People have been asking me how my auto mechanic skills are coming. I have been pretty busy now that I am a published author (please buy the book ... it's full color and jam packed with laid-off goodness) but I will try to be better.

To recap, the lease ran out on my van and without a fulltime employer, I couldn't get a new one. I had a 93' Honda Civic sitting in my driveway for the past five years. It has made a great storage shed, but now it was time for reanimation. Only problem is, I had never held a wrench in my life ... ok, that is not entirely true. I think when I was 17, I once changed the oil on my 69' Camero. But aside from that, I know nothing about auto mechanics.
This is what I have done so far.

First, you have to remove the old gas from the tank. This might not be an absolute necessity, but from what I read it is a good idea.

I had never siphoned gas before (but I think it may be a good skill to know given my current financial situation  ;-)  To siphon gas you just feed the siphon tube into the gas tank, right? Wrong. There is a little spring-loaded door that blocks the siphon and not enough room to insert a screwdriver to hold it up while feeding in the tube.  I was discouraged to think that my future career as a gas thief had ended so abruptly ended.

This is where being a hacker for 30 years pays off: My next-door neighbor is a plumber. He has a pile of copper pipes in his yard that he sells for scrap a few times a year. I borrowed a few different sized pipes and tried to find one that would fit. I pushed the pipe into the hole and it pushed up the metal door. I then inserted the siphon tube through the pipe and into the gas tank.

Once past the barrier, you can siphon ... if you know how to siphon. This is how you do it:

1.    Insert the long tube into the gas tank
2.    Hold the rubber "bulb "in one hand
3.    Point the other tube facing down
4.    Put your thumb firmly over the end of the other tube
5.    Repeatedly squeeze the rubber bulb until you see gas coming up the other tube and into the bulb.
6.    Remove your thumb and put the tube into a container.  Gravity takes over and the gas will flow into your container.

Get a 5-gallon gas container (at any auto-parts store or Home Depot). Pour a can of octane booster into the gas container. (you can get it at any auto parts store). Fill the container the rest of the way with Premium gas (now is not the time to be cheap).

Pour the gas into your car's gas tank.

The problem I had was that in order to have it occupy as little driveway space as possible, I parked the car close to a fence. There was not enough room to fit the 5-gallon container and pour the gas. So, I used my new found siphoning skill to put gas INTO the tank.

Now it was the moment of truth, time to start the car. Turned the key for the first time in 5 years. It was completely dead (no surprise here). Connected the battery to a running vehicle with jumper cables; turned the key; the dashboard lights came alive (this was a good sign that at least the electrical system was ok). The ignition only made the faintest of "grunts" then stopped. The battery was shot. What I didn't know, is that if a battery is totally ruined, you can't jump the car. I don't understand why. It makes sense that if you connect the battery terminals to the jumper cables and bypass the dead battery; it should work. But it doesn't.

I went back to the auto parts store and bought a new battery. I bought the one with the extended warranty (I was feeling optimistic). Put it in the car; turned the key; nothing. No dashboard lights, nothing. Then it occurred to me that I might have crossed the jumper cables last time I was working on it.  I had that awful feeling that you get when you know you did something really dumb.  

I checked the fuses; all were fine. I thought for sure I blew the electrical system. Then my son (18) said dad "what about this big-ass fuse. It says ‘battery'. That was it, an 80-amp fuse! Big fuse for big dummies like myself who make BIG mistakes.

Back to the store; bought a new fuse; put it in; turned the key ... all lights were back on! With an explosion that sounded like an M-80 (for those of you old enough to remember what an M-80 is) it started up. There was fire ... I don't know what burned; but once the smoke cleared it continued to run.

More later