Roadside Repair

Cars are better today; I don't think there's any doubt about that. They are built better and last longer. The only real downside is that they're more difficult to fix when there is an issue. Forty years ago, back in my day, sonny, I pulled an engine on the car I had at the time and replaced a rear main oil seal on my own. I never gave it a second thought: it needed doing so I did it. I'd never attempt such a thing these days.

To give you an example from even farther back in Cosgriff history, and which shows that car repairs were even simpler way back when, I'll tell you the tale of me Grandpa Joe and his brother, me Uncle Bill.

There were driving around one day and whatever old vehicle they were in threw a rod. A very simple and I'm sure unsatisfying explanation of this is that a piston rod came off the crankshaft in the engine. If the piston can't work, and it can't if it's not connected to anything, the car won't go (or at least go very well or very far). So what did those two venerable brothers do?

They found a ditch deep enough for their purposes, straddled it with the car, crawled under the vehicle and fixed that thrown rod on the spot. Then they went on their way.

Granted, me Uncle Bill had a reputation as a cracking good mechanic, and they certainly had tools on them. Still, doing a major engine repair, one that likely took an hour or two, on the side of the highway while lying in a ditch, well, you ain't doing that very often if at all these days.

In the Numbers

My new old van, in contrast to my newer older van, on Tuesday hit a milestone I've never seen before. In all the history of my personal Cosgriff cars, it hit 234,567 miles. Yep. 2-3-4-5-6-7, all in a row.

I wanted to get a picture of the odometer to capture the moment. But I was in heavy traffic, in what is known in the Detroit area as the 'mixing bowl' where several major highway arteries junction, and simply couldn't manage it. As I was driving in heavy traffic I probably shouldn't have been all that enamored of the odometer reading at all. 

Yet I was. It's exciting to crease the danger envelope every now and then.

Not Just for Roofing Anymore

Me Grandpa Joe once had this big black Cadillac, I think it was an Eldorado, and it was a monster. A veritable battleship. I mean, that thing was huge. It's passing by would cause a solar eclipse. And like most of Joe's cars, it was, well, unique.

We never did get the brakes working quite right. You learned while driving it to anticipate traffic lights, slowing down blocks away when it looked like the light would go red soon. Me Uncle John known in some quarters as Zeke once suggested we install those big parachutes like they have on drag racers to help the car stop on time because, being big and heavy, it took a lot to stop that vehicle. The engine required so much work that Zeke also quipped that once he saw the car on the street and almost didn't recognize it with the hood down.

But what got me the most about the car was the first time Joe had me changing the oil. Crawling under the belly of the beast to drain the motor, I couldn't help but see that the oil pan had apparently once sprung a leak. The clue? The pan was covered in heavy roofing cement.

I called to me Grandpa, "There's roof cement slathered on the oil pan. Maybe it used to have a leak."

"Does it look like it's leaking now?" he yelled back.

I studied it closely and replied, "No."

"Then we won't worry about it," Joe answered.

A typical Grandpa Joe view of a typical Grandpa Joe car. Damn, I miss that old man.

Not Like They Used To

Here's an old adage which many of us use: 'They don't make 'em like they used too'. I'm not so sure that it applies generally.

I remember a day about 30 years ago where a guy in the Shop remarked about cars, 'They don't make 'em like the used too' and me Pops replied, "Good. I'm glad the don't". His point was that even in the 1990s he wasn't having the amount of car troubles he was having in the 1960s. Cars by and large were made 'better than they used to'.

I second that. I don't have nearly the amount of car issues I was having in the Nineties, and I readily admit that what I drive isn't anywhere near mint condition (Quiet, Ron). The fact is that powertrains (the engines and transmissions) are capable of a quarter million miles on many vehicles today; Dad recalled that when a car might  hit 100,000 in 1952 it was such an anomaly as to be almost unbelievable. Rust out is much more rare than it once was too.

On the whole, they do make them better than they used too, and that's good. I need the aftermarket. 

A Diamond that was Rough

Me Grandpa Joe smoked. A lot. He paid for it in more ways than one.

On a road trip years ago, he flicked a cigarette butt out of his window as he drove. Unfortunately the window behind the driver's seat was rolled down. The smoldering butt flew through the opening and set the back seat on fire. Before Joe could do anything about that except pull over and, I think, retrieve his luggage, the car was in flames. A total loss.

Yet he still needed to get home. As luck would have it he wasn't very far away from a junk yard. Joe ambled in to see if they might have anything, anything at all, which was drivable.

The proprietor offered him an old vehicle of some sort (If you're a Ford guy call it a Chevy, if a Chevy guy a Ford, if a Chrysler man just keep your mouth shut) which was absolutely deplorable even by Joe standards. It barely ran, and the body was held together by willpower and the grace of God. The tires were well blanched and balding rubber. As me Grandpa listened to it run he asked, "What do you want for it?"

"Fifty bucks," came the reply. "And it goes up every time you open your mouth."

Joe paid him fifty dollars and got home with his newfound, uh, treasure.

Get this Pops

Hey Pops, how are you this morning?

So I broke the coil spring behind the driver's front tire on my van yesterday. Yet I had needed pickups to make at Electric Eel this morning. You know what that meant, don't you?

I drove to Eel and back today with a broken spring.

The van drove fine the whole 400 miles. I only had to deal with the tinkling, ringing sound I heard when I turned the heater off. It really didn't act out of the ordinary at all. The tinkling did sound weird on US 68 in the pitch black at 4:15 this morning, though. But I never thought twice about making the trip.

I guess this makes me a true Cosgriff, eh? Be sure to tell Joe. I don't doubt he'll get a kick out of it.

Until next time,

Marty

PS: The car's at Sam's now. I don't want to go too long without getting it fixed.

Gas cap odometer

Just when I figure I can't have anything more unusual happen to one of my famed Cosgriff cars, something more unusual happens. On my new old van rather than the mileage appearing on the odometer, the odometer says gascap.

The van's been running fine. Indeed I ignored it for a few weeks (I first noticed it before Halloween). The cap seemed to be on snugly, so as is my normal approach to all things mechanical if ain't broke I don't fix it.

Still, as it was so highly unusual even for me I did eventually stop by my mechanic for his opinion. Do you know what he told me? "Don't worry about it. The seal probably isn't perfect and the sensor is picking that up. Sand around the end of the neck where the cap goes if you like, but it won't hurt anything."

I have long believed that far too many of our warnings are overwrought. This incident, if it qualifies as an incident, ahem, seals the deal for me. All these warning lights just cause us to panic unnecessarily. If there's a real problem you'll know without much of a hint.

It was Saturday when I saw my mechanic. I still haven't sanded the thing and I'm not sure I ever will.

Marty has car trouble

Anyone who knows me knows the kind of vehicles I drive. There were probably eye rolls and incredulous looks when those people heard I was driving to Arizona. But I'm not so bad as to go that far in any kind of questionable car or van. I rented a car for the trip.

About twenty miles before my destination the car began making the most awful noises. I thought I had blown a tire, yet a quick inspection showed nothing like that. But when I got back on the road again, there was the same terrible noise. I popped the hood and looked under the car, yet there was no obvious cause.

Thankfully I was close enough to my daughter's to limp the car there; I found I could drive it at surface speeds with no problems, and as such why wait for a tow or the rental company when you're so close to home? But at freeway speeds, wow. It's a really bad thumping, flapping kind of noise.

I'll go to Enterprise this morning and get another car of course. And I'm glad I was so close to the end of the trip when my troubles occurred. My good fortune is further made in that there's an Enterprise six blocks away. I'll drive the car there to get a replacement. But it goes to show that you can do the right thing and it still doesn't always work completely as planned. And I just know that me Pops and me Grandpa Joe are looking down on me saying, "You should have just driven your own car, boy."

It's just a car

I took my van to the mechanic today. It's been running rough when accelerating, although when I get to speed it holds the speed well.

I tend not to fret about my cars. If they start and get me from point A to point B, I'm happy. To give you an idea of how little I watch my cars, I never, ever worry about the 'check engine' or 'service engine soon' lights being on. All they mean are that the mix of air and gas isn't spot on or that the engine is somehow not running ideally. I say the hell with that. Live with it; all those sensors cars have these days simply detect too many things too delicately. Check oil lights and heat gauges are the ones to watch. If you're car's running too hot or has low oil pressure, those are the real danger signs. If it's making noises it obviously shouldn't make, then be concerned. And of course, check fluids regularly. Otherwise, no worries.

Anyway, the old girl's been running rough enough that I figured it should be checked this time around. "Does the check engine light come on?" my long time and no doubt long suffering mechanic asked.

"It's always on, Sam. You should know that, " I answered.

He snickered, "Right. Well, does the light flash when you accelerate hard?"

"That it does. Then it stops flashing when I reach speed."

Sam responded, "It probably just needs a tune up. I'll put the tester on it and let you know."

Boom. No worries, no big deal. Don't worry so much about your cars, folks. I would have kept driving it if I'd known that was all there was to it.