Parting ways with an old friend

Last summer I felt as though I never got to work in The Garage because of my summer class. I was rarely in town and got abbreviated Garage visits whenever I was. I was hoping that this summer would be different, and boy was I right. So much has happened since my last post that it's going to be difficult to get things caught up in order.

First off, the reason my blogs have been few and far between is not like last summer where I didn't have news to report. Instead it's because of all that I've been doing, the swiftness with which things have been happening, and a death in the family. There were days recently where I spent six or more hours up there working, and that actually felt great (and tiring). The reason for these days in particular was because my family and I decided to sell my Pontiac. This was a hard decision given my history with it (it being my first ever car that was solely mine, the summer I painted the whole thing from bare metal and primer, the first Small Town Adventure spent in it, etc.), but it was the right decision after getting the TT. The car had served me extremely well, and it was time to let someone else enjoy it. We didn't need another car sitting around, and because of my parents' preferences for all-wheel drive cars, they don't really have a need for a designated snow car (a fate that had already befallen the 1987 Oldsmobile Eighty Eight).

Before we could sell it, though, there was work to be done. So for those fervent few days I was toiling over the Grand Prix tending to its pealing paint and its encroaching rust. The first part of the procedure involved scrubbing the roughest spots of rust off of the underside of the car in front of the rear tires. This was very tricky in places because it was almost rusted through, but between multiple applications of naval jelly and a very rough sanding block, I had it mostly smoothed off. Using a plastic matrix I made patches with body filler to negate the holes in the sheet metal. Through applications of more filler and tons of sanding I smoothed out the rust spots and primed them so that they looked just like the body.

After this (spent squatting on the floor, lying on old blankets and listening to the Oldies), my mom helped me go around the car and knock off peeling bits of paint before painting over them with some touch-up spray paint my dad bought from Napa. It took him a while to find it, but thankfully Napa was able to get a match. Unfortunately when we painted it on it was visibly darker than the regular Silvermist Metallic the car needed. I took it back to Napa only to hear them say "Well it's 'cause you brushed it on and it's spray paint."

I knew that could contribute a little bit given its metallic nature, but it shouldn't be that dark. So we took it back and I taped up the areas we'd done and sprayed the paint on myself. It looked better when it was drying, but when the tackiness had gone, it was still visibly much darker than the paint around it. I suppose this was a little better than the rust and peeling paint it had, but I still wasn't too thrilled with the result. Nonetheless, my dad said that I needed to drive it to his place of work the next day to show it to a coworker.

So early that morning I headed there and showed it to a dad's coworker and her husband. He took it for a quick drive while I talked to Janet Mae, his wife. She said that they had never owned a car with a big trunk before, nor had they ever had a roomy backseat. When her husband returned, he commented how he had asked his wife when she first proposed the car to him "if [the trunk] was big enough to put a deer in." It definitely was, and it sounded like the Pontiac would be a big step up from the 1989 Cavalier he bought for $100 134,000 miles ago. He said he'd only ever put oil in it once, which worried me (Janet Mae assured me she puts the oil in for him), but this car was going to be their main family car, so I knew they would take wonderful care of it.

In the end they decided to take it, but not for a few days, so it was my job to finish cleaning the

car before they assumed ownership. It was a little bit sad to clean it up and put wax on my paint job from a couple of summers ago. I took the small paper crane from the dash that had been given to me nearly five years ago. I took my water blade from under the seat and my CDs from the player and glove compartment. By the time I was done, my silver Pontiac was clean and fresh, yet it retained its personality and the touches I had given to it over the years. It was my car. I had painted it. I had replaced the brakes myself. I had replaced the headlights myself. I had done a slew of things to this car over the years, but unfortunately it was the multitude of things we've needed the shop to do that ultimately pushed us to selling it. We had spent two or three times what the car was worth just due to major repairs (heads, transmission, pumps, belts, balancers, etc.), and at that point my father said enough was enough. I can't blame him I suppose.

