No water. No car

Well... the 'no water' is not entirely correct.  I've had too much, none and some water.

In the morning I found this:

Too much water

The plastic pipe that comes up through the concrete floor appeared to have a small leak.  I guess that would explain the hose clamps around the pipe near the concrete floor. Jostling the pipe to connect to the newer pump and pipes must have 're-awoken' an old problem.

I was afraid I would have to break through the concrete to get at more of the pipe for replacement.  I took the clamps off and discovered multiple sections of plastic pipe.  The pipe barely sticks through the concrete depression.  In the plastic pipe is a ribbed plastic piece used to join the plastic pipes.  The leak appears to have come from this joint connection.

I wonder if a previous owner had a pipe problem and had to chip away the concrete and cut and patch the pipe?

As you see the pipe comes out of the concrete at an angle.  To get the plastic pipe to match up to the new pipes I had to bend it a tad.  That may have put pressure on the connection.  I replaced the short plastic pipe with a shorter more flexible rubber piece.  I made up the difference with metal pipe.  I really tightened the clamps over the rubber piece of pipe.

Things got thrown off a tad.  One of the unions was difficult to line up 100% up and down.  Right and left was not a problem as I could turn a joint to match the union match.  Up and down was not so easy as the pump was on one side and both the pressure tank and the pipe to the house on the other side.  I struggled to get a perfect union match.  In the end I replaced a piece of pipe with a sightly longer piece.

I turned the water on.  The union has a slow but steady leak.  *arrggh*  I put a can under to catch the drops and will wait till tomorrow to see if the leak self seals.

The rubber piece may be leaking.  It is slight wet around the plastic pipe in the concrete floor.  Hopefully it seals by morning.


In between working on the well and pipes the car mechanic called with bad news about my car.  The brake lines were very rusted and the lines front to back needed to be replaced as they were all one piece.  The problem area was where a plastic cover 'protected' the lines.  Salt got up under the plastic and did its work.  Thank you Minnesota and all the salt you dump on the roads over Winter.

I went over and looked at the brake lines.  They appeared to be very corroded and so fragile that they would collapse it touched.  The rest of the brake lines were good. The lines could not be cut and spliced - it was all or nothing.

New brake lines for an 1989 model are no longer sold.  I could try to find brake lines at a salvage yard.  I called several salvage yards and was told they do not sell used brake lines due to liability issues.

Even if I found replacement lines, the labor cost would run 300 to 400 hundreds dollars.  The mechanic suggested I junk the car.  That is what happened to my previous car back in 1992 - I junked that car because the brake lines needed replacing and it wasn't worth it.

I had only 146,999 miles on the car.  Junking the car is a shame because, other than underneath the car, most of the rest of the car was good.

This is only the the third car I ever owned.  I had it since 1992 - 23 years.  I have lots of great memories with this car.  When shopping for a replacement to my previous car I couldn't find a car I liked in Rochester and when visiting my friend Francis in the Twin Cities, we went car shopping one day.   I thought this Nissan Maxima was too fancy/sporty for me but he talked me into it.  My girlfriend at the time test drove the car and loved it.  I love the car and never regretted buying it.  I have a few memories of traffic tickets.  I have a memory of driving 134 mph when the Montana speed limit was "a safe and reasonable" speed back in the 90s.  And many other memories as this afternoon I mourned the passing of my car.

The mechanic said salvage yards only paid $75 for junked cars.  Only $75? That was the same salvage price my previous car sold for in 1992.  The mechanic said he had $80 in labor and would take the car in payment if I wished.  So I let the car go with great regret.

I miss my car.


Friday night's sunset: