Necessity is the Mother of Invention or What They Don’t Teach You in Auto Shop
Friday was the big bash for Knoxville bloggers. (More on that in a minute) I got off work Friday morning and headed home under cloudy, drizzly skies. On my way, I stopped and ran some errands, so I would have my evening free for the festivities. In the course of this running around, a light rain began to fall, so I turned on my headlights.
You can sense what is coming next, can’t you?
By the time I got home, tired, grumpy, and ready for a few hours of sleep, the rain had ended; the sun was out; and it looked to be a beautiful day. I went inside, put up the groceries, washed the dishes, fed the cat to the dog, er, and the dog, then went to sleep.
I woke up several hours later, took my shower, dressed for dinner, and went out to my car. I turned the key and nothing. I got that falling elevator feeling in my stomach, and checked the switch for the headlights.
Yep. I’d left them on.
So here it was, 20 minutes before the gathering, and I had a dead battery. I drive a Tracker, with a manual tranny, so I figured I’d try to pop start it. The only problem was I was parked facing the wrong way, and would have to do it in reverse.
Hey, I’ve done it before, although never with a battery this dead. I knew since the battery was completely dead, I’d only get one shot at it, so I went through my usual pre start ritual, turned on the ignition, pushed in the clutch, put it in reverse, and released the parking brake. I coasted down my driveway, picking up speed, and when I got near the bottom, popped the clutch. The car lurched, the engine turned, coughed, and died.
Oh, yippee.
My mind raced as I tried to think about what I could do. Now like any good Tennessee redneck, I have several abandoned cars in my yard as lawn ornaments, but of course, their batteries had long since been scavenged for other vehicles. I had a battery charger in the garage that I bought for the lawn mower, but that would take hours to…wait a minute. The lawn mower! It has a battery! This could work! After all, the engine in a Tracker isn’t much bigger than a lawn mower engine. I went to the barn, fired up the lawn mower, and rode it down to my car. I hooked up the jumper cables, got in the Tracker, and turned the key. The motor ground very slowly for a second, then spun once and started. Victory was mine!
Posted by Rich at July 29, 2002 12:37 AM