Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO
Posted: 25 Dec 2006 02:21
Keith asked me to post this in it's entirety - here it is, just in time for the Christmas. I split it into three separate posts just for the sake of the Trilogy milestones being properly denoted.
TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO
GARAGES - PART I - IN THE BEGINNING...
ga-rage\ga-razh, raj\ :
* a shelter or repair shop for automotive vehicles.
* to keep or put in a garage.
What this definition does not include is that a garage is a wonderful repository of dreams, projects planned, failed creations, collections of incredible STUFF, virtual museums of our lives. For those of us that have been involved with cars for a good chunk of our lives, this usually means many garages and carports used over time. How many of us learned the fine art of vehicle maintenance, lying on our backs in the carport, on a hot, dusty August day, or freezing with the cold winds of December?
As I think back to some of those garages and carports I spent time in, some good, some bad, I wonder if we will ever have a generation of young people that will learn about their cars like a lot of us have? Step back in time with me now, the year is 1966. Ralph Nader is in the news, the U.S. military is gearing up in Vietnam, the mini-skirt is revealed and I turn sixteen!
My first “carport” is in Richmond, at the edge of what was then a new subdivision. My Dad has a 1962 Mercury Station wagon, 390 C.I.D., four barrel carburetor. I laugh at the people and their S.U.V.’s today, thinking this is all new. That ole’ wagon would carry four up in the front, four up in the back, plus six kids behind the rear seat. And there was still room for gear!! Occasionally, when we were cruising down the highway, Dad would tell us to hang on, he was going to “blow the carbon out!” He just loved an excuse to lean on that four-barrel. That car did not seem to care what the load was, it just picked up and motored down the highway, that deep intake moan drowning all other sounds. We would wheel into our open carport, filling the whole space with the smell of hot engine and brakes. My job was to check the oil. You almost needed an engine hoist just to open that huge expanse of red hood. It was immense, I had to lay across the fender, just to reach the dipstick, great waves of heat blasting my body. Our tools then were comprised of a hammer, plug wrench, vise grips, pliers and a motley collection of worn screw-drivers. I began learning the fine art of changing plugs with a worn out plug wrench, using pliers to get the wing-nut off the air cleaner to change the filter, and, making a Robertson screwdriver get a Phillips screw out!! Lining that carport was a mixture of old summer and winter tires, a cabinet, some deer horns and our failing bikes. The surface of the carport was covered in that classic miasma of old oil drippings, tranny fluid, and that white fluff from all the Cottonwood trees. Throw in a mixture of sand and dog hair, this was to be my learning ground for my first car…….a 1948 Austin A40, four door sedan.
The year is 1967, the Boston strangler is captured, Cassius Clay refuses military service, A.J.Foyt wins Indy, Che Guevara is killed and the War in Vietnam escalates with the Tet Offensive. My Mom and Dad have given me a car!!! It cost my Dad $25.00. Yep……25.00 dollars. As I was soon to find out, an English car is really something. For a country that built one of the best fighter airplanes, the SuperMarine Spitfire MK40, how could they make something this bad?! Don’t get me wrong, it is wonderful at the time, freedom at the turn of a key (when it started). This is truly the beginning of Mr. Gadget.
Lucas Electrics…. Most of us have heard of, or, have had experience with the “creator of darkness”. My first problem was with the turn signals. They were little “wings” on solenoids that popped out of the pillars between the doors. I stopped at a traffic light in Richmond (not many in 1967). The fellow behind me got out, walked up to me and started chewing me out, something about going in the opposite direction than I had signaled, and, not enough warning. Oh. Sorry! JerK!! A couple of lights, and turns later, this happens again. What the hell! I head home to check this out. I sit in the carport and push the signal indicator. Nothing. Rats! But what’s with the “going the wrong way”? I get Dad to follow me around the block. Seems even though I signal “right” as I turn the corner, the “G”-forces force the LEFT signal wing out! The solenoids have died and Mr.Electron has reversed himself. I can fix this!
