Category: life

where everything else happens

Bruised Sternum. The Adventures of the Moron Mechanic, part 37.

As I was driving into work this morning I noted that the skin on my sternum and upper rib cage is a tad sensitive. Feels as if I’m bruised. I stopped playing hockey years ago, so it is an unusual feeling these days. I racked my brain trying to figure out how I did this. Then it all came back to me… Saturday night Nick & I went down to the weekly “cruise-in” at the Burger King at the south end of town. I don’t have any photos as I forgot my memory card for my camera. (d’oh!) We wandered around looking at cars. The turnout was very good since it had been a warm sunny day and this time of year it stays twilight for hours at a time here above 48° N.

As we were packing up to leave I looked down into my open bonnet and noted a minor anomaly:

A re-creation of how I found the ball joint of the upper A-arm. In reality the circlip was gone however.

I noted that the grease cap of the upper A-arm on the driver’s side suspension had popped off. There is a “circlip” (Brit-speak for snap-ring) there that holds it down. The circlip had popped out but miraculously the cap, shims, and spring remained in place! There are two parts stores (Schuck’s & Auto Zone) very close to the cruise-in locale so I visited both looking for a replacement snap-ring. Unfortunately these retail establishments are really just ‘accessory stores’ these days. If I needed a carbon-fiber key ring, or some car wash they could have helped, but no actual parts could be found.

I put the cap and shims into a paper towel and gently drove home. The next day I went to NAPA and found the proper-sized circlip/snap-ring with ease. The hard part came next. I tried putting it on by hand. This involved squeezing my upper body between the tire and bonnet, and trying to push down on the spring with the cap with one hand, while installing the circlip with the proper pliers with the other. This was frustrating. It would have been helpful to have five hands… with very small, yet super-strong fingers. I have pretty strong fingers, but “very small” is never a term anyone would use to describe them.

What I really need is some device to hold the cap in the proper position while I use two hands to insert the circlip. I have a puller I used to detach the tie rode ends last year during my steering rack work. Unfortunately it is too small for the job. Conceptually however, it is just what I need. Back to the NAPA.

The puller I bought at NAPA

I picked up an adjustable puller, which should come in handy anyway, and started trying to finish this job. Did I mention there is the first JCNA Slalom of the season coming up this weekend? Yeah, I want to get this car fixed… as much as I’d like to take the TDI out on the slalom course it just wouldn’t be the same. Smoky, but not the same.

The problem with the puller was getting it adjusted and positioned just right, and then having it stay there. At least stay long enough to get the circlip pliers into action. Imagine me wedged like Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit’s doorway between the tire and the bonnet, barely able to peer over the tire down at the A-arm, as I gently try over and over to get the puller pushing the cap down properly. Countless times it either went off-center, the shims slid out, or the entire thing would pop off at the least opportune moment. A stream of expletives poured forth to accompany my usual crashing high notes of dropped wrenches.

It did not matter how I configured the puller: Long and holding the lower lip of the wheel-side bits, or short holding onto the upper A-arm itself. It always popped off when I least expected it. It drove me crazy. I flipped the puller arms around, tried different anchor spots. No matter what, just about when I’d have the thing positioned right… pop, clang, “@#$%! ^&*+! $#¡†!!!” This is how I got these bruises on my chest… the loud swearing. I’d bellow some choice four-letter word and my chest expanded rapidly, crushing my skin against the tire. Sure, there was some pain, but the ANGER and FRUSTRATION completely overwhelmed it. My rib cage is going “hey, um brain? hello? can you knock that off please… it hurts.” Meanwhile the brain is stomping around the room shouting like a madman in a bunker, oblivious to the body parts elsewhere sending urgent messages.

I finally gave up and pushed the car around and onto the lift, raised it up and removed the wheel. What happened next has me literally gobsmaked in embarrassment and shame. With the car off the ground the suspension hung there at an angle that I could plainly see the puller would not work. So I put a jack stand under the lower A-arm and gently lowered the car onto it. To my never ending shock the job became brain-dead simple with the car’s weight removed from the suspension. I literally just dropped the cap on, pushed it down with one finger, and the circlip went right in using the pliers to compress it. No drama. No struggle. No need to even use the puller. Presto.

Everything just went in with minimal effort.

Grease nipple back on, ready to drive.

