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#696 Walt Starkey Breakdown in Turkey

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the valve at top kept blowing off

Walt Starkey

There was the time when I broke down in Turkey and the compressor, which keeps the air built up, the valve at top kept blowing off and I could not… I’d stripped it, rebuilt it. Stripped it, rebuilt it. And it just would not stop blowing off. So consequently I couldn’t move. So a policeman stopped and I started the engine and explained what the problem was. Mechanic. And all the mechanic did was inside the valve was a spring, which, when it’s working, it pushes the ball bearing up into the valve and stops it. All he did was take the spring out, stretch it, and it worked. And I thought ‘I’ve spent several hours stripping it down and cleaning all the bits and pieces and I just thought… Well i can’t say what I thought! But I thought ‘Dear oh dear! I’m in the wrong job here!’



Precis

The speaker recalls a time when his truck broke down in Turkey and he spent hours trying to fix a compressor valve until a passing policeman helped him fix it by simply stretching a spring, making him feel like he was in the wrong job.