I drove the car to my dad's workplace amidst a long line of tractors on the freeway that inevitably made me late (much to my father's dismay, as is expected from a 35-year engineer). I took the plates off in the parking lot, grabbed my car mat and tools and said goodbye to my car. My dad's grumbles at my lateness disappeared as he got in the waiting car to take us both home, so hurriedly I had to bid my Pontiac adieu. I knew the moment was going to be sad anyway, but to be rushed in parting ways with an old friend seemed unexpected. Perhaps the quickness of it all helped, but with a pat on the roof and a few softly spoken words, I was off.

I kept my eyes on the car from the Audi's window until it disappeared behind unkempt, rusty automobiles of faceless and nameless factory workers I will never meet. Just like that, she was gone. I can still imagine how the paint feels when I run my hand across it, and I still recall the texture of the steering wheel's leather. My dad has given me updates now and then, and it sounds like they are excited to have the car. I do hope they enjoy it and love it like I did.

To get close to it, to touch its cold, grimy skin

Ah the sweet smells of summer. The wind, the sun, the grass getting greener everyday. Having been enclosed in the snowglobe that was my university all year, I've been trying to engross myself in as many summer activities as I can as fast as I can.

It's not that I don't enjoy summer to its fullest, it's just that there have been years where it takes me a while to feel summery, and that's quite sad. That's also what I've been trying to combat for the past few days, and I'm happy to report that all has been going well.

I graduated from college on Saturday with my degree in Neuroscience, which is probably deserving of a blog entry in itself. I could go on and on about my travails at university, but for now I'll focus on more pressing (and seasonal) issues. This blog may be a bit random, I'll warn you.

In two and a half weeks I'll be getting my car, and I'm pretty excited about that. My current car in the meantime has been very good to me, so I'm currently feeling a bit guilty. She's been a great car overall, and I know I'll be sad to part with her. The TT is a thrilling prospect, though, and I must say that I've had quite a few visions over the past four weeks of me driving it in various locations---me in the TT going to the store, me in the TT cruising to the capitol to visit friends, me in the TT with the windows down listening to the oldies on a warm Saturday night with its windows down. The Czech man from whom I'm buying it has emailed a couple of times to let me know how the car is doing, much like a homesick mother calling to check on her child. He assures me that the car is fine, and now that his time is limited with it, he's really come to appreciate it. I know exactly what he means, honestly.

On my first two weekdays of break, as I said, I've tried to do as many summery things as I could. Both days I've gone up to The Garage to work. The first day was spent mainly cleaning so that I could get to working on the cars, but that was fun in itself. The longest task of the day, perhaps, was fiddling with the radio to get my oldies station back. I used to listen to the oldies station from our capitol, but I have since abandoned it. When I was a kid they used to play '50s and '60s music generously, and it was quite highbrow when they'd spin one from the early '70s. Nowadays they have designated periods of time every day for tunes from the 1970s and now sprinkle in as many songs from the '60s as they now play from the '80s. It's not that I don't like that music, it's the principle of the thing that gets me. As a result, I've abandoned them and am now a follower of Scott Shannon on the local True Oldies Channel affiliate. I love the mix of the songs that have always echoed through the Garage as well as the local commercials sprinkled in. It's that combination that never fails to make me feel nostalgic; its predictability is a comfort to mark the passing of time (I know when on the hour their commercial breaks fall as well as some bumper music they use before the Voice Track rolls over).

Once I played with the finnicky radio and found the TOC, I got to work sweeping, putting tools away, moving things, cleaning windows, and clearing out a workspace behind the Maxwell. When all of this was said and done, I was finally able to tackle all of the projects that used to run through my head late at night while fervently typing out papers.

My first project was to pull the soft top bows out from the side of the work bench and try to put them together. We had found the small bow that stretches across the frame directly above the car's occupants' heads, and I needed to hook it on. Without C clips, though, I won't be able to, which is fine because we're still working on that metal bracket we had to make that hooks behind the seats in the car. Without that, we won't be able to hook the frame to the car in the first place. I also noticed that it got chipped pretty hard sometime over the winter, so that would require some touch-up work.