I went and bought a tester and a ton of wire. Ever worked on cloth covered, nineteen year old wire with faded color coding? Neither had I. What also is confusing was the English decided to use positive ground. I forgot, only having one small fire. I re-wired the small parking lights to become the signals…..ha no problem. There was now a ton of old wire, solenoids and turn lights on the carport floor. As I had all this wire, and knowledge, it was time for SEX LIGHTS! The “Summer of Love”, 1967 remember!? You could sun-bath with all the lights I had on in that interior. This eerie red glow would light up the neighborhood, and run down my battery in twenty minutes if I left them on. The neighbors would be looking out through their curtains as I toiled into the night. I now had some good side cutters and wire strippers for my tool collection, and two dead batteries in the carport.
Next disaster was the clutch fire! My friend Evan and I were cruising through Richmond one sunny July day, feeling on top of the world, when we smelled hot oil and a funny burning smell. Two traffic lights later (there were only five) the car started to fill with smoke. At the third light we bailed. Right in front of a bus stop…loaded with people. Talk about the two stooges, trying not to get run over, trying to get the “bonnet” open, and grab a CO2 fire extinguisher that my Uncle had fortunately given me after my electrical fire. “You WILL need this some day”, he said. I could see a lick of flame coming out of the bell housing. I gave it a shot and it went out. I SHOULD HAVE LET IT BURN! Talk about embarrassed. There we were, standing in the middle of #Three road, smoke pouring out the doors, the sound of Rescue 1 coming, off in the distance. Rats!
I had the car towed home and the diagnosis began. The neighbor, who was coincidentally English, had had a similar problem. He suggested that it was the clutch. We jacked it up, blocked it, and began to try and dismantle it. This is where it got interesting. Seems the English used a whole different set of nuts and bolts called Whitworth!!! Not metric and not SAE. ARG! I could see the hammer, vise grips etc, were not going to cut it. The neighbor came to the rescue with his tools that he had brought from England. After a huge amount of swearing, hammering, and bleeding knuckles, we emerged from beneath the car, dragging one very oily transmission. We too were covered in oil, sand, Cottonwood seed and dog hair. Mom wouldn’t let us in the house. Here is the clincher……. The English, in their infinite wisdom, used a carbon faced throw out bearing! Imagine this wonderful mix of carbon dust, engine and trans oil. As it had worn to the metal it went nuclear ( red hot ) and ignited this beautiful barbecue starter mix. Oh, well. While we were at it we changed the clutch and pressure plate.
The carport now had all the old clutch parts, misc. bits left over, more wire from re-doing the brake lights and a steering arm that we noticed needed replacing. Mom was starting to make comments about losing her carport.
Next, in a long line of legendary disasters, came the “RUSSIAN TANK RADIO EPISODE”. This is still talked about during family get together.
Somehow, in our youthful exuberance, myself and another good friend, Jim, ended up with a WWII, fully functioning, Russian tank radio. This was too cool. To this day I cannot remember where it came from…….or…..where it went. But, we had it, complete with an eight foot whip antennae. Wow, lets put it in the Austin we thought. Going to need more wire, BIG wire. A bracket for the antennae. Lots of friction tape. Into the carport the Austin went, on a sweltering hot August summer night. “What are you doing out there?”, Mom yelled out the window. “Nothing, just installing a radio in the Austin!”, I yelled back. Little did she know. Yet. We were always scrounging stuff out of the dump, made sense we might have found an old “radio”.
This Tank radio was about two feet long, one foot deep and maybe sixteen inches tall. We slid the front passenger seat back as far as it would go, to build a plywood base on the passenger floor, to tilt the face of the radio up. We ran power wires, hooked up the antennae, and mounted the microphone on the dash. We toiled till 2:00 AM, Mom yelling at us occasionally to keep the noise down, the neighbors peering through the curtains yet again.
The next day we headed out, that youthful excitement ready to greet the day. The Russian radio was, of course, covered in Russian writing! We had know idea what anything did, just lots of cool knobs, dials, and indicator gauges. Even if it was in English, we would not have known! As I drove along, Jim started keying the mike, fiddling with the knobs, and asking if Mission Control was receiving us. As it was a truly simpler time in history, the twelve-year-old kids trapped in seventeen-year-old bodies, occasionally came out. Once in awhile we would hear something….. truckers….taxis…..maybe even more official sounding than that. Who new? The generator caused quite a bit of whine. We cruised all over Richmond, pretending to be Astronauts, or, on a search and destroy mission for the military. Or, just hoping to talk to someone. Little did we know!!!!! Jim and I drove around for a couple of weeks before the S..t hit he fan.
