Bus odyssey
On Saturday I set out for home (from Youngstown, OH) with the plan of using a stretch of, if memory serves, I-76 on my way back to Ann Arbor. I can usually hack 60 or so for as long as I want, and I didn’t expect a lot of traffic, so I figured I’d be OK. Besides, people can always pass me.
Still, I had a bad feeling about that stretch, and stopped for a break right before the on-ramp. Resolve restored, I motored on. Right on the on-ramp, which was up-hill, the engine hesitated, so I pulled over short of the freeway to regroup. Back down the on-ramp? Nope. So — continue.
The short rest seemed to have helped, and I got up to near sixty. More engine hesitation, so I backed off (and tried not to feel bad for taking up a lane at, oh, 52).
I got off at the next exit and continued on slower roads. The hesitation started manifesting at lower and lower speeds, and ‘resting’ the motor started having less effect, so I gave up and put-putted to a hotel to rest and think.
[Moderately talented automotive trouble-shooters will already have a pretty good idea of what was probably wrong. I didn’t, but I was a little too close to the problem.]
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, OK for the first hour (where top speeds were about fifty), but the hesitation eventually showed up again (at about 53 MPH) and then crept down to 40. That’s it. I called a wrecker figuring he’d know a shop to tow me to, and I was right.
Speedy, at the Haas’ Service Station in Stony Ridge, agreed to take a look at it on Monday, so off to another hotel (Howard-Freakin’-Johnson!) to wait.
I am now very happy, though, ’cause Speedy pointed out what I should of seen for myself the previous day — and could have tested by visiting any parts shop: It’s probably a slightly clogged fuel filter.
Having slept on it, I am now certain that it was the fuel filter. I’m also patting myself on the back a little too for never pushing it when it was hesitating. The mixture gets real lean right before it cuts out, and lean mixtures burn much hotter than the normal (slightly rich) mixture. Air-cooled engines hate extra heat much more than water-cooled ones, and can break.
Update: It was the fuel filter; I got home fine.