After that, I headed back to do some work on the back of the Maxwell. My plan is still to work from back to front on the mechanics of it, so I'm continuing the process of sorting out the rear differential. As it is I'm still a bit nervous at opening it up, so in the meantime I've tilted it rearward and am inspecting the outside parts. I've loosened every bolt on the outside of the case (but haven't taken them off), and I've also found the drain plug for the fluid in the diff. Because it's tilted, no fluid came out, but sometime I'll tilt it forward and collect it (initial drops that got on my fingers seem to indicate that it's just oil inside, but I'm not sure). Today I figured out how to disconnect the driveshaft from the rear axle, which involves taking off little metal rings that are held on with screws. These allow the huge bolts that go into the pivoting mechanism (I'm bad with names of parts on these cars as of right now) on the driveshaft to come out. These will have to be greased before I put them back in. Before then I'll take the entire driveshaft out, run it under the wire brush, prime it, and set it back under the car. I still need the U-bolts that hook the T-shaped front of the driveshaft to the transmission, but I may be able to make those if I can't find them.

After getting the driveshaft off, I'll probably scoot the axle out from under the car (the tires are still attached, as my attempts to get them off failed for some reason) and attack it with degreaser. I'd rather do that than scratch it off with a screwdriver since when I used the latter method I started seeing some swaths of blue paint amidst the gunk. I'm hoping that if I clean it off with degreaser I can save some of the paint (not likely). This is valuable because it tells me that even the axle was blue instead of a heavy-duty black underbody. All of this is helpful.

After I attack it with degreaser I'd like to split the axle and inspect the gears, clean them and put the proper lubrication inside. I've cleaned all of the greasing points (the little metal spring caps that lift to allow you to put lubricant on the diff), so that won't be a problem. The next step after that will be priming the rest of the frame and leaf springs on the rear end before reaffixing the axle to the car. To do this I'll have to get or make more of the U-bolts that hold the two together (since a couple of the 100-year-old ones snapped when removing them for the first time in a century). I'll hook the driveshaft back up, and the rear end will be in good shape. Then I'll move to the transmission, knowing that I'll have to return and do the rear brakes eventually.

So that was a good bit of accomplishments on the old car the past couple of days. I feel like I'll be able to make actual progress in the coming weeks, and that's a fantastic feeling.

I also recently joined a Model T forum, asking the people on there how I might go about getting our 1913 running. They were very generous in their responses and gave me a very good list of things to check, plus some places nearby to get parts if I need them (which I will).

Today I spent some time uncovering the T and dusting it off in order to take some pictures (which I'll post soon), and it was pretty interesting to get close to it, to touch its cold, grimy skin and uncover the shine that was buried beneath. I've never really been close to that car except for when I was a small child and was entranced by the thought of climbing into it as if it were a mysterious cave and wondrous, dilapidated time machine all at once. Donning a painting mask and the oldest clothes I had, I was allowed to climb into it and sit behind the wheel for a few moments, even though I had no notion of what the car meant as a classic automobile or as a future project. I haven't climbed inside since then, although today I opened the right side doors (the left side is against the wall) and lifted the engine cover. I also cranked the engine over a couple of times, which thankfully spun freely. It invigorated me thinking that someday I'll turn that crank and the four cylinder engine that powers my own Tin Lizzie will fire to life for the first time in half a century.

Come tomorrow morning I'll be back up in the garage, my scratched and bloodied arms set to delve further into the numerous projects I have. I'll have more updates tomorrow (hopefully in blog form) and also some pictures of my updates on the Maxwell and Model T. Until then, thanks for reading!

Problem solved, right? Not so much.

I've finally been gifted a rather uneventful weekend, and I'm trying to take the most advantage of it that I can. And what a weekend it's already been. I may have to break this into two readable posts, as there's a multitude of automobile news as well as racing news to address. Honestly, I'm just glad to post anything at this point given my lack of posting recently. I assure you, though, there have been good reasons.

I'll start with my car, the Pontiac Grand Prix. It's been an interesting car over the years, bought shortly after my sophomore year of high school. Within a few months we had to replace the transmission for a cool $2,500. Since then we've had to replace some tires, hubcaps (they're cheap plastic, so that's not a big deal), the brakes and pads, I had to repaint it because the paint had cancer and was falling off, the headlights (both bulbs and fixtures), the fog lamps (but they're still out), and I still have water that collects inside my headlamps from time to time. That's not quite as bad as the water that sometimes collects in the passenger side footwell, but that's another story.

