It’s Fine, Everything Is Fine

Why can’t anything be easy? Would it destroy the universe if some things weren’t such a miserable chore all the damn time? Would it? Would that be so terrible? Remember when a week ago I replaced the water pump in my 1989 Ford F-150? Remember how that was an unexpected ass-pain but it all seemed to work out in the end? Well, it almost did.

After I replaced the water pump, I drove my truck home and was delighted at how it all worked – it started up without me having to roll under the damn thing with a wrench (thanks to finally replacing the broken-toothed flywheel a bit ago) and it made the whole trip without completely filling the cab with hot, sickly-sweet coolant steam, which I regarded as a victory.

A truck that starts with a key and doesn’t create huge clouds of steam? This must be how millionaires live! Unfortunately, my taste of the Good Life was to be short-lived.

Because it seemed my truck was working again, there was some manner of mystical signal that was broadcast to all of my friends to let them know that it was time to start asking me to move bulky shit for them, because that’s a crucial part of truck ownership. And I’m happy to do it! That’s just part of the Truck Haver’s Code.

This time my friend T.Mike reached out first, needing a refrigerator re-located respectfully. I, giddy at the chance to use my new, non-steam-belching truck, lept at the chance.

And it was fine! Great, even! Well, at first. It was fine getting to the fridge’s initial location, but then sometime in the trip to its next location, I started to hear a whistling sound. A sound suspiciously like a teakettle, an object pretty famous for, you know, shooting out bursts of steam.

Very soon after that, my truck decided to emulate a teakettle further, and began steaming.

When I got to where the fridge’s new location would be, I opened the hood and found the radiator cap was gone. Huh. How the hell did that happen? Did I not secure it well when I refilled the coolant last? Maybe? I was hoping that this would be the only issue, with the wan optimism of someone who, deep down, knows better, and got a new radiator cap.

Did it help? Well, it couldn’t have hurt, but no, it didn’t help. Soon the whistling re-appeared and the steam billowed out dramatically. Looking under the hood, I think the thermostat housing gasket failed, and it’s jetting some coolant out from there. At least, that’s what it looks like:

The coolant is hitting other hot bits and sublimating away into the aether, which I think is what’s happening because it starts to do this when the temperature gauge is still well within the normal zone. Eventually, the gauge creeps up to H, but it takes a while.

So, I guess I’ll replace the thermostat and gasket yet again. Maybe I’ll buy a less crap one this time. I hope that’s all it is. I just want to drive my damn truck.