As maybe you can imagine, we would sit in the driveway, either before, or after a drive, with the engine off, to see if we could hear anything really intelligible. On that fateful day we sat there, taking turns fiddling with knobs, talking in the mike. It had been a great day, hot, the beach was wonderful. As we sat there, we could hear sirens off in the distance. Wonder where they are going we thought. Sirens in quiet old Richmond were cause for interest then, what car wreck they might be going to, or a fire. The sirens were getting closer! COOL, maybe it will be around here. Some excitement on this stifling, August afternoon. The birds stopped chirping, the motley crew of neighborhood dogs stopped their continuous din of barking and yapping, the fellow next door shut off his lawnmower. We could sense the excitement in the air. Wow, something was HAPPENING in our neck of the woods! As we climbed out of the car, a large white van, bristling with antennae ground to a halt in front of our driveway, followed by two RCMP cars. Oh, Oh….the happening appeared to be us. A very large, very angry looking man approached us from the van. “Where is the transmitter,” he asked. “WWHHAAT,” we said. By now ALL the neighbors were out, my Mom was exploding out of the house, and the dogs had begun their background din again. “ Where is the ILLEGAL transmitter?” he asked again. The light was beginning to come on for Jim and I. It turns out that our Tank radio was disrupting and jamming communications for a fifteen mile radius, every time we powered up the mike! Guess what is only four miles from where we lived……..THE AIRPORT! Holy good God, we had disrupted control tower to flight communications! AARRRGGG! It had taken the Federales two weeks to triangulate where we were hiding. Considering that 1967 was at the height of the Cold War, I think that they thought they had uncovered a den of Commie infiltrators. Instead, what they found were two kids hanging their heads in embarrassment, and one Mother about to come unglued.
They wanted to seize the radio right away, but, we had it wired and bolted into the car in a major way. After much discussion with the RCMP, the Feds, and my Mom, it was agreed that it would be removed from the car immediately. After a stern lecture from the Communications guy, something about planes falling from the sky, they left, shaking their heads. I did catch one of the RCMP officers laughing as he returned to his cruiser. The neighborhood returned to it’s sleepy August mode, after having witnessed the most excitement since my brother and I fell off the roof testing our twelve-foot stilts.
Jim and I retreated to the carport and began to strip out all our wonderful work. Onto the carport shelves went one Russian radio, two miles of wire, various brackets and some broken plywood. Oh well, in one fashion we did get “MISSION CONTROL”.
During that long summer of 1967 another project was underway in another friends carport. Only a few people ( Don Nimi would be one ) were in a certain motel room a number of years ago, at Knox Mnt., will fully understand the : “Ev had a Dodge,” line. My good friend Evan did indeed have a 1957 Dodge Mayfair, 318 CID, 4-door, pushbutton automatic. The engine had spun a main bearing, so Evan’s Dad had given him the car. Evan’s carport was freestanding, gravel floored, with sides only four feet high. The car was put up on blocks of wood, giving us all of two feet of clearance to work. The plan was to remove the oil pan, drop the crankshaft, replace the bearings, and be back in business. Now, for some more background. We had taken Power Mechanics in school and felt we were now QUALIFIED to build motors!! Ha! After all, our Briggs & Stratton in shop class ran just fine after being dismantled and re-assembled. Ev was also the first to have a V-8 powered car. We envisioned our-selves being able to boil the tires after school, heroes in front of our friends. To back this up, Evan had bought a huge, after market manifold, with TWIN, FOUR-BARREL, 750-CFM Holley carburetors, with MECHANICAL secondaries. This was obviously used by a serious drag racer, on a serious race motor. We really knew nothing then….hasn’t changed much, has it!
So, there we were, lying on our backs, hot wind blowing sand, dust, and the ever present cottonwood seed into the carport. First we dropped the oil pan and began the task of measuring the crank with plasti-gauge. Ever used that stuff? Diabolical! We must have gone through a mile of that stuff. The crank in and out, measuring, comparing, wiping dust from the crank, comparing thickness on that little paper chart. The battle with spiders was ongoing. Some of you know my fear of those little buggers….I think it started in those years in the carports. We would be lying there, sweating in the heat, me holding the crank up in place while Ev would bolt the mains back on. Suddenly, I would see a spider coming down from the engine compartment. “AAAAHHHHH…..SPIDER…..!!!!!!” We would bail from underneath the car, smashing heads and knees in our haste to escape. It was hell. But, we soldiered on, giggling and talking about how AWESOME this motor was going to be. It took us about two weeks in that sweltering month of August to get the bottom end done. We planned to have the car ready for the first day of school.
