toyota gas gauges

I pulled my tank out a while back, during "The Big De-Rust" and looked inside it - not a jot of sediment of any kind. Not bad after 15 years - I was quite suprised! Car had been stationary for a month before i opened the tank.

If you think Rural, NC is desolate, you should try northern Louisiana at 2 am in the morning. I worked in southern Arkansas many years ago and my job included traveling through Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. One morning about 2 am I got stopped in some little Louisiana town for speeding. I was in Louisiana in a car with Oklahoma tags, I had a North Carolina Drivers License, and I claimed I lived in Arkansas. The officer said he either had to throw me in jail, or let me go - he let me go.

Another time I was driving my personal car from Shreveport, LA to El Dorado, AR. It was late and I drove the car flat out (and I mean flat out). It was a Datsun 280Z. My first real stop was at Junction City, LA (and AR for that matter). As I pulled away from the stop sign, the contents of the radiator literally boiled out of the open radiator cap (I suppose I must have left it off - but I can't imagine doing so). So I am in the middle of this very small town wondering around on foot looking for water at 2 am in the morning. A car pulls up and a guy in street clothes asks me what I was doing. Turns out he is the "night" policeman. The town sits on LA/AR line. I guess the LA and AR police take turns patrolling the town at night. Anyhow, he tells me to go look behind a particular building and I'd find a water jug and a faucet. Sure enough it was there. I filled the car up and made it the rest of the way home.

Or then there was the time me and a buddy were driving back from the Outer Banks via US-64. US-64 between Manns Harbor and Columbia is really despolate. As soon as we hit the road (around 2 am) my buddy went to sleep. When we were in the middle of nowhere, my headlight ssuddenly went out. I managed to get the car off the road without crashing. I woke my buddy up and we started worrying about what we were going to do. After about a minute, I pretended to do something under the dash, started the car, turned on the headlights, and finished the trip. After a few minutes of panic I realized I had asbent mindedly turned off the headlights. The headlight controls were on a stalk to the left of the steering coumn and I guess in my boredom I had turrned them off without realizing it. Duh!

And what would you do in a place like Montana or North Dakota? Or Alaska!

My Sister is one of those people who always rides around on 1/4 a tank of gas. We used to claim she drove from station to station, only buying enough gas to get to the next one. Yet, I've never know Her to actually run out. I can't do it. As soon as my car gets to a half a tank, I am looking to fill it up.

And there are lots of gas station in Eastern North Carolina if you know where to look.

Ed

A friend operates an independent repair facility in a gas station. The gas station's vendor delivered a load of gas that appeared to have a lot of water because every car that filled up after the tanker started filling the underground tanks stalled within a block of the gas station. The cars were pushed into the service stalls, and what came out of the gas tanks was mostly water.

Dude, this is North Carolina. No, it's not 1955 - it's 1935 in the rural areas...

Natalie

Too late

Natalie

EXACTLY!

There were just miles and miles of NOTHING. No stores, no other businesses!

Scary.

Natalie

LOL Lucky you.

GAH! How could you still be bored?! The sheer terror should have kept your adrenaline going for days!

Try the Texas plains! That just went on forever. The whole way, we're like, "Please keep the car from breaking down..."

LOL I'm not *that* bad. I wait for it to dip below a quarter.

We were coming from Asheville, going back to Fayetteville, so it was west to east. Nothing; I mean *nothing* for miles.

Natalie

Oh BS....

My brother lives in rural NC.

It is a great area!

"Scott in Florida" ...

For those who shun civilization, yes.

Natalie

What?

gawd wtf is wrong with you?

Scott,

My sister lived and worked in a town that was just down from the mountains in the 1990's. We were afraid the hill people might try to kidnap her. It was known to happen. When the hill people came to her place of work to shop, they would stare at her natural blond hair as if it was some sort of freak of nature they'd never seen before.

Charles of Schaumburg

I guess 'outsiders' might feel that way, but I have never let that bother me.

I lived in Tasley Virginia for awhile (on the Virginia Eastern Shore). EVERYBODY that didn't have at least 5 generations there....was an outsider. Didn't slow me down or bother me one bit.

Guess it is all in your attitude....where you live.

You mean like benzene? Aromatic hydrocarbons, not the best things to expose yourself too!

Hammo

I replaced the gas filter on my 1987 Supra last year even though its not on the maintenance schedule. And then dissected the old filter out of curiosity.

This filter was like 17 years old and only had 90,000 miles on it. (never been changed) Most the time its garaged (southern California heat) Most the time the tanks less than 1/2 full. I don't care were I buy gas and I coast up to gas pumps with 0 gas once in awhile. Its bought it new as a weekend car. Once in awhile I buy gas at a place that looks old as Gomer Piles station. LOL I use a bottle of retail fuel injector cleaner annually.

What I saw convinced me that the filter is designed to be a life time part and it was allot closer to new when dirty.

Dan

Went through the same exorcize myself with similar conclusions. The key is "I replaced the gas filter" - "the" - is there only one? On a GM product I found three. One near the engine, one half way to the rear gas tank and ONE INSIDE THE TANK that I did not know about and that contained all the crud. How many filters are there generally on T cars? j

Um, I don't like dinky towns?

I'm an urban kind of gal.

Natalie

Natalie

Scott, I lived in a town of 2,500 (That's right, HUNDRED) called Colebrook, NH. The people were very nice, it was clean, safe, good schools, the whole deal. But it was just too isolated. My kids were very little then (My daughter was the first baby of color to be born there, BTW :-)). You had to go 90 minutes to Berlin, NH (The White Mountains) to find a freaking department store. It might be a good place to retire, but the extreme cold and deep snow would be a problem for old farts.

Having been military a lot of my adult life, (Active and dependent, as you know), I'm always an 'outsider'. I have no trouble adapting to different communities; in fact I find it fascinating. I simply need the comfort and convenience of at least suburban life. Hooterville just isn't my thing.

Ya think?

:-P

Natalie

Imagine how a glass of ice water (something cold) in a warm world might sweat on the outside of the glass.

Imagine a tank of gasoline (something warm) in a cold world might sweat on the inside of the tank.

I don't actually know if its true but I think today's cars would put a fair amount of heat in the gasoline going back to the tank.

Dan