I have a story for you...ha!
I was like 28 yrs old packing my old '81 Chevy Monte Carlo with the last bit of my furniture from my apartment, a small dresser drawer, tied upside down to top of the back trunk protected with beach towel.
I was to move into a new place after Thanksgiving break.
The only things I had in my car was a few odds and ends, a duffel bag of clothes and some tools.
I was on a busy, congested highway coming out of New Jersey heading to upstate New York.
As I was coming around the corner, the V6 starting coughing and conking out.
I pulled over onto some a gravel parking lot in the middle of like....nowhere but a million cars all heading somewhere for Thanksgiving on one of the most busiest travel days of the year. I was about 350 miles from home!
I popped open the hood, looked around and couldn't see anything amiss.
I jumped back in and cranked over the V6 motor several times without any luck at all.
This baffled me and continued till around late into the evening. I have a full tank of gas...what's going on?
I was totally screwed!
There wasn't any auto parts stores open on Thanksgiving eve!
So I undid the small dresser drawer off of the back of my car trunk and placed it aside gently on the gravel on the beach towel and pulled out my tool bag.
With a socket, I undid one of the six spark plugs and placed it in a way so I could if it sparked when I turned the key.
I saw right away that there was no spark at all. so I figured it was the rotor inside the distributor cap.
Sure enough, as I pulled off the cap and turned the rotor, it freely spun right around like an S+ reel with no power!
I scratched both sides with a knife next to the bolt to make a line to match up later, undid the bolt, and pulled the rotor out of the top of the motor and saw that the black filament in the middle was broken...my heart sunk...now I knew why there was no spark...I need a new rotor.
By this time, it was hovering around past 10pm....all the cars and traffic were gone and it was pitch black out and starting to get really cold.
I started walking towards some city lights of the next town thinking maybe I better find a room and phone to call home and tell them what happened.
That's when I saw something shiny in the gravel.
I reached down and grabbed something metal with my fingers.
I t was a paper clip.
BOOM!
My McGuyver mind sprang to life!
I ran back to the car, straightened out that paper clip, grabbed the rotor and jammed in the clip down into where the broken filament was on both ends.
I threw everything back together, went into the car, crossed my fingers and turned the ignition key! VROOM!
That baby started right up!
Boy was I ever happy!
I put it into gear and drove 350miles without stopping until I got to my mothers house! haha
It was a Thanksgiving eve I've never forgotten...except that small dresser drawer....I left it there on the beach towel.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!