the starter and solenoid, the fan belt, learned the battery cells were dry and just replaced the battery as well. I also got to talk with the mechanic about bug issues and watch him work. So I learned a lot of things.

The next day on my way to clinical supervision the car started clanking and then died. I called the mechanic and he was able to come out (unfortunately two hours later), so a friend dropped off a book and some coffee and I waited. The mechanic came, fiddled a bit, determined the car wasn't firing on all cylinders and we took it to the garage, but by the time we got there, it was running fine.
The big problem was that it has been raining this past week unlike I have seen this whole time. Seems like almost nonstop and there has even been lightening and thunder which is very rare for Cape Town. So bugs don't do so well with rain sometimes. But it is running better than it has run the whole time I have owned it and I am learning all sorts of things about cars now.