More recently, though, I've been going through quite a bit of antifreeze. The light came on pretty frequently for low coolant, but I would keep adding more. Eventually pools of the green stuff began collecting under my car when I'd leave it outside for a while, and as the weather got colder I'd notice that I didn't have heat. I took the car to Kevin at the local garage. He's a great guy who always gives us an honest opinion. He went to kindergarten with my mom, and he's known my dad for decades. He looked for the coolant leak and found it in a little hose coming off the engine. He replaced it, but warned me that my intake manifold was bad and that some coolant has been leaking into my engine. I should keep track of any green streaks in my oil in the future.

So I kept driving it, but I kept losing antifreeze. We took the car back to Kevin who replaced the intake manifold for around $550. The cheap gaskets that Pontiac has been notorious for using in those cars were giving up the ghosts as well. When I drove the car back to college, I had a powerful heating system finally flex its muscle and an absence of a "Low Coolant" light. I thought we were in good shape.

In two days, I went outside to drive my car to the hospital where I volunteer. Lo and behold, the light was on again. I drove it a couple of miles and it went off, but I was still cautious. A couple of days later there was a pool under my car again, but thankfully that's the last time it did that. I turned the car on to open the thermostat, but when I went to add the antifreeze, I was somehow getting sprayed every once in a while. Upon closer inspection, the serpentine belt had been doused with coolant from somewhere, and as it reached the highest point in its path around the engine's side, it was throwing droplets at me, almost as a defense mechanism. This was not a good sign.

I kept adding some more antifreeze, but a few days ago I was mystified when I heard a fast-paced clicking coming from the engine when I revved around 2,000 RPM. When I stuck my head under the hood and had the engine revved, the click sounded like a squeak up close, and it was coming from the right side of the engine (around the belt). At first I thought it may have been a lose belt, but it sounded more like something that the belt was turning instead.

When I drove the car the next day, the squeak was gone as I drove to the hospital. On the way back, though, it returned a bit louder and at 1,500 RPM this time. This was not a good sign either. The light wasn't on, and the clicking increased in speed the more I revved. It was not gear-dependent or speed-dependent, but it was certainly rev-dependent.

Complicating issues was that we were having a warm spell in the weather (something I certainly wasn't complaining about), so I never had to turn on the heat to see if it worked. By the time it cooled down, though, the squeak was active at 1,000 RPM and even appeared occasionally at idle. And I didn't have heat.

So this weekend I've come back to my hometown and I took my car back to Kevin. It took him all of two hours to call me back and let me know that my suspicions had been absolutely correct: It was the water pump. The good news is that it's a pretty quick fix. The bad news is, it cost another $120. He completed it yesterday and got it back to me this morning. Problem solved, right?

Not so much.

When I got in the car this morning, I turned it on to see the "Low Coolant" light (which doesn't bother me. It was just taken apart; there's probably air in the lines) and the "ABS" and "Trac Off" lights on. The combination of the latter two, according to the manual, says I need to "service the brakes," but that light came on last year shortly before my dad and I replaced the brakes and pads, so I knew that couldn't be it. Kevin came out and hooked his computer up to it, but it didn't show an error. So he went back inside and got his giant computer, hooked it up and we drove down the block. Cycling through his options he learned that my right front wheel speed sensor was inactive. In other words, at 10 mph, three wheel sensors are telling the car's computer that the wheels are turning at 10 mph. My right front read 0 mph. It's not a detrimental thing, but it automatically turns off my ABS and traction control.

"The good thing is, winter's over, so you shouldn't be needing traction control again," Kevin smiled. Never mind the fact that ABS may be used at any moment of any day in any weather, but oh well. He told me that sometime we could get it replaced, but there was good and bad news here, too. The good news for him is that replacing it involves an easy replacement of the whole hub of the wheel, bearing and sensors. The bad news? It'll cost $200.

So this presents a conundrum to me. At best, my car is worth $2,000, yet at the time when it was worth $3,000, we put $2,500 in for the transmission. In the last month alone we've put in $700, and at this point my mom is saying that we just need to fix the car, sell it and buy a new one. For those who know me, this is not an easy thing to do, as I've grown quite attached to my car (especially after painting it like I did). But honestly, I'm afraid that I'm starting to agree with my mom. The car's been great for me, and I love it to death when it works, but eventually I have to ask when pumping more money into it will stop making more sense than buying a more reliable car and being done with it.

