A Sticky Solenoid

I took many solo trips across the country in my car while in high school and college. It was an old diesel Mercedes. It was my dad's car before it was mine. He used to travel the country selling diamonds and other precious gems. He had many interesting friends - one of them quite good at booby trapping cars. When my dad drove it, the car was rigged. In 1980, before most cars came with alarms as standard equipment, this car had an alarm that could be remotely activated. Not only did a siren scream, the lights flashed, the steering wheel locked, and tear gas exploded from under the driver's seat. No shit. There was a wire in the trunk that, when pulled, would allow escape from the locked trunk should one ever find oneself in such a position. This was the only cool thing not disabled before I got the car. My brother and I learned to drive at the same time. I was 18 and he was 16. My dad decided we had to learn to drive a manual transmission before we were allowed to drive an automatic. In the course of learning, we blew out the clutch. Betcha didn't know it was possible to drive a manual without a clutch. Anyway, my dad picked up an engine jack and all the parts needed for a clutch replacement. He opened the do-it-yourself Mercedes 240D manual to the correct section and told us to let him know if we had any questions. He then walked into the house and sat down to read a book. We wanted to drive so we whined and cussed and sweated and skinned our knuckles and fixed the damned car. When we fired it up and it actually ran just like it should I fell in love with working on my own car. My brother, on the other hand, swore he'd find a way to make enough money he'd never ever work on a car again. So, a year later on summer vacation, I'm crossing the country at a bargain - sleeping in rest areas, showering in truck stops for $2.00 and enjoying the freedom of the open highway. I often had problems with the starter in the car - likely because I bought a series of refurbished starters. And the starter solenoid was constantly "sticky." To start the car normally, one had to turn the key to the on position and then pull out a handle on the dash to allow the dash-mounted glow plug to heat up. Once it was good and red you pulled the handle all the way out and the engine would turn over. When the solenoid was sticking, you had to precede all of this nonsense with beating on the solenoid housing. I used an 18" metal mag light for this purpose. In the middle of one of my trips, the problem became so bad that I had to have someone else beat on the solenoid while I did the whole glow plug magic in the car. So, I'm at a rest stop... I wake up and get ready to get on the road. In front of my car is a tractor trailer. I walk up to the side of the tractor and knock on the door. I ask the man inside if he'll help me start my car and hand him the flashlight. We get the car started and hang out talking for a few minutes. He's hauling bales of cotton. He showed them to me - they are enormous and wrapped around the middle with brown paper. The raw cotton is sticking out each end. He asks if I'd like to see the inside of his truck. Heck yeah. So we crawl up in the truck and it's pretty fascinating. We get out a map and show each other where we're from. He offers to let me drive his truck to the end of the rest stop. Thanks, but no. Anyway, finally I thank him for helping me, say goodbye and climb down out of the truck. I get in my car and head out. As I'm pulling away from a line of trucks, some guy flashes a handful of fanned out $20s at me. I drive away wondering about that. Twenty miles down the road, I finally figure it out. ;)