Finally Quiet

My eldest offspring gave me a book of writing prompts for Christmas last year. I haven’t used it much, but since I seem to have hit a bit of a dry spot on my stories dealing with Tole, I figured I’d take a shot. I flipped to a random page and found the prompt “a writer with noisy neighbors.” This is what my somewhat off-center brain came up with. I worry about me. – T

In his twenty odd years as a homicide investigator Detective Robert Johns had never thrown up at a crime scene. This morning that streak came to an end. The sheer violence and unabashed animal rage that would have been required to do those things to another human being, let alone two, touched some primal part of his brain that would not be ignored. Luckily all he’d had in his stomach was the stale coffee he drank when he had come on shift that morning, so there wasn’t much to purge.

The case, however, will be an easy one to solve. All the he had to do was follow the trail of blood and shit to the door of the apartment across the hall. Inside they found the lone resident sitting at his computer typing away with a look of serenity that was broken by the fact that he was covered in blood and bits of his victims from across the hall.

When the killer noticed the detective standing in his doorway, he turned to and said, “Can you hear that? It’s finally quiet. Maybe now I’ll get some work done on this book before my deadline passes.”

Then he turned back to his computer and resumed typing.

Junkyard Jewel...NOT

Ok. so my truck needs the engine rebuilt or replaced. This leaves me with three options:

1. Rebuild/overhaul the existing power plant.

2. Buy a rebuilt engine.

3. Pull an engine from a salvage yard and hope you get a winner.

Options 1 and 2 are pricey. I'm kinda broke right now so I decided on option 3.

We always pull engines from a wrecked car; because, it was obviously driven to the wreck.

The plan was to tear it down with the exception of pulling the crank and pistons and put all new gaskets in and drop it in my truck.

Sounds like a solid plan right? Right.

So this last weekend we started the cleanup and tear-down, and things went..inevitably...sideways about twenty minutes in.

While de-greasing and power-washing the engine we noticed a pinhole in the timing cover that would have let oil escape the engine. Right next to that little hole was a great whacking blob of JB Weld. Ever the optimist, I soldiered on and finished cleaning the engine. 

Once we had it back in the shop, we started the disassembly process. When the oil pan came off, my buddy said, "I really don't want to, but we should probably check the bearings on the crank." And that was when the bell tolled on my hopes of a re-seal and send it. The engine had very obviously been oil starved at some point and the bearings and crank were both shot.

On the upside the block is solid and the cylinders were not in need of machining. No need to involve a machine shop, but still getting a new crank, all new bearings, and new piston rings as well as new gaskets and seals. It'll be better for it.

It's a good looking block, but now it sits on a stand with a box and a bucket of bits beside it waiting while we gather the requisite bits to put it all back together.

I guess my junkyard jewel is just a diamond in the rough.

-Tole