You need to give serious consideration to the possibility that your
van is possessed by some kind of evil spirit that is attempting to
build itself a new body.  Perhaps it is trying to flesh itself out as
a horse for the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  So far it has
succeeded in getting itself a horse's skull and a stomach.  Small
stomach, you say?  So maybe it's the horse for Famine.

If this is what's happening you might be able to figure out how to
deal with it via Terry Pratchett's handbook on surviving/averting the
apocalypse:

http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Book:Thief_of_Time

You could also check out Pratchett and Gaiman's _Good Omens_ for signs
as to whether you're turning into the anthropomorphization of Famine.
I, for one, am able to rule that out for myself by noting how much
more difficult it has become lately to fasten the top button of the
trousers I used to need a belt with.

mike

PS I tried briefly to figure out how to work in the fact that the van
had also pulled in an entirely different engine, maybe with a side
reference to the fact that some already consider a ford engine in a
volkswagen vehicle a sign that the apocalypse is already here.  But I
didn't come up with anything good enough to pass the high standard
I've set for myself, so I didn't mention it.

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 9:06 PM, craig cowan <phishman068@gmail.com> wrote:
> So I was driving from Pittsburgh PA to New Cannan CT today and a few hours
> into my trip my temp gauge started doing odd things. The level would spike
> and fall, then stay consistent but in new and strange areas. So I pulled
> over to take a look. Popped open the engine bay to find that on my bostig
> swap, something was interfering with the temp sender.
> The zetec uses the stock WBX 1.9 style temp 1 sending unit to feed the gauge
> on the dash. It is connected with a spade connector on the top (just like on
> a vanagon) and then grounded at the bottom via an eyelet attached to a wire
> (rather than just being grounded to the metal thermostat housing in a 1.9
> vanagon). Anyway, at some point in my travels I guess I hit some pretty
> mangled up roadkill.....
>
> Because when I opened up the engine bay I could see something on the temp
> sender. It looked like a frayed red wire. I pulled it off to find that a
> stomach (definitely a stomach, with pieces of associated tubing attached)
> was grounding my temp sender!
> It was a fairly compact stomach, likely from a groundhog or squirrel. I
> still have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that this organ had
> enough conductivity to do this, but promptly upon removing said organ....
> the temp gauge worked as it should and has continued to since!
>
> So.....
> that's my odd story of the day.
>
> How conductive are rodent organs?
>
> -Craig
> '85GL turned WESTY
> BOSTIG in the back
>