After circling the airport twice I realized they really don't have parking for a bus if you don't drive a shuttle. I finally parked in the road, left my son with the bus and took the car back to Hurts.
After leaving the airport, we started looking for another auto parts store. I needed to replace the grease gun I left behind so I could grease the front end. The PO had said that he checked the transmission and the oil looked bad. The bottom three gears were pretty noisy but 4th was quiet. I wanted to look at the oil for myself. We bought two gallons of gear oil, a gallon of motor oil, and a drain pan. Back in the parking lot, my son climbed under the bus and pulled the fill plug out of the transmission. Bad was an understatement. It took 15 minutes for it to ooze it's way out of the transmission. It was nasty. There was obviously water in it. It was about the consistency of not quite set chocolate pudding...or baby crap. One more nail in the coffin. One more worry on top of the other hundred.
The rental was gone, there was nothing to do now but keep on plugging.
While the slop was glopping out of the transmission, I took my brand new grease gun and greased the front end. All but the lower kingpin on the passenger side. Even after pulling the grease fitting and running a drill bit around the hole, it wouldn't take grease. Skip it, that won't keep it from making it home.
We hit the road again. After 20 minutes of cringing over every clunk, squeak, and rattle, I actually heard something. It sounded a lot like a big block Ford eating itself. My first guess was a rod bearing. I got out the throttle and eased it off the conveniently located exit. At an idle it was still making a horrible racket. I popped the hood and saw oil spraying. A busted oil pressure gauge line was spraying oil. We shut it down and assessed our options.
We had oil, but needed a way to replace the line. Initially I thought the crack was in the line, right at the fitting so there was no way to crimp it. I had brought a torch and solder for radiator repairs, so, I soldered the line shut, dumped a gallon of oil in the engine, and fired it back up. It rattled for a couple of seconds, the lifters pumped back up and it was as quiet as a BB Ford ever is. And still spewing oil out of the pressure fittings. One thing I didn't have with me was a box of brass pipe fittings. The only thing at the exit where we stopped was a cheese shop, not exactly helpful. I was at a loss and considering calling in you guys for help. My son mentioned that maybe the dash gauge would have the same fittings as the engine. Hmmm. I snatched the gauge out of the dash and sure enough it did. Presto.
We were back on the road.
More to come...