Last week as I drove to the shops the wee car just died and I coasted to the side of the road. Lights were on, ignition turned on, fuel ok and yet she wouldn’t start. No spark apparently. I called the road side assist crowd, the RACQ, who arrived after about 30 mins or so and after about 10 minutes told me that the distributor had no doubt shit itself as there was no spark being produced. He ordered a tow truck.

It arrived after a further 30 minutes or so had passed and the driver was very friendly although the facial tattoos made him look more like a mugger than helper, but he was polite and efficient and soon the old Ford was on the back of the truck being whisked off to the garage.

I had no choice but to drop the car at the service centre and then return in the morning to see if they could fix her for me. I was not very keen in leaving the car overnight outside the garage but alas I had really no choice.

To much relief, she was still there in the morning and even better she was in one piece, which made me feel very happy. Corry, the service manager eyed me up as he drove passed me, no doubt thinking to himself, “Why has this old bastard parked his car there?”

I explained to him the circumstances and he seemed to lighten up a bit but he told me that it might be a few days before I would get the car back as they were extremely busy…….this was fine with me.

The following day late in the afternoon I got a call to tell me that it was indeed the distributor that had died and it was going to cost $700 to repair………………..Fuck……………..but I have no choice because if I attempt the repair the car would either be off the road for weeks or more possibly, never fixed.

I also got a new fuel filter fitted and when I got the car back it feels as if there is way more power, she is more nimble and it feels as if she can breathe better which I am very pleased about. This problem with the distributor has been in the background for some time I think. I can remember before I left in 2016 going to work one morning and the car cut out for a few seconds when I was on the motorway and it scared the shit out of me because I was in the outside lane. Last year there were four occasions when she wouldn’t start and so I am thinking that I am lucky to have gotten this far with the old distributor because I can’t recall changing it before in the car and it has done around 450,000 KM.