Given my family's recent propensity for all-wheel-drive cars (for my dad driving 35 miles to work at 4:00am every day in the winter), my mom is leaning toward getting an AWD replacement for the Grand Prix. And after having spectacular headlights in both the Jaguar and (especially) the Audi, she wants to make sure I have good headlights, too.

I'm in favor of being able to see and being safe, but it's a bit sad that my car can't do that for me. In terms of which car will? That's another question. The leading candidate in my mom's eye (mainly for its coolness value and relatively cheap price for an old one) is the Audi TT. I must confess that I love Audi's build quality, and it's definitely a sporty looking car. Don't let looks define it, though. It's a monstrously heavy vehicle, partially because of its AWD. It also has a relatively lightweight sub-250hp engine, so it's not the fastest or most nimble (many complain of its understeer). The boys of Top Gear lambasted it for how its owners use the car as a status symbol and must get gussied up before driving it, similar to how a young boy nervously prepares for his first date. I take their assessment with a grain of salt, though, as Jeremy Clarkson has always had a humorous thing against Audis, their owners, and Germans.

I do like the car, even though its backseat is almost nonexistent. The good news is, the seats fold down, and because of its hatchback-like tail, you can probably fit more people comfortably in the trunk than into the backseat. But anyway, this post is long enough. That's where I am right now. My dad seems quite opposed to buying a new car (partially citing the fact that "We've already replaced just about every Goddamn thing on that car!" and the fact that I don't know for sure where I'll be next year in terms of school), but my mom and I might try to work on him. We'll see. For now I'm just hoping that my car keeps chugging along and that we don't have to pour any more money into it. As I've found over time with cars, though, it's anyone's guess as to whether or not that will happen.

Purged From the Car's Skeleton

February sixth was the last time my words managed to find their way into a blog such as this, and I'm sad to say that not a ton has happened up in the garage during that time. It's only been in the last week and a half that I've been able to get back up to that old stone edifice to get my hands dirty again, and I must say that I've been incredibly happy for every minute of it.

I won't go into a ton of details about my year, as that would be for another, more introspective blog entry, but I will say that a few of my friends were abroad, I was taking a few tough classes and I had to study for and take the MCAT. Needless to say, it was an insanely long marathon, especially the latter two of that list. But, thankfully, all that is over for now and I'm finally able to feel completely like myself up in the Garage.

Most of the activity began when the brake lights in my Pontiac came on. The "Trac Off" light as well as the ABS light was on which, according to the seemingly-useless manual, means that the "brakes need to be serviced." Thanks? I hooked up an error reader to the dash, but it said that there weren't any errors to correct. Talking to my dad, we made the decision that the brakes should probably be changed (at least the pads), so without really asking me he went and bought brake pads. I immediately jacked up the car and tore into the brakes, and everything went fairly swimmingly. The right rear rotors were really rusted and pitted, though, so we had them re-ground so they're smooth and shiny again (and we all love shiny things, right?). With everything back in working order, the car is now parked back in our yard by the driveway, although I'm yet to put the fragile and cracked (and cheap) hubcaps back on. Oh, I lost one over the winter, by the way. Went over a pothole on the interstate, and when I arrived at school I found my car looking a bit destitute without a hubcap on the front. Thankfully we've purchased extras in the past, so the next time I came home I was able to put one on.

Whilst up in the garage, though, I didn't just spend time on my car. I climbed to the back of the garage to get my hands on the old Maxwell for the first time in ages. Trust me, that car has invaded my thoughts so many times during the school year. Constantly I imagine what I can do once the weather warms, and I'm always trying to figure out what to do next. The upside to all of that was that I could jump right in when I got a chance to work on it. Never mind the downside of not focusing on schoolwork, etc.

Anyway, I spent quite a bit of time in the past week scrubbing rust off of the frame with a wire brush. Oddly, though, that's much harder than it sounds (or maybe I just get really into it). By the time I'm finished, normally my heart is pounding and I'm covered in sweat and dust from the rotting metal I purged from the car's skeleton. Once it's off, though, I quickly spray over the cleaned area with primer. This is taking a page from my the first Woodsie's book (my grandpa), for when he cared for the Maxwell, he sprayed some random paint on the front end of its frame. That seemed odd at the time, but as I learned decades later when I started to work on the car, that meant that not a bit of rust was growing on it. The way I figure, even if I don't get much done on the car this summer her metal will be sealed beneath the primer waiting for me to get back.

