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Definitely not my weekend.

DreadyDiggs

DreadyDiggs

Apr 15, 2008
675
809
38
Portsmouth, VA
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#1
So I had two mishaps this weekend. First, my work van (1995 Ford E250, 4.9L I6, 280,xxx miles) pops her head gasket on the way to a job. Got there, shut her off, went to crank it over, hydro-locked. I'm a mechanic. I work at a dealership and I've had my van since 2011 and operate a mobile repair business with it. I finish the job, and call towing and they say my tow would be $72.00. I put that on hold and pull off the dog house for the van and pull the back spark plug. Dry. Pulled the next spark plug, nice and wet. Cranked the engine over and shot myself with engine coolant. Ran the van like that for a second and reinstalled the plug. Got her home but she overheated pretty bad waiting for my girl and her mom to move their vehicles so I could get in the back yard. If I had shut it down the cylinder would've filled up again.

I have backup vehicles, but the van made working the road effortless. Going to yank the engine out starting tonight and put her back on the road. I can fix the head with the engine installed but I want to do a few other things. I've customized her too much to feel like starting over with another van, plus this is cheaper for me.

Now aside from that, I barely play my Ibanez SR305. But I was going to play this week's gigs with it. I picked it up with my hand kinda around the nut and the nut broke at the G-string. I pulled the strings and the nut kidna just came off. So that bass is down as well. I might not play it often but I wasn't too happy with the bass I bought brand new breaking so soon. I bought the damn thing two years ago. It's strung with Rotosound 88 Black Nylons, don't know if that was a factor, but oh well.

Definitely not my weekend.
 
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#2
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I'm sorry.
 
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#3
The black nylons are very thick strings so you end up with a lot of material filed off the nut with a narrow spaced neck. Nuts are cheap. Sounds like you need some fret files. I'm also wondering why a mechanic didn't do the preventative maintenance to prevent these "random" occurrences. ;) (just kidding. Best of luck!)
 
#6
Funky Ghost said:
Dang man. I've been in the hydro-lock position before with my '70 Camaro a long time ago. Unfortunately when I tried to turn it over I bent a rod. I sure hope you didn't suffer the same fate.
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Yea I doubt I did. Everytime the coolant cleared from that one cylinder that was flooding the van ran smooth. When I pull the head I'll crank the engine over. Since it's a straight the cylinders have a twin moving in the same direction. If Cylinder 5's twin (I think it's #3) is the same height at top dead center, the my rod isn't bent. If 5 is shorter, obviously 5 is damaged haha.

craigie said:
The black nylons are very thick strings so you end up with a lot of material filed off the nut with a narrow spaced neck. Nuts are cheap. Sounds like you need some fret files. I'm also wondering why a mechanic didn't do the preventative maintenance to prevent these "random" occurrences. ;) (just kidding. Best of luck!)
Click to expand...

I do plan to fix the bass, so I'll get a nut and some fret files, which I currently don't own. My preventative maintenance consisted of me checking the coolant in this thing every 3 days and topping her off. She did have a small leak at the thermostat, but it never went low. She just gave it up finally :( She'll be back though.
 
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#9
UPDATE.

Well, the weekend being bad extended into that next work week. I got laid off from my new dealership job *was there just shy of one year*

Really didn't sweat it though, I always have work one way or another, but the van being down really did annoy me. Got that fixed though. #5 Combustion Chamber seal gave out which allowed more of the gasket to fail allowing coolant into #5 cylinder. I've already been to NC and back since I put her back together. Still haven't fixed the Ibanez and entertaining two new job offers. I'll take one if the other more promising one doesn't go through. I should find out where I'm going by the end of the week.

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