So here I wasted several frustrating hours, wrestling with parts and car, wedging myself in a tight space to the point of nearly breaking my ribs… all for naught.

I guess the best lessons are the hard ones.

Driving a tractor.

Oliver Tractor in Vermont

I spent the day today on a tractor. I rent one every few years to re-grade our gravel driveway. Grass and weeds completely take it over if left ungraded for too long. I get a little better at the job each time I do it, and this time I think it looks better and is much more evenly graded than any previous time I’ve done it.

Diesel Power!

The tractor I rented is not an Oliver, as they have been out of production since the late 70s. I just had these pics in my collection of car photos as my friends the Markowskis in Vermont collect Olivers. My rental for today was a small Kubota B7800 and this is the view I had for several hours today:

Here is the whole tractor:

Kubota B7800

Kubota B7800

At the tail end is a box blade scraper, which is the main tool used in this job. This year I started the task by deploying the “teeth” at the front of the box. I set them at their lowest point and broke up the hardened bed under the gravel. After that was done I raised them up and finished the job.

the box blade

All those years of watching Zambonis has paid off, as I’m able to run over the whole driveway, (which is HUGE by the way,) in smooth overlapping patterns. From 8:30 AM until about 1:30 PM I circled the property in set patterns. The end result is a nice clean even spread of the gravel, and the removal of all the vegetation trying its best to obscure the drive. It had gotten so thick in the front drive that people often mistook it for lawn and didn’t drive on it! The area under the tractor in the above photos was all grass and clovers a few hours ago. Now it is smoothly graded gravel. It is a tad dusty now, but one good rain (which is never too far off here in the Pacific Northwest) and that will be fixed.

The Kubota is a nice little tractor. The little 30 HP 4-cylinder Diesel has massive torque for it’s small size, and it only slipped a few times when the box was well loaded and I was climbing the steep parts of my driveway. Mostly I was able to raise the blade ever so slightly to lighten the load, while upping the throttle just a bit as I started to climb the slopes, and it would just keep chugging along. I really wish I actually owned a tractor. The house’s previous owner had one and I made him an offer to buy it, but he turned me down. Oh well. It costs me between $100 & $200 to rent this one for a day, including delivery and pickup. Since I really only NEED it once every other year or so it doesn’t make sense to buy one, but I know if I had one I’d use it more often. I’m just too cheap I guess.

The little Diesel in the Kubota

Car Photo of the Day: This car is DRIVEN.

You didn't know the Jaguar diet includes insects?

There is something of a hulabaloo going on within the JCNA (Jaguar Clubs of North America) at the moment, concerning the “Driven” class within the Concours competition. The crux of it is a ruling whereby cars in the “Driven” class are now allowed to be trailered to the competitions. To some people, including your author, this is ludicrous.

JCNA Concours are judged on “originality” and “authenticity”, meaning that as presented a car should be as close to the condition it left the factory at Brown’s Lane, Coventry all those years ago. To win at a concours requires a lot of effort, in preservation, and in restoration (if required.) This is a bit different than the more general and widely known “Concours d’Elegance” competitions such as Pebble Beach and Amelia Island, where subjective issues of beauty, rarity, historical significance, and provenance are thrown into the mix. Theoretically the JCNA style event is objective, where a judge compares a guide (canonical data compiled by JCNA concerning the models) to the physical car, and deducts points for parts judged not original, or not authentic. They have three classes: Championship. Preservation, and Driven. Championship class cars are frequently almost flawless, and are usually freshly restored, or are “trailer queens”… that is they are never driven on public roads if it can be avoided, and often are only driven on and off trailers. They are truly “show cars”. The Preservation class is for older cars who are original, but have gathered that wonderful aging we call “patina” in the car world. The ‘Driven’ class was created for people who actually drive their cars. The point scale is more generous, ignoring things like dings in the paint, and not judging the engine bay or boot of the vehicles. Overall originality is important, but “drive-ability” and “comfort” modifications are allowed, such as contemporary tire sizes and CD players.

To those of us who DRIVE our cars the Concours field is looked at with opinions that range from mild amusement to derision. Terms like “Competitive Car Washing”, “Concours d’Arrogance”, and ‘The Q-tip Brigade” frequently come up. When you drive a car, as it is meant to be driven, it collects dirt, bugs, replacement parts, and often modifications for the sake of driving pleasure, reliability, or economy. My car could NEVER win any JCNA Concours in the Championship or Preservation classes. It is not original, nor is it authentic. I could enter it in the Driven class, but it could never win. It is just not possible. The standards of “originality” and “authenticity” are kind of like the central plot point in that old 80s fantasy flick “Highlander“… there can be only one. So long as your car has even JUST one thing “wrong” with it, you WILL lose.

