Trip to the boneyard

Ok -- I decided to get down to the boneyard . . the local Pick-n-Pull. I haven't been there in years . . . many years as a matter of fact. The last time I was down there with a friend of mine he realized that he had gotten rid of the truck we rode in about 1998! Yike! I didn't get too much quality time there, as I was coming straight from work . . .they close at 6:00 PM. By the time I got done with traffic, I had all of 30 minutes to look and acquaint myself. I quickly shuffled off looking for a P-Body car (Plymouth Duster or Dodge Shadow) to snag the door handle trim. I was beginning to get discouraged because they all seemed to be missing, and then I found a fairly recent addition (recent because it didn't look like the buzzards had picked it clean). I got my replacement part and they didn't even charge for it. I looked high and low for another Dodge Dakota that a friend of mine said they had set out recently, but I couldn't find it. I then decided just to go lurking in the stuff and happened upon a Dodge Ram pickup. While looking at the dash I found a tachometer that someone had drilled and fitted to the dash. They had used some type of rubber glue to hold it in the dash, so I whipped out my pocket knife and had it out in a jiffy. (Score -- less than $4!) I went to test it when I got home -- red/black . . . standard stuff. White goes to lighting -- light works great. I went to hook the green wire to the coil and hopped in the truck and nada. It won't start again. UGH!

So, I've spent most of my night futzing with the thing trying to get it to start. I finally took a small break and went up to get some replacement light bulbs. When I took the grill off and sidemarker lights, I noticed the connectors were taped in. One side was electrical tape, the other side was duct tape. I looked at the connector and the bulbs in place and realized that the bulb was way too big, in fact one side had discoloration and a crack from the heat of this bulb that was pressed to the lens itself. I went to O'Reilly's and got the right bulbs, and guess what? Now you can put them in and twist and not need goober tape job to hold them in. I like solving things like that . . . I'm not sure how those bulbs got replaced like that . . . and since there was two different kinds of tape, undoubtedly someone just bought another of the wrong kind for a replacement at some point. Ugh! This reminds me of the mile long fuel hose with the door screen/hose clamp fuel pickup system on the jet ski from hell last year.

Anyway . . . I didn't get to do the brakes . . . as I was debating where to begin it started sprinkling again. I need to clear out space in the garage to get the truck in so I'm not hampered by weather issues. I found a great space for the tachometer, right beside the steering wheel and just far enough up to be seen but not interfere with the turn signals. I'll have to build a custom bracket for it, but I think I can swing that one myself. So much for progress on the truck . . . and this after I already called my insurance agent to start coverage on the truck. I knew once I got the brakes done I'd probably want to test it, but now I'm back to square one on trying to figure out that pesky starting problem.