Sunday, July 1, 2012

Turning Wrenches


“Honey, the Peugeot is running funny. I just filled it at Texaco and it barely made it up the hill”. Chilling words. When my spouse used words of endearment, it usually meant some semi disaster was being presented.  A quick sniff of the fuel tank confirmed she had filled it, with gasoline, and above the $3.00 mark. Not a good thing when the vehicle has a diesel engine.

Brigid puts posts on her blog about her English car project.

http://mausersandmuffins.blogspot.com/2012/06/i-have-special-tool-for-that.html

Brings to mind many years of frustrations, skin abrasions, crushed fingers, and assorted bumps and bruises while working on machinery.

First, the only positive things about my automotive repairs skills is this: My hourly rate cannot be beat.

The above mention Peugeot needed, among other things, a new head gasket. The injectors and rotopump went to a real mechanic. Said Peugeot has twenty two head bolts. Installation calls for loosening and retorguing the head bolts four times. Almost a bad as a Renault 16 we had that required body parts be removed to replace the alternator. The R16 had a carburetor whose metal was of such quality, a souvenir pewter cup was better made. Made do with muffler cement to keep the fast idle valve in place.

As a young man, I went from reliable Fords to such wonderful daily drivers as a Fiat Abarth, AC Bristol, a 2 cycle DKW, three British Motorcycles, a  Rover sedan, and the apex of reliability, a 1949 Harley Davidson. Yes, I know, 90% of all HD’s are still on the road. The other 10% made it home. (Not original with me, but no the less apt) By good fortune, during this era, I owned a 1958 Chevy Apache ¾ ton panel delivery truck which always ran. So long as my date didn’t mind sitting on a milk crate, it was also the date mobile.

There was, in the city,  a garage that specialized in vehicle owned by people with more money than common sense. Since I only qualified in one of the two, the owner let  me work off my shop bill on a part time basis. My tasks were all the dirty, tedious, frustrating, and time consuming things his mechanics didn’t want to do. I learned about six volt positive ground electrical systems. (Hello, MG TC’s).  The British, not content with metric and SAE, had their own bolts, nuts, and thread patterns called Whitworth; all with numerous variations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standard_Whitworth

 A useful tool for British cars was vice grips. My father called them Japanese Snap Ons.

Returning servicemen brought  back strange and weird cars that seemed to migrate to this garage. All were money pits. The owner was very good. Given enough money, everything got fixed.

My big talent was synchronizing multiple SU carburetors. All the manuals in the world won’t help. Somewhat like water dowsers, some can, most can’t. On the other hand, Weber carburetors often defeated me.

Some of the poor boy ranch hand skills came in handy. The  oil filter mounting bracket on the Anglia we were driving came loose in the middle of nowhere in Sweden. The three bolts going into the cast iron block had stripped. Using phrase books, eventually the local repair shop owner let me rent his arc welder. You can weld steel to cast iron. Run your melt on the steel while splattering the iron.

Same darned Anglia had a leaking gasket. Took the mangled gasket into the Koblenz, Germany, Ford Dealer. The parts manager matched it perfectly. He then asked me what car we had. When we replied, “Anglia”, he grabbed the gasket off the counter.  He said,  “Das is fur der Dutcher Ford. Nicht is fur der Englander Ford”. Damned Rad wouldn’t sell it to me. Instead, I made a gasket out of a beer coaster at the Gasthaus down the street.

The great tragedy of my youth was; epoxy wasn’t available.  What a wonderful material.

My ability to patch thing together didn’t help my marriage. That woman had a rare talent for breaking things. Always wanted to replace them with new and shiny (and more debt). Would piss her off when I fixed it. Hard to believe she is first generation Norwegian.

You know you have a problem when you list Nordstrom Stores as a dependent, and the I.R.S. accepts your return.

I have never enjoyed turning wrenches. A task that was by necessity,  not enjoyed. Today, I try not to do anything more complicated than changing an air filter. Takes too many days for the body to recover. Still, being completely cheap, I end up working on my “fleet”. Just living up to my blog title.

5 comments:

Pens Of The abyss said...

plus your big hands dont help matters

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Scotty has left a new comment on your post "Turning Wrenches":

. Hard to believe she is first generation Norwegian.

I feel your pain. Married to a first generation swede!

Your post put a smile on this old face this morning. I'm a major motorhead but, like you I'm old school.

I have a project in the garage as I type but, I just can't bring myself to learn about the new vehicles, nor do I have the patience to work on them so, they go to a repair shop and to the quick oil change places.

Luckily, as far as automobiles, I am financially able to choose my battles! I wish that that Chevy delivery van was in my driveway!

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Sorry Scotty, hit the wrong line!

Old NFO said...

LOL, ah yes, the 'learning' process! BTDT, but I still enjoy working on the old cars, mainly because I can SEE progress (and yeah, recovery does take a while now days)... dammit...

Well Seasoned Fool said...

From Hal Swift (Duane was my late brother in law)

The "Turning Wrenches" comment reminded me of Duane. We'd be driving somewhere and we'd see a big ol' Harley hog. He'd always shake his head, and say "Them things are over rated." He'd say, "Every time y'see one, the rider's wrenchin' it."
The first time I heard this I didn't understand. He said, "Well, them things always have somethin' loose on 'em, and the rider has t'get off, get out his wrenches, and tighten up whatever it is."

Well Seasoned Fool said...

I don't enjoy it at all. Do it because it needs to be done. Like replacing a water pump on a 27'Bridge Erection Boat at twenty below while drifting down the Donau(Danube) River. None of the "mechanics" would do it. Too cold. They couldn't feel their fingers. No shit! I couldn't either but in fifteen minutes the port engine was running. The starboard was frozen. (Using navy lingo - we just called them left and right)