The biggest news of the week: Sputtery Truck isn’t so Sputtery anymore.

For those that were playing along at home, I have a Dodge Ram 1500 (yes, I drive a big truck) and I’ve had a check engine light for a couple years. Every time I’ve fixed one thing, something else has set it off. This last round I was getting a misfire on cylinder 7. The Millican assisted me in replacing all the plugs and coils (save one). This cured the misfire issue and the check engine light.

The I got the Check Engine Light once more. Yeah, I wasn’t surprised at this point. The code was no longer a misfire (which we both thought because of the one plug we couldn’t get out. Oh, no. Why would it be that simple? Oh, hell no! Let’s be a TOTALLY different code this time that I’ve never seen. Let’s make Jay work for this one.

fuel system too lean bank 2

What? Really? Too lean? That means it’s getting too much air. So The Millican and I went back through the manifold we needed to take off to get to the plugs and coils and double checked that everything was tight and secure and we couldn’t hear any leaks. Color me confused.

The Check Engine light that has become the bane of my existence would go on, turn off after a couple days, go on and laugh in my face, turn off after a couple days. Well, being that I needed to get Sputtery Truck smogged, I took the opportunity to get it smogged during one of the Check Engine Light of doom’s down periods. The men were happy to see me as no one else was in the shop. The engine was running smooth. I was hopeful.

Hah, silly me. I new something was wrong the moment the guy came back in and said something to the effect of: “Wow! I’ve never seen anyone fail so high before. 8%! You must be getting terrible gas mileage. I have to save this one.”

Yeah, thank you for pass or free retest.

The failure at the smog place showed that I was running way too rich, not way too lean. So I bit the bullet and took Sputtery Truck to get looked at. Again. I explained to the mechanics what I’d done already (an entire history in three part harmony and a bunch of pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what it was). They were impressed with all I’d done to keep Sputtery Truck running. I felt proud. Why? I don’t know. Third base!

So they spent about 30 minutes poking and prodding around and finally determined that my O2 sensor on the passenger side before the catalytic convertor was bad. That made sense. It was reading too lean, the engine pumped in more gas to compensate, making it partially flood the engine and causing it to sputtery.

HOORAY! An O2 sensor, an oil change and some fuel injector service and Sputery Truck was back on the road happier than ever. SO! It’s been a few days and still running smoothly and no Check Engine Light of Doom! I’m going to run it for another few days to make sure it doesn’t come on, get it smogged, pay my registration, and we’ll be good once more.

My Favorite Daughter has no tournaments for the month of February. Yeah! Just lots and lots of practice. She’s busy doing her best.

Books! My Teacher is a Zombie and My Teacher is a Werewolf might, just might, find a home in the library. I’m not sure what’ll happen, but one of my favorite daughter’s friend’s mom works at the library and knows the acquisition librarian for the district. She’s going to show her my books and we’ll see what happens. They’re middle grade books and she was excited to see not just the covers, but the titles. I guess middle-school kids are big into the Zombies. WOO WOO!

I put the finishing touches on Golden West Season 1 last night. I’ll be doing some recording and I have the final two episodes written. I know I’m slacking off on that. I’m sorry! Life has been full of life type things that have prevented me from sitting in front of a mike in a quiet room.

Now that I’ve gotten that one out of the way, I’m off to finish V&A Shipping II as well as get the edits done on Paradise Palms and Billy Barbarian (My next two books to release). THEN I’ll be working on My Teacher is a Vampire which will see Stanley and the gang during summer school before the get to High School. I then plan on writing 3 books for each grade in the Supernatural Learning series. Each story is stand alone, but will build on a bigger picture. So if someone were to read them all, they’d be able to follow all the threads, but could pick up any to read.

So I might be adding more books to my publication schedule than I thought.

Oh! And just a heads up for any who really care. I’ll be using the pen name R.J. Durmock for books like Paradise Palms, Life of Lists, and other thriller type books. These will have more of an adult theme and being that V&A Shipping, Billy Barbarian, and the Supernatural Learning books are better for an all ages type of read, I don’t want a kid to pick up My Teacher is a Zombie and then Paradise Palms and go WHOA! Didn’t see that coming.

Ok, I’m off to go make some words happen, get some words recorded, get a podcast produced, and find somewhere in there to take a nap.

Until Next Week!

WOO WOO!