The reason why my truck didn’t make it to the Christmas Party was that I couldn’t get it to start.  So Butch came down on Thursday to help.

Where is the problem

It didn’t take very long to find the problem.

There it is

That wire had fallen off

The wire from the ballast resistor had fallen off.  It was a push-on connector which we crimped a little tighter.  Problem solved.

Since we finished so quickly, Butch suggested that we check the compression.  Cylinders two and four had a compression of about 90 and the rest were at 130.  Then he noticed that the head gasket was leaking near cylinder four.  You could see bubbles at that point.  There is oil showing from the head gasket between two and four as well.

The air cleaner was rattling and was tightened. The heat riser didn’t seem to be working.  After I drove down to Home Depot and back, the engine got hot enough to make it work.

I’m hoping that a new head gasket will fix some of the compression problems.  I’ll change the water thermostat at the same time.  It seems to be sticking closed at times.

All in all, a good example of members helping one another.