The Flaming Repair

Time for the new puzzler.

This is from an old friend of mine.

He told me this story. He said when he was in college, he had a Volkswagen Beetle. And he was very mechanically uninclined. He was mechanically challenged, you might say.

But he had this old book, from back in 1969 called, "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive : A Manual of Step-By-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot." Some of you may remember this book. It is so old, they spell the word 'complete' as 'compleat.'

He said he was amazed at how much this book helped him out. He said the repairs and maintenance he was able to do over the years, including replacing the clutch, were so impressive. He said he actually took the engine out and replaced the clutch. He said he drove this thing very happily for several years with this book by his side.

He said one summer when he was home for vacation from school, he did a repair that involved something as simple as loosening a couple of nuts and bolts and tightening them up. It was that simple. There were 3 bolts that he loosened and 3 bolts that he tightened, he did the repair, and everything was fine for weeks. The car ran just great.

So he returned to school in the fall, and he and a couple of buddies decided to go out one night to the movies. The 4 of them pile into the car and they're driving off to their favorite watering hole when all of a sudden the car bursts into flames.

And the puzzler question very simply is, what repair did he do that enabled the car to run perfectly okay for the 6 weeks after he did repair, and then burst into flames when he got back to college?

Good luck friends.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

The New Pulley

This puzzler is automotive in nature.

Here we go.

This involves one of our mechanics, Crusty. We talk about him a lot.

A long time ago Crusty is at the end of his workday, and he's over in the parking lot with his truck. He had a '55 Chevy. And he's trying to pry off the pulley for the generator.

And I said to him, "What are you doing?"

He says, "I'm sick and tired of having a dead battery all the time. This generator doesn't turn fast enough, and as a result, it doesn't charge the battery at low speed, which is all I do. I drive around town. I've got the headlights on, the radio, the heated seat, CD player. Generator doesn't produce enough electricity. The battery gets weaker and weaker, until one morning I come out and the battery is dead. It happens every couple of weeks in the winter and I'm sick of it. So I'm gonna replace it with a pulley that's half the size, so that when this thing isn't running at idle speed or around town, it will charge my battery. What do you think?"

So I say, "Go for it." You know, it isn't my truck. And I wanna see what happens.

So, he does it.

Then, about a week later, he is forced to take a little trip on the highway. He has to visit his mother. So, he gets on the highway.

On the way back, something happens that he and I should have been able to predict as a consequence of this new pulley he installed.

And that is today's puzzler. What happened to Crusty and his truck on the way back as a consequence of the new pully in his generator.