FSE

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When I woke up the next morning, Raf was still under and I could hear the sounds of Abbie's tractor outside, my guess was that she was moving cars or bodies. I didn't want to wake Raf or Jericho up so I slid off my air mattress, pulled on my old, oil stained white shirt and blue jeans and walked downstairs. I headed down the street to the garage and pulled the door open. My Chevy's blue paint caught the sun like a mirror and shined a bright blue light into my face. The black deer guard cast a much dimmer light and the glass head and aftermarket lights cast a bright, piercingly bright light that almost subdued the blue of the matte paint. I walked into the garage, running my hand over the powdery textured paint.

There's no question that people get attached to their sports cars. Some people start with a used 4 speed automatic and build their dream, Group B Rally car out of it, or their dream pavement ripping Camaro on Drag Slicks. For me, the attachment to my truck was different than that. It was the truck that took Mom to the hospital when she was pregnant for Raf, what I had learned to drive stick in and it was the truck that had won many too many races at the sand dunes to even count. I sighed. The truck was a piece of my life, more than I had ever known. Gotta get her running again, can't lose another piece of my life.

I pulled the door open and stuck the key in the ignition, turning the battery on and turning the radio on. I set Magnum 1's Event Horizon to play and then popped the hood. The four banger under the hood was mangled beyond saving and now that the smoke was gone, I could clearly see the head sized hole in the engine block. I guessed that 700 horsepower from a 1.5 liter engine was going to fall apart at some point.

"It's been a sweet ride", I said laughing at myself, "needs a V8 Magnum."

I propped the hood and then went for my tools. I removed the sway bars that were mounted below the engine block as well as the brace that sat above it. I disconnected the battery cables from the distributor and pulled my Everglow plugs out, laying them on a counter. I unbolted the distributor from the engine block and pulled it out, checking it for damage. Assuming that my transmission wasn't damaged, I had to save as many of my after market parts as I could. My gears were tuned for a 700 horsepower over 928 foot pounds of torque, so I had to build the new engine as close to that as possible, and if certain parts, like the distributor or the turbocharger had been damaged, then I would have to rip the whole drivetrain out and that would be a lot of work that I didn't have the time to do. Thankfully though, the distributor was undamaged, so I laid it with the plugs. The next thing to come off was the crank case cover, then my cams came out. I looked at them as carefully as I could, if these were cracked or damaged in any way, then I was pretty close to screwed. Camshafts are what operate valves in an engine. Since I had diesel tech racing valves in my engine, if I lost the camshafts then I would have to scrap the valves due to the fact that Diesel Tech had a proprietary design that prevented using parts on their upgrades that didn't come from them. To my relief, they two had taken no damage, so I laid them aside and start taking off the valve assemblies. It had been a long time since I worked on this truck, I had forgotten just how HEAVY all this stuff was. Aftermarket parts are supposed to be LIGHT!

"Dad would have your head if he caught you tearing apart this truck without him."

I turned around to see Raf standing in the doorway with Jericho at his heels. He was wearing the same outfit that he had the day we started this trip.

"You should be in bed little brother", I said siting the valves down on the counter.

"I would be", Raf said leaning against the wall, his hand on his side, "but Abbie's out on her Tractor and your in here, you can only talk to your dog for so long before you get mind numbingly bored."

I laughed, "your right...about both of those things."

"Do you really think you can fix the Chevy?", he asked.

In all honesty, I wasn't sure if I could fix it. I had learned a lot about diesel engines from Dad, but he'd never really told me how to replace one if it blew out.

"If anything from all those hours on the swap, all those races at the sand dunes and Diesel training in Delta did their job", I told him, "then yes."

"And if they didn't?', Raf asked.

I looked at the truck, "then our Ark has braved it's last storm and we need another."

"I don't want another truck", Raf said, "I want this one."

"So do I little bro", I said as I started to un bolt the intake manifold and the turbo, "but it happens. Clothes tear, machines wear out and people grow old, just the way of the world."

"You said you would teach me to drive as soon as I could reach the pedals", Raf said, "so you better fix it."

"I can't make any promises", I told him as I took the top half of the intake out.

Raf sighed and watched me work. Once I got the top half of the intake out, I un bolted the turbo from the block and looked it over. There was a layer of soot from the smoke built up on the outside and a decent dent from where the piston had impacted it.

"Aww crap", I said dropping my head.

"What?", Raf asked quickly.

"There's a huge dent in the turbocharger", I answered.

"Is that bad?", Raf asked.

"Can't build a diesel engine without one", I answered, "so yeah, very bad."