The next step was to change out the intake manifolds, thankful to be off our backs. The carport was littered with tools, empty soda bottles, oil soaked cardboard, left over nuts and bolts. We had hosed down the engine compartment with water, trying to drown those bloody spiders. We got the stock intake manifold off, laying open the guts of the engine. The continuous winds were always stirring the never ending clouds of dust and debris in the carport. Huge wads of cottonwood fluff would stick to anything remotely oily. We opened the hood the day we were to put the four-barrel manifold on and found our covering cloth had blown away. The galley was filled with cottonwood fluff! Oh well. We struggled and cursed getting that manifold on, wrecking two gaskets in the process. Finally, it was on! Fighting with the throttle linkage was another trial of patience, but perseverance ultimately paid off. The day of fire-up was finally upon us, one week till school……the heroes would be ready.
We must again remember, we had NO idea what we were doing, no idea about actual air requirements for an engine, and absolutely No idea about setting up a carburetor, let alone two. We were armed with excitement. We decided to wait till the next morning for the start-up.
I still remember that late August morning, no wind, hot, the dazzling clear sun, real blue sky that we do not see any more in Vancouver. The birds seemed extra loud in their cheerful chirping. A wonderful day. I had on my CLEAN jeans, new, RAT FINK t-shirt, ready to cruise. We only had to start the car, right? Ev’s Dad was to give us a hand. As this was Ev’s project, he got to start the engine. I remember opening the hood, those gleaming four-barrels staring at us with their implied POWER. I stood on one side of the engine compartment, Ev’s dad on the other. Ev slid into the drivers seat, beaming at the thought of driving this monster. The World was good, the World was as it should be! He put the key in and started to crank. RRRRRRR, went the engine. Nothing. “Hit it again! “ I yelled. RRRRRRRR, it ground again. Nothing. “Again!” RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Nothing! Rats! “Pump the gas pedal!” I said to Ev. Pump, pump, pump. “Crank it again!!! RRRRRRRRRRRRR. Pump, Pump, pump, pump, RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, nothing. The sweat was starting to break out. Ev’s Dad suggested that we look DOWN the carbs to see if it was in fact getting gas. We put some old wooden Coke cases by the wheels and climbed up to peer into the carburetors, Ev’s Dad on one side, me on the other. “Pump it again,” we yelled. Pump, pump, pump. Yep, lotsa gas. As a matter of fact, these were double-pumpers! HUGE amounts of gas was being dumped into the engine on every pump. Imagine if you will now, that with all this pumping, there is likely two gallons of gas sitting in the manifold, the engine, and in the exhaust system!!!! We didn’t!!!!!!!!
As Ev’s Dad was peering around the engine compartment, he noticed that we had NOT hooked up the power wire to the coil! Wow….. there was our problem….. no Mr. Electron.! Being the Great Mechanics that we were, we had forget to check the basics…..no spark. Ev’s Dad took up his position again, as did I, peering down those monstrous four-barrel carbs. “Hit it Ev!” I yelled. He hit the key……….
Step back for just a minute here. Picture me leaning well over the engine compartment on the drivers side, looking down the rear carb, Ev’s Dad on the right side, looking down the front carb. Ev starting to twist the ignition key. It’s now about 11:00 AM on Saturday morning, neighbors out gardening, the birds in full song, all is as it should be. I have this next moment quite literally “burned” into my memory.
He hit the ignition key, and gave those carbs another pump. The engine likely turned about twice….. and Mr. Electron finally got through to the plugs!
