It’s alive, it’s alive….. Frankenblower lives!!! I can hardly believe it, but Frankenblower has made it through for another season of blowing snow. Frankenblower is lovingly called so, because he is a hand me down, mix ‘n match parts snow blower that Dinker was nice enough to hand down to me because I’m too cheap to spend money on one when I can shovel. For pictures of Frankenblower and a little of his storied history, you can click here to see what a son of a bitch he really can be at times.
So today is the first real snow we have had all winter and the first real chance I have had to use Frankenblower. At the end of last season, Frankenblower was running real well, he was all tuned up and really throwing some serious snow, right up until the last time I used him. That last time he was really starting to get cranky, his transmission was starting to stick in gear and the throttle was really touchy. So I made it threw the last snow, drained his gas, covered him up and put him to rest for the summer and fall.
Cue today: We got like 10” of snow, alright the actual measurement is like 6-7”, I’m not really good at estimating inches. That is also why I’m so pleased with my manhood, 6” looks like 10” to me, but I digress.
I go out and uncover Frankenblower, I haven’t even touched him yet and he looks pissed. I try to sweeten his disposition with some nice fresh new gas and oil and then I hook up his electric start. I give him full choke and try to start him and I get??? That’s right a whole lot of dimp, nothing, nada. So I keep trying and he’s not even turning over, so now I’m getting pissed. As I am trying to turn him over I notice that the throttle cable is unhooked and stuck in the stop position. I re-hook the cable and push the throttle all the way up, as I do it I notice that it isn’t pulling the throttle cable, it’s just bending the cable. DAMN IT!!! Alright, you ornery son of a bitch, if you don’t want to work, I’ll make you work. So I grab the cable with my fingers and force it to move to the full throttle position and a few good tries later Frankenblower is off and running in a glorious cloud of blue grey smoke. I wait a full two minutes before I unhook the electric start, just to make sure that he isn’t going to crap out on me, and to my surprise he didn’t.
Great I think to myself, I’m going to get this done quick. I position myself behind him and go to put him in gear to go, and I can’t even budge the clutch to put it in gear. I push it hard, I swear at it, I even dropped the people’s elbow on it and nothing. Frankenblower is running, but not moving an inch. He’s just sitting there laughing his ass off at me because I can’t make him move. Ok, tough love it is Frankenblower, I grab a rubber mallet from the shed and give the clutch a good rap, and Frankenblower takes off like a bullet. One problem, I’m not behind him and he is aimlessly wandering through the backyard while I’m dropping the mallet and running after him.
I finally catch up with him, and turn him towards the driveway. Now he’s all warmed up and running like a champ. I snow blow the driveway and the walk and then take Frankenblower down to his resting spot. Before I turned him off, I lubed up the clutch and the reattached the throttle cable, so hopefully I won’t be running into his crankiness the next time I have to fire him up.
Frankenblower, I love you, you cranky bastard!
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