By allowing “trailer queens” to compete in driven, honest to goodness driven cars will only be driven from the Concours field. It will become merely the second-tier of the Championship class, where older trailer queens go when they can’t compete anymore. The truth here is that a Concours is a competition. Sure, there’s all sorts of joy to be had by hanging out with car guys all day and shooting the breeze… but at the end of the day one car wins and the others don’t. That is the difference between a “show & shine” and a Concours, JCNA or otherwise. If they are going to award a prize at the end of the day then driven has to mean driven. Otherwise it is just a farce.

I love the JCNA Slalom, and literally maintain my membership for that reason only. If they’d have TSD rallies in my region I’d do those too. But if you sever see my car on a JCNA Concours field then you will know I’m dead – the Concours rules as they stand today, are just patently absurd.

I love the history, beauty, and refined rawness that is the Jaguar E-type. It is truly a snapshot of all that was possible in 1961. It is however a machine with utility in mind. Like the horse it replaced, the automobile is a beautiful beast of burden. Just as the horse is meant to be seen at full gallop across a field of grass, a car is meant to be seen roaring over asphalt. To trailer a car to a Concours is akin to having a stuffed horse on display. It is an insult to the viewer, and a mortal injury to the horse.

Car Photo of the Day: Surprised?

Raindrops on a TT

I really like the Audi TT. I know it is just a souped-up VW New Beetle, which is really just a VW Golf with a goofy body. The TT appeals to me because it is such a “F**K Off” vehicle. Unlike Porsche, or even GM, who has to produce a car that fits within a narrow set of parameters which only their “core customers” define, Audi was able to take a small car platform, and adapt it to a unique little car, specific to their brand, that clearly appeals to an automotive enthusiast.

Audi has occasionally talked of doing what I think is my dream car: A TDI-powered TT. Audi developed the TDI into a Le Mans winning technology, so it only makes sense to offer it as an option in their product line, especially in a sports car like the TT. I’d love to commute to my job in an open-topped 2-seater sports car, powered by my own home-brewed fuel… “smelling the french fries” as it were. The torquey little 1.9L TDI, even at 90HP is good enough to motivate the little roadster. I don’t need to have 300HP to race from light to light! 50 MPG is reward in an of itself. The original roadsters, images of which often grace these pages, that is little British cars from the 50s and 60s, were rarely considered “overpowered” in fact quite the opposite. Tiny A-series engines of diminutive displacement provided plenty of smiles per mile back then, I don’t see why those days are not worth reliving, this time with Diesel.

This particular Audi TT was photographed on the 2007 Classic Motorcar Rally, which includes a division for “Contemporary” (that is post 1976) cars. It draws machines such as this Audi, many BMWs, Mistubishis, etc. If you love TSD rallying, then there’s no excuse not to join us, as any car will do. It is a fun group, with great meals, great people, tours of classic car collections, awesome roads, and lots of fun. This year the event will take place on Vancouver Island in late June. It’s not too late to sign up! Head on over to their website and check it out: The Classic Motorcar Rally.

E-type 2+2 roofline lowering examples.

The Series 1 Jaguar E-type 2+2

On the Jag-Lover’s lists/forums a discussion arises often about the odd car out of the E-type sphere, namely the 2+2. Introduced in 1966, it offered a back seat to a previously 2-seat-only car. The wheelbase was lengthened and the coupe’s top was sort of bowed upward and extended rearward. This enabled the option of an automatic transmission in the long wheelbase cars. Initially everything else remained the same; bumpers, windscreen, etc. A bit over a year later, Jaguar changed the windshield with a more raked back angle, and eventually with the Series 3 V-12 cars made it wider as well. The convertible V-12s were all based on this longer wheelbase, and wider 2+2 basic design. The 2+2 was actually a huge sales success for Jaguar and sold in better numbers in its day, but today is considered by the market to be of lesser value than the OTS & FHC. Given this position in the market the 2+2 has become sort of the canvas by which people play “what if”… many have been converted to convertibles for example. The other variation often thought of is a “chopped” roof. Many believe the bulbous roofline combined with the steep Series 1 windscreen makes for a funny beluga whale profile and wonder if Jaguar would have been better off with a lower roofline.