It's great to see the car transforming slowly from a piece of rust to a primed car that actually looks like progress is being made on it. I can't wait to post some pictures! But the car is still a long way from being completely covered, so don't get too eager. Every little piece I do, though, is an important part of her completion. The rear axle is still sitting on the ground, and I'm still having trouble getting the tires off. Removing the lug nut and the little protective plate (a pseudo-washer) should do it, even with the use of a wheel-puller, yet neither wheel budges. It appears that the actual center hub is attached to the brake drum, but that would take some loosening of the brake pads in order to get it off. Who knows, though. I may not even need to take them off, but we'll see. Either way, I'll have to open up the rear end and try to catch all of the grease and lubricant that comes out (I'm praying there won't be any little nuts or bolts that fall out, too. Or gears). That way I can inspect the splines of all the gears and mechanisms in there to make sure that they won't break when we first try to drive the car. My father says that I should just leave it alone because if you grab the driveshaft and turn it one of the wheels turns too. That's true, but the last thing I want is to put the whole pressure of a finished car on those uninspected gears and have something go horribly wrong at speed. Then we'd have a really nice museum piece to permanently store in the back of the garage. I don't know. It'll be a tough decision.

With parts of it primed, though, I decided to take a break from the Maxwell and focus on the soft top bows of the old Corvette. In the "offseason," so to speak, my dad remembered that he had a friend from a long time ago (appropriately called Graybeard") who works on old cars. We talked to him quite a while back and he said he's done soft tops before and would love to do the old Corvette's. First, though, I would need to finish those bows. In order to do that, I made sure that they were well-covered in paint and that we had all of the pieces (we're close). I made sure that I can open and close them well and that I had the design of the top ingrained in my head. I made sure not to paint over some of the screw heads and that all of the old staples (shot into cork to affix the original fabric to the top) were removed. I'm about halfway done with that last job, but I'm getting there. The next step will be to call Graybeard and see what he thinks about a timetable for finishing it.

Aside from the soft top frame, I decided to lift the cover off of the '61 and clean her up just in case there was a car show tonight (there wasn't one). I got the entire driver's side cleaned off and shiny before moving to the other side, but when I did I couldn't believe it. On the front right fender was a giant spot of paint missing. It was probably half an inch by half an inch, and interestingly the primer was gone as well. I can't figure out what caused it, either. I don't see an impact mark that would mean something whacked it, but I highly doubt that, as my dad kind of thinks, that there was a bubble in the paint that finally came out over the winter. I looked on the ground but failed to find the chip, which makes it even more mysterious...That also meant, though, that any hopes of going to a car show with it would be dashed until we can get some touch-up paint on it. The spot is so deep, though, trying to fix it ourselves would look awful. I talked to my parents, and my dad went up and looked at it, and I think we've decided that we'll need to take it across town and get it professionally touched up. This also ruins our chances of going to the Goodguys show, unfortunately. That's alright, though. Our goal has always been to get it up to the show and back, and we accomplished that goal last year (if you were reading the blog then).

The car has done a great job since then, and it's neat that we're finally starting to look at it with the attitude of "What can we do to make it better?" as opposed to "What do we have to do to get it done?" She's coming along, though, and she'll definitely go to some local car shows this summer. It's a little disappointing, though, that such an odd thing (and something so small, at least by measurement) would stop us. Oh well.

I'll leave the neatest part of my experiences in the Garage until next post, though. I was trying to move the new fenders from the front of the garage to behind the Maxwell, but this meant cleaning and moving a few things. In doing so, I not only sorted through car parts, but I found the equivalent of a time capsule buried in the back of the Garage. This capsule ended up taking me back three generations and would give me some more mysteries that only deepen the pathos of that building. Stay tuned for that, plus a really neat find that relates to the Maxwell---something that I had forgotten all about needing!

Either way, though, I'm glad the blog is alive and well again. More soon...