CHAAA---WUUMPFH-----BANG---KABLOOIE---Booommm!!!. A great, searing, blue/yellow fire ball erupted from those mighty four-barrels. I can still see the four individual rings of fire coming up toward me. Individual, yet one. The blast hit me straight in the face, the heat searing, the concussion awesome, lifting me up and back, whacking the back of my head on the hood, and dumping me off the fender, to the carports’ rocky surface. You may have heard of the “Hand of God?” Well, this was the “FIST OF GOD!!” And I think He was giving the shade tree mechanics a lesson. The same thing had happened to Ev’s Dad. I sat there stunned for a minute, marveling that I was alive and could still see. I stood and looked across the engine compartment, at Ev’s Dad, now standing also. His eyes were as big as fried eggs, his mouth was moving, but I could hear nothing. As a matter of fact, the whole neighbor hood seemed to have gone dead quiet. The ringing in my ears was the only thing I seemed to be aware of. Ev’s Dad was also turning red, that terrible, I have fallen asleep in the blazing sun for five hours, red.
He also had no facial hair left and the front of his shirt had a slight charred look to it. His mouth was still moving and he was now gesturing wildly. He turned and stormed off to the house, in what appeared to be in complete silence. Strange, I thought. My face was starting to sting and I started to realize that if he looked like that…..SO DID I!!! AAAHHHH! I looked at Ev, who now had emerged from the car, his eyes too, as big as saucers. Then he appeared to start to laugh, but I could hear nothing, only the infernal ringing that was getting louder. By now he is doubled over with laughter. I bend down and look in the side-mirror. My God….my eyebrows are gone, the hair on my forehead and by my ears is a shriveled, wrinkled mess, my face and neck is absolutely beet red. To top it off my Rat-Fink T-shirt is charred and the Rat-Fink decal itself has melted together. Crap. My face stings like hell, I wrecked my T-shirt, and I cannot hear! Crap! Ev is on the seat of the car he is laughing so hard. So much for cruising I thought. I remember sitting on the Coke crate, wondering if I was ever going to hear again. As my face was stinging quite badly, I decided to head home for some first-aid. The start up could wait for the next day.
I greeted Sunday morning with a face and neck that looked like it was severely sunburned… and it felt like it. When I got to Ev’s, he was not looking too happy. Seems after I left, the neighbor had come over. What he had seen when the engine practically exploded, was about ten feet of flame come out the dual exhaust pipes. “Looked like one of those flame throwers in a WWII war movie!!!” he said. What Ev was not happy about was the two mufflers that had their seams opened up. It was my turn to start to laugh, must have been enough gas in that exhaust system to run a bus for a week! Ev’s Dad was just glad we had not burned the carport to the ground.
Ev had lowered the car to the ground and was ready to re-try starting it. He gave it one turn with the key and away the engine went…… straight to the moon! “SHUT IT OFF….SHUT IT OFF!!!!!” I screamed. Seems the carbs were not set low enough to get to the idle circuits!? We did not know! But hey, it sure sounded tough with those blown mufflers…HEH, HEH. Start, stop. Start stop. After much fiddling and adjusting we got it to KIND of idle. Spitting and coughing it went, but I was too afraid to go anywhere near those damn things when it was running! We got the timing light out. We found the timing was out a bunch, set it, and things started to smooth out. We could not get the idle down below 1,500 RPM.. Who knew? This car had a push-button panel up on the dash, for the auto-transmission. Ev and I were ready for the test drive….we thought. Ev pushed –R. Thunk went the transmission, the rear of the car squatted up as it engaged, some gravel spitting out as the wheels bit into the driveway. COOL. It sounded even tougher. We just about shot across the road when he released the brake, the idle was so high. COOL. Ev straightened the car out on the street, that immense hood pointed into suburbia. Ev pushed – N . Ev started to rev the engine………
Step back again for another frozen moment in time. There we sat, engine starting to rev, and getting quite loud. It is Sunday morning, truly a day of rest then. The neighbors had not even started their mindless pilgrimage to the garden. The noise of what is now a more or less un-muffled engine is now starting to get the neighbors attention. Evan and I are grinning from ear to ear….WE WILL BE KINGS.
Evan pushes –D, AND STEPS ON THE GAS MORE. A few events now happen almost simultaneously. The car leaps violently forward for a second, Ev and I are pushed into the seat, or, more importantly, Ev is pulled away from the gas pedal for a second. The car falters, Ev drills the gas pedal even more, we launch even more, Ev is pulled away from the gas pedal again. ( If you have ever been in a throttle oscillation situation, you know what this is like.) Yep, he drills it a third time…..and opens those four-barrels up. BAAA—WWWAAAA……….The rear end is now going through massive axle tramp. The whole car is shaking violently, