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Let’s pick up in Andy’s and my story to stubbornly prevail in bringing our antique RV to life …
We had just completed our most intricate (and, therefore, most terrifying) job of changing our 1965 Clark Cortez motorhome’s V8 engine’s valve stem seals. And while we may have wanted to pause to confirm our exhaust smoke problem had been corrected, we instead chose to carry on … because, you know, battles are not won when taking a moment to applaud one’s self.
The desire to maintain momentum was important, though, because the completion of our stem seal job signified a larger victory that was close at hand: We were one job away from completing our mechanical restoration.
Before I throw the confetti, though, I recognize the address the possible range of emotions that you may have. From happiness on finally arriving at a milestone we have struggled to reach for years … to confusion on being on the cusp of a mechanical completion when our Cortez technically did not run—trust me when I say these feelings and everything in between were fluttering at a rapid pace inside our bodies too. However, when I say “We were one job away from completing our mechanical restoration,” what I mean is that we would soon consider ourselves finished with forced jobs—the ones where we had to suddenly buy new parts due to unforeseen problems. Instead, we would move forward to planned jobs—ones where we would adjust and tune parts already installed to solve underlying issues.
With this in mind, our last mechanical job dealt with refreshing our cooling system, and it should be noted that Andy put us a step ahead because he previously dropped the coolant to remove hoses like the radiator hose because this allowed him more room to tackle our sheared bolt. (The dropping of the coolant is also why our Cortez would not start after our stem seal work even if we tried.)
Our job was simple: We needed to remove and replace the thermostat (a temperature-controlled valve between the engine and radiator that regulates the engine’s temperature) and the thermostat housing (which seals the area). While we thought there could be some rust, we did not expect the heavy rust buildup we found …
Next, we needed to remove and replace our cooling system hoses, and this was welcomed because the hoses were brittle and cracking with unnecessary joins so much so that we commonly arrived to our Cortez only to find she couldn’t hold her fluids …
As Andy said, “Bless—she did a little wee!” And that comment clearly shows why hoses replacement hopefully meant our Cortez’s coolant incontinence would be a thing of the past.
Overall, there were three hoses we needed to replace—and all had insides with rust buildup. The first is the top radiator hose (from the radiator to the thermostat housing) …
Another is the bottom radiator hose (from the radiator to the water pump), which was tough to get an installed picture …
The last is the heater bypass (from the water pump inlet to the engine’s intake manifold) …
Here is our final product …
By the way, for people not engine savvy: You should pat yourselves on the back because without knowing it, you are thinking exactly what people who are engine savvy are thinking! Yes, this is absolutely a chaotic mess of filth and wiring and hoses with a heater unit and dash panel cast to the side in a temporary placement. As Andy and I say, “One mountain at a time!” so while we appreciate your diligence to add jobs to our list, we hope you are able to take a moment to appreciate the checking off of one job here.
Back to finishing off this work …
All of this rust buildup meant rust buildup inside our engine and radiator too … which is why Andy suggested a radiator flush because that would remove rusty-steeped coolant, rust sediment, and rusty sludge from the entire cooling system.
For this, we mixed radiator cleaner in gallons of distilled water and filled up our radiator …
With our personal sun shining above a vibrant rainbow that cast shimmering confetti onto us, all we needed to do now was run our V8 to allow the cleaner-water mixture a good go around our cooling system, and then we were done with our last mechanical job.
So, we did what any rational person would do—we jumped into our steel beast after the love and labor we had devotedly bestowed upon it for the past few years, we put the key into its ignition, and we turned the key to start our V8. After all, this would be our first time hearing it run after our steam seal work, so we were ready to pause to applaud ourselves as the smoke-colored smoke disappeared from our exhaust …
but our Cortez wouldn’t start.
I mean, really, are you surprised? If there is one lesson I am learning (again) is that our Cortez does enjoy removing all possible arrogances right at the end of jobs.
In the meantime, other than starting our engine, our coolant work is complete, and that does signify our last mechanical job because this refusal to start has been a withstanding issue from Day One, so we will simply (continue to) dive deeper into what is happening.
Therefore, let’s go back to when I talked about throwing confetti. Instead, I have an amended sentence: Bring on the fireworks because if it isn’t the fuse of a firework that’s set on fire, I know another thing that may be …
