Earlier on in the year, I booked off from the 18th up 'til when work closed for giftmas, figuring that'd give me -- on top of extending the holiday nicely -- plenty of time to tinker with the truck and maybe run out to a coupla places to grab parts as needed.
Well that sure didn't work out!
Thursday the 7th: fuel pump dies in my car just as I get home. Rush-order a replacement that's supposed to be there Saturday; it turns up Monday. Swap it in after work, car's back up n running again, but that's wiped out a weekend I had plans for.
Thursday the 14th: fuel pump dies in my car before I can even leave work to get home. Have to get a lift home, grab the car's original fuel pump (I'd parts-cannon'd a fuel pump at it because I'd had trouble immediately after changing fuel-lines, and I figured ... well, I don't even know what I'd figured. Anyway, the problem turned out to be that the ignition system was upset that the fuel system had been worked on, and it quit in a fit of jealousy. Remember that bit.)
Friday the 15th: Re-fit that original fuel-pump over my lunch break at work. While I'm looking over everything, I notice that the waterproof box for my fuel-pump relay is demonstrating its waterproof capacity by being filled with water. Dump the water out, dry everything off, consider replacing the relay because it's leaking streaks of rust out of one side. Jumper over the fuel pump relay just so I can get to the unit and grab a replacement.
Get to the unit and discover that my door key is nowhere to be found. Greeeeeeat. Giant hunt ensues, key still can't be found, get in touch with the landlord's agent to get a replacement.
Friday the 22nd: Going to head out to get the replacement key from the agent (yes it took that long for them to get back to me about a spare key!), car won't start. Just coughs, kicks, backfires, but no run. It'd been a little bit wonky the previous night until it had warmed up, but I hadn't thought much of it. End up having to borrow my dad's car to get the spare key, but at least now -- a week later than planned -- I can start my planned tinkering on the truck; well, once I fix the car.
Saturday the 23rd: Fix the damn car. It's cursed, I swear. Want to know what the problem was?
G'wan, bet you can't see it coming.
That's right! ...it's the ignition system! The resistor in the rotor arm has gone bad. Either partially burned up, or some of the epoxy has cracked and let water in and it's all corroded; something like that. Put a meter on it and it was flitting back n forth between 3kOhms and 1.3MOhms, just sitting there in my hands. Solder a wire from the centre contact to the tip, and it works just fine.
It's enough to make a shepherd throw away his staff and sha... no, nevermind. Anyway!
Sunday the 24th: Not much done today, but I did something at least. Pulled everything off the offside of the engine and resealed the leaking cover; and while I was at it, painted a few pieces that I'd missed. (Largely, the back-side of the old distributor that's now serving as the cam sensor, and the back of the dipstick tube and its supporting bracket.)
I've also got some exhaust gasket material to hopefully seal up the manifolds against the head, too; and that kit seems to have come with an extra piece of some sort of fiberglass gasket material that I might be able to line a heat-shield for the starter with.
AND! I got my longer (B68) belts for the compressor. They're also not quite long enough, but they were enough to just barely fit on both pulleys, even if I can't properly bolt the compressor in place. Annoying, since it's another pair of belts that I can't really use, but now I'm pretty confident the next belt size up will do perfect: B69 (nice)