I hate when I do stupid things. It makes me feel bad. It makes me think that perhaps old age is taking it's toll and I'm about ready for the booby hatch.
But let me back up a bit.
Connie and I were planning on going to a glass show in Sanlando this weekend. Then something came up with my mom where we were going to also drive down to Englewood. She wanted my signature on something at the bank, so that meant we would have to leave here early enough to make that drive and get down there before the bank closed. And we would have to reroute our plans completely for the glass show. The closer Friday morning got, the more frantic we felt, and I eventually had to tell my mom that we would need to make it another day, as I really wanted this to be a real nice relaxing weekend with Connie. Her birthday is next week, so I was figuring this trip would be something like a birthday present.
But then Connie decides that she really doesn't need any more antique glassware and instead would rather take a drive out to Fernandina Beach. So, OK, that sounded like a plan to me. That's a nice place to visit and the weather was supposed to be just great.
So Friday morning she gets me up early to take a shower and get ready to go. Meanwhile I'm thinking that I really should check the oil on the C6Z06, since I hadn't checked it since I changed the oil a while back. So while she was packing up the car, I popped the hood and checked the dipstick. Huh? Nothing was registering on the stick at all. Damn... I'm thinking it's a real good idea that I checked it, and went and put a quart of oil in. While this is going on, I'm thinking that this just doesn't seem right. The car has not shown any leaks, and certainly no signs of oil burning coming out of the tailpipes, so how did the oil happen to get so dangerously low? Hmm, this is that new fangled dry sump oil system, so the thought crossed my mind that maybe I just didn't check the oil correctly.
This is where the manual comes into play.
When all else fails, read the manual, I guess. So the manual says I should run the engine till oil temp reaches 175 degrees, then after turning the engine off, check the oil no sooner than 5 minutes, and no longer than 20 minutes after shutting the engine off.
Failure to do so can cause the dip stick to appear to be showing NO oil in the reservoir. Aw hell.... I screwed THAT up. Now the oil level is one quart OVERFILLED, and I sure as heck didn't want to drive the car then.
I have a hand siphon pump that I bought years ago, but the squeeze bulb would have shamed a piece of granite with it's solidity. It would NOT budge trying to squeeze it to produce the vacuum needed. Not that I'm sure it would have worked anyway, but it seemed like it was what was needed to help me out of this jam.
In the meantime, Connie vanished. I'm guessing that maybe she wanted to kill me.....
So bloody hell.... I wound up putting the car on the lift (which is a REAL chore as the C6Z06 barely fits on the BendPak lift of mine. I have a tolerance of about a half inch having the front wheels centered between the posts or I won't be able to slide that outside sleeve of the lift arms underneath the frame. This took me EASILY a half hour or better to get right. I do have marks on the floor, but it's not as easy as you would think getting that right. Eventually I got the car on the lift, and was able to drain a quart of oil out of the oil pan to put it back where it should be. Not really saving the day, but at least salvaging some of it.
Obviously the trip to Fernandina Beach was out, as it was now a couple of hours later than when we had planned on leaving. So we decided to just drive to Apalachicola for the day instead.. Which then became a drive to Cape San Blas. Which then became a drive to Mexico Beach.
So NOTHING turned out the way we planned it, no matter WHEN we planned it. All because I thought I knew what I was doing to just check the dang oil in that car.
Oh well....
Oh yeah, you know what was really strange? The entire day we didn't see even one other Corvette on the road. None.
And as another aside, that drive to Cape San Blas, coming around the curve in the road and catching sight of the Gulf of Mexico used to be one of the most beautiful views around when Connie and I first went there years ago. Now, they have piled the beach with a tremendous mass of rocks to try to block the waves from reaching the road during storms, and it looks absolutely terrible. We saw a family trying to scramble over the rocks to get to the beach from the road and it looked like they might not make it without one or more fatalities. I know the "powers that be" feel that they needed to protect the road, but there HAS to be a better way than that monstrosity they created there. What an absolute eyesore they turned that formerly beautiful section of coastline into.
Read the dang manual.....
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