"Like the Creepers in Minecraft?", Raf asked.

"Worse", I said shaking my head.

"Speaking of", Raf said, "can I get the One out of the backseat? I wanna play Minecraft."

"Go ahead", I answered, "if Abbie asks where I am, just tell her working on the truck."

Raf nodded and retrieved our Xbox One from the backseat before retreating back to our two story hideout. I sat down at a work bench and started taking the turbo apart. If anything inside was cracked or damaged in anyway, then the turbo was shot and I would have to replace it, and seeing as this turbo was custom made for my set up, that would be a huge torque and horsepower loss for the new engine. I un did the six screws on the out side of the fan case and pulled it off and then pulled the fan out, the fan had a few nicks in the blades, but that didn't really matter because it was a stock width for Cummin's engines, so if I needed to I could replace it. The inner most workings of the turbo, the ceramic ball bearings in specific, the huge waist gate, blow off valves and the alcohol injector, were completely untouched, which was good.

I sighed, "well at least it was something small."

I put the turbo back together and set it aide before pulling out the rest of the induction system, the radiator, alternator and air conditioning. I was in the middle of getting the oil pan off and getting the front differential off when I hear Abbie's tractor roll up and stop in front of the garage. The door popped open and I heard rubber boots hit the ground.

"What'cha doin' Cameron?", she asked.

"Pulling the oil pan off", I said starting to unscrew the filter, "hand me bucket or something will you? This is brand new oil and I don't wanna lose it."

Abbie slid me a small black bucket as I finished unscrewing the oil filter. The thick brown liquid poured from the cracked engine block and once the stream faded I pulled the pan off, finding chucks of metal.

"Damn", I sighed pulling a piece out, "I hope that that's not a piece of the crankshaft."

"Is it an aftermarket shaft?", she asked.

"Yeah", I answered, "a guy in Maine built them custom for sand kicker rigs, their forged instead of cast, makes them a lot stronger."

"What have you got left?', Abbie asked.

"Not much other than to disconnect the wiring and get the actual block out", I answered.

"Let's get to it then", she told me.

It took us the entirety of two hours to pull the wiring off and get the block out. When we finally did get it out, get the transmission, custom piston heads, clutch and somehow undamaged crank out, the block just about fell apart on the table, the pieces would fit back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

"Holy shit", Abbie said, "what did you do to this block?"

"Shoot it with a 20mm evidently", I answered, "it looked like someone blew it apart."

Abbie looked at me.

"What?", I asked.

"I'm not sure", she answered, "your acting like losing this truck is one of the worst things to ever happen to you...but then again, maybe I'm just going crazy."

I sighed, "your right. I did the same thing to my 240, but I couldn't fix that one and years of saving, days of work and my dream of a sports car was tossed down the drain. I bought the Chevy because at the time, I was just intending to use it as Point A to B until I could buy another 240, but then a fool in a Mustang called me out and this little pick up moped the floor with him."

"So it became your new dream car?", Abbie asked.

I nodded, "did a Google search for custom trucks when I got home, wanted to build a Sandkicker ever since. I can't lose this one though, I've had too many good memories with this Chevy to do to it what I did to the 240. Stupid as it sounds, I lose this truck, I lose the last bit of my Dad I have left."

"It's not enough is it?", Abbie asked.

"No."

"I'm the same way over my Focus", Abbie said, "I lost my Dad to Agent Six, the Focus is all I've got left. He and I used to run time trials on the Texas Circuit with it."

Now it was my turn to give her the funny look.

"What?", she asked.

"Texas Circuit Terror", I said, "that was your Focus wasn't it?"

She smiled, "yep. I honestly tried to to brag about it."

I used to watch your races on TV a lot. Dad would see something new on the car and would be all like, "we should do that to the truck and I'd be like. "No".

Abbie laughed, "still a fan of mine?"

"Of the car",I answered, "I couldn't have cared less about the driver."

"Ouch", she said, "you could have just said no I did save your brother's life after all."

I laughed, "sorry. So you were saying something about a few Dodge RAMs around here?"

"A couple parked in front of a vet's office that I haven't checked yet", she said, "we can go tomorrow, it's getting kinda late and no way in hell are you getting into my 550 as sweaty as you are."

I laughed, "your sweaty as hell too. You know that right?"

Abbie stuttered, then said, "yeah your right, neither of us are getting in either of my vehicles like this. Lets go get cleaned up."

I shut the hood of the truck and turned off the battery. I locked the doors and shut the garage behind me as we walked back to the store.