Inside Out Part 3

I heard from the auto trimmers the other day. They apologised for having the car so long, but a number of factors conspired towards the car needing to stay longer. What this meant was that the car missed its appointment with the mechanic. I thought that I had done the right thing – booked it with the trimmers in advance so that they would have less on in their shop. Well, it seems that they had also booked a number of other jobs.
As the car didn’t make it to the mechanic, it meant that it could only be seen late the next week (yesterday), as they had taken bookings in the interim. This negated another plan of mine, as I figured getting it to them with a week between the appointment and the upcoming club run would give them time to find the source of the overheating problem, time to order parts and time to fix whatever was wrong.
So, yesterday it went to the mechanics and it took them time to find the issues and then not enough time to find the parts. The mechanic was of the view that the flex fan that the car has is probably the issue, because at highway speeds it flattens out and doesn’t create negative pressure behind the radiator. His solution was to fit a viscous fan. Finding one in town was difficult, but he found one new one, which was damaged. He then tried to source a second hand one to at least see if it helped. The wreckers took some time to get back to him and even when one was sourced, it didn’t operate properly. So, now I have the car back exactly the same way it was, with no hope of taking it on the run on Sunday.
The next round appears to be to order in a new fan, remove and flush out the radiator, check the thermostat and then take it from there. The carb could do with re-kitting or replacement, as it has a flat spot and is probably too small for this engine. Excellent. Perhaps I can sell one of our children?
It seems that this round of repairs is destined to be frustrating. The alternative is to sell the car and drive a four cylinder egg crate.