Being observant is important

Thursday was just like any typical day for me. I woke up…hung around for a while…worked for a couple hours…and then went home. On the way home, I noticed that the gas gauge was showing that I had JUST above “E”. This kinda bothered me because I knew for a fact that I had just less than ¼ of a tank that morning…but, my fuel gauge has never really worked well to begin with. Anyway, I decided that I would be ok until the morning when I was supposed to be at work at 8am.

Friday morning (the 13th, of course) came and I got up and ready for work. I knew that I needed to stop off at the local gas station (a WaWa…I’m not kidding) to fill up.

Well, I pulled into the gas station and up to the pump. I began pumping my gas, as you do and when it finished, I went inside to get something to drink. After paying, I went back outside and slid to a stop as I noticed a puddle and small rivulets of anti-freeze flowing away from under my truck.

This is exactly what I needed…here it is, 7:40am…and I’ve got an anti-freeze leak…on Friday the 13th…of course.

Well, I looked at my watch and decided that, because of the low temperature, I would be ok driving to work as it looked like a very small puddle. I want you to know that I’ve never watched gauges like I watched those while driving to work that day.

“Oil…ok. Battery…ok. Fuel…ok. Temperature…um…what’s normal? Crap! I have no clue what a normal range is for engine temperatures! Oh, that’s it…I’m going to burn up the engine out of sheer ignorance! Ok…everything is ok. It’s sitting there about 185 degrees and I’m sitting here at a light. 185 degrees isn’t that hot…is it? Wait…wait, hold on…it’s creeping up! It’s…yes, it’s going up as I watch it!”

My heart was racing as I watched the temperature gauge move past 190 all the way up to 210 degrees…where it stopped. “Hmm…maybe 210 degrees isn’t so bad either. Let’s see…that’s nowhere near as warm as the sun…and the sun is ok…relatively speaking. We’ll call 210 ok then.” I got to work, and the temperature gauge never moved from 210 the whole way there (a 10 min drive).

Now, as all of you are aware, I am kind of adept at fixing things of a technical nature. To me, my truck is nothing more than a computer with wheels…which, in some ways, is true. Far be it from me to shy away from a challenge! I decided that there, in the parking lot, I would diagnose the problem with my truck and, assuming I could, fix it. With a geek-like swagger only found in those that are completely oblivious to reality, I popped the hood of my truck, closed the door, and went to the front of the truck to diagnose the problem.

The first thing I noticed when popping the hood was a decided lack of steam. 210 degrees is, I admit, quite warm and I would have thought I would have seen a fair amount of steam…but, I was wrong. I look at the reservoir and realize it’s as full as it should be. I look around for leaking antifreeze and, finding none, I decide that the leak must be on the bottom of the radiator or somewhere like that. So, I do this weird looking, push-up wannabe thing with both feet and one hand on the ground while the other hand supports me from the bumper, and I look around under the truck as best I can. Nothing. Not even a single drop of liquid (and this on the day that we had “Freezing Fog”…seriously…I didn’t even know that phenomenon existed!). “Hmm…maybe the leak is on the top after all.”

So, as any geek would do, I decided that I would look at this like I would any other problem. Trace the potential path of liquids, and look for failure points along the way. Ok…the reservoir looks ok and it connects to this hose that connects to the radiator. The radiator connects to the engine and back again at two different places so I, in a moment of total genius, grab a hold of one of the hoses and decide that, as any physic instructor will tell you, it’s a simple matter of forces. If I squeeze the hose on one end, the water contained therein must go anywhere…and it’s going to go the place that it’s easiest to go…which I hope is the leak area.

“This just might work!” I said to myself, and I chuckled at the slowness of my technical prowess. I squeezed the top hose coming from the motor to the radiator…and nothing happened that I could see. Just for good measure, I gave it a couple more good squeezes and then looked around on the ground to look at the puddle of antifreeze that I knew I had just created. The only problem was…there was no puddle.

“What the heck? Hmm…” I said, once again confounded by the overwhelming complexity of a modern automobile. I traced the path of liquid once again…this time from the motor. “Ok…motor, radiator, back to motor and then from the radiator to the reservoir that is filled with…wait a second…the puddle that I saw at WaWa was green…and I have orange antifreeze!” After laughing out loud at my stupidity, as well as the unfortunate poor slob that DID have a leak, I closed the hood and went to work…on Friday the 13th.