Know Your Horse

Part of the planning for moving to a sustainable existence was finding a vehicle that would get me around and not cost alot. Initially the search was for an older diesel pickup perhaps a VW diesel pickup or maybe a diesel Toyota pickup. They are small get good gas mileage and could run biodiesel which the neighbor and I have discussed producing.

At the moment, these types of truck are in great demand and finding one is difficult. So I got rid of the new five hundred dollar a month truck and bought an old 1987 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. It was purchased for a few hundred dollars knowing that it would need a little work.

The nice thing about new vehicles is that if they break someone comes and takes them to be fixed. This is very convenient. Driving up La Veta Pass this past Saturday the jeep started to overheat and slow down. I had just taken the jeep into the muffler shop the weekend before because it seemed that the catalytic converter was plugged. The muffler people said it was fine and that it had an exhaust leak instead which they fixed. They also gave it a tune up.

Long story short it took an hour to get over the pass and longer to get back on Monday. This put me in a panicked pissed off mood all weekend. I made it to a garage in Walsenburg where they said the catalytic converter was completely blocked. They notched the exhaust pipe before the converter and it ran great the rest of the trip.

I am still looking for the older diesel truck but in the mean time, I will be studying up on the inner working of my current horse.