I grabbed a photo of an early (1966) 2+2 and ran it through Photoshop, bending and warping pixels in two ways to create a “what if” study for a few guys in the Jag-Lovers “pub” who wanted to see what it might look like. The low angle of the photo makes for subtlety that is hard to grasp, but it is a start. I may try it again with a different photo, but lets have a look…

First I just lowered the roof across the board:

Lowered

Assuming that task might be too hard to actually achieve in sheet metal, I tried a sort of cut-n-shut method where the front was lowered more than the back, with a “pivot point” fairly low on the back deck to accommodate the glass and hatch:

pivoted

Whaddya think guys?

(Honestly as I have no skin in this game beyond the pixels above I have no opinion either way.)

Two more!

For this one, I basically flattened the back-seat’s “hump” in the roof, trying to replicate the lines of the FHC:

FHC-like

The guys on the J-L pub have been comparing the process to chopping a Mercury, so I had to go that way… really LOW:

Ferrari Daytona?

…and it sort of looks like a Ferrari Daytona to me!

Werke continueth on Ye Olde Jaguar.

What's wrong with this picture?

In an hour here, and an hour there I’ve snuck out to the barn to work and tinker a bit with the 65E. My primary job is to get the filthy thing cleaned up for Spring. Between fits of that job, I’m trying to start a few minor repairs. The most annoying issue for the past year has been a wobble in the steering column. It has gotten to the point where i can’t take another frikking minute of it and I have to get it fixed before I’ll drive the car again.

Before last night I figured I’d narrowed it down to bushing failure in the upper steering column. Last summer on the GTTSR I crawled under the dashboard at a rainy rest stop and confirmed that the u-joint and lower column were OK. Mark Collien my co-driver helpfully shot this photo of me in this ridiculous position:

ah... could you hand me a flashlight? ...Hello?...

I should have addressed this last winter but never got around to it. Last night I went at it. With the car on the lift it actually became an easy task, as the steering column is already above my head. A few minutes with a flashlight and a few ½” combination wrenches and presto! The steering wheel is out, and here is all I found left behind:

All that's left of something vitally important.

The above bits fell out onto the floorboard, or were fished out of the steering column bracket. Looking at my shop manual, also known as ‘The Bentley Big Book of Lies’ (pictured above holding up the bushing bits) it shows that the column is supposed to be held still by two clips, four rubber washers, and two felt bushings. “Except for later cars, where two rubber bushings are used.” Of course no indicator whatsoever as to how a “later car” might be defined. Given that the E-type was in production from 1961 through 1974 it is hard to pin down exactly when “later” could be. My ground up rubber leavings could be a bushing OR a washer. Who knows?

So I turned to the Learned Elders of the E-type forum/list onJag-Lovers.org. If anyone can help, they can.

They’ve helped beyond my wildest dreams.

They narrow down Mr. Bentley’s vague generalization to a specific time-frame, namely the Series 1 switch from 3.8 to 4.2 engines. This happened 715 cars before mine was built, specifically in late 1964. How three years after the beginning and ten years before the end is considered “late” by Bentley boggles my mind, but there you have it. The joys of classic car ownership.

But wait, there’s more! Not only did I find that I needed two rubber bushings (not the felt+rubber+clips) but that a guy on the list named Keith had a spare set and he’d send them to me for the cost of postage. So by the weekend I should have the steering column back together again, and wobble-free.

This proves once again that old cars are a great destroyer of social barriers. Having an old car is a ticket to a kinder, gentler era, where people are friendly and don’t hesitate to help you out when you are in need. Like Todd Sudick in Priest River, Idaho, who helped me when a bolt fell out of my brake caliper. Even when not on the road the community that surrounds old cars is always here to help. Wonderful.

Cleaning continues, with all the wheel wells done:

Squeaky clean and quietly lubricated

Along with scrubbing off lots of road grime, I also gave all the suspension bits and wheel bearings their yearly greasing. Next I raise the car up a bit more and clean off the visible parts of the underside: exhaust resonators, rocker panels, etc. Finally I’ll grease the splines, re-mount the wheels, put her on her feet again, polish up the cam covers, clean the glass, and the interior. And then…

…go get it dirty all over again!