Linda thinks she's hot

Anyway, Linda had "sweet talked" the neighbor into lending Bow his van one night. They had gone to hear some band called "the Tabloid Darlings" at a local club called "The Ground Porpoise".

"When we left the club, Bow couldn't get the van started, and he said it was overheating!" Linda said.

Anyway, the van ended up being towed. It was parked in front of a doctor's office entrance. The doctor opened up at 8 AM. Linda and Bow slept in until 11. By then the van had been towed. "I HATE tow truck people!", Linda exclaimed.
Although this was pretty much all her and Bow's fault, I knew about her previous bad experience with tow companies so I could see why she was worried.

Anyway, Linda wanted me to go with her and the van's owner to get it out of the tow company's impound yard. They were worried that it wouldn't start.

At the tow company I got the key and tried putting it in the ignition switch. It didn't go in easily, and I noticed the plastic trim around the switch had twisted out of line with the metal ignition switch.

"Oh, yeah, it does that!" the owner said. "You just twist it back in line and the key will go in."

I was beginning to wonder if this was the cause of the "no start" problem.

Sure enough, the van started right up. The temperature gage was hard to see: a concert ticket was stuck in the dash covering it up. I wondered how Bow had noticed the gage with it covered up. I told the owner to take it home, watch the gage, and call me if there was any trouble.

The owner called me the next day and said the van was still overheating. He said the temperature gage went up almost all the way just as soon as the motor was started. In addition, he said there was water leaking all over the top of the engine. He was afraid to drive it.

I went to his house to look at it. I checked the radiator and it was a few cups low, but not badly low. When I asked him to point out where the leaking "on the top of the engine" was, he pointed to the top of the radiator. "If it's under the hood, I call it the engine" he said.

I saw that the coolant recovery hose had cracked by the cap. I trimmed it back to good hose and reatttached it.

"I think I've fixed it!", I said.

"But what about the gage?"said the owner. "It's almost all the way to hot!"

I looked behind the concert ticket and the gage was at the low end of normal.

"No: that gage!" the owner said.

He was pointing to the oil pressure gage. It was just below the "H" mark: "H" for "High"

The owner thanked me for helping him and showing. him where his temperature gage was.
"Iguess I should move this ticket!" he said.

He moved the ticket over so that it covered up the gas gage.

Oh well, I guess the gas gage IS pretty depressing nowadays...