My Face Was Literally On Fire!

It's been said that English is one of the hardest languages to master.  This is largely due to multiple meanings for words, grammar rules that never seem to apply, and people just completely butchering it's use due to laziness.  One thing that has always irked me is the misuse of the word literally.  In modern day use, it seems that this simple word has come into common usage to help convey the magnitude of an event or action.  It is very common to hear someone remark that their head was literally going to explode, or that their skin was literally on fire.  These people must be a heck of lot stronger than me, because it seems that everyone and their sister choose to ride bikes that literally weigh a ton!

Back to the matter at hand.  Chester has been acting up again, after months of trouble free operation.  The problem always manifested itself as the truck failing to start for no apparent reason.  It didn't matter what temperature it was outside, if it had been raining, or the distance that had last been driven.  I would hop into the drivers seat, turn the key, and nothing.  At first I thought it was the battery getting old, and the cold cranking amps just not being up to snuff anymore.  A quick probe with a multi meter proved otherwise.  Next I thought there may be a break in the wiring somewhere.  The problem presented itself after the cigarette lighter got stuck in the pushed position, causing the fuse to pop.  I figured that possibly the wiring may have burnt out somewhere behind the dash.  Pulling the dash apart, aside from being a huge pain in the ass, provided no clues.  I proceeded to double check the distributor and coil while I was in there (yep you work on the engine in a van from inside the cab, go figure) but these components also showed no signs of problems.

After checking every fuse and relay, I decided that the only thing left to check would be the starter solenoid and the starter itself.  Using the awesomely safe test of bridging a screwdriver across the terminals with the van in neutral, I was only able to get the starter to bump about 3 out of 5 times.  The solenoid on the other hand fired every time.  Ok, we're making progress.  Pulling the starter I noticed that there was a lot of corrosion on the terminals.  I decided to disassemble the can to also get a good look at the armature and the brushes of the motor as well.  Lo and behold, taking apart the can revealed the problem.  Apparently a hole in the starter had allowed gravel to slip into the can and bind up the gears.  The starter pinion was not able to move into place against the flywheel because of the gravel.  The hilarity of the situation, was that 15 minutes prior I had just read in the instructions for trouble shooting the starter, that shorting the terminals of the starter motor should cause it to whir smoothly and that it should not sound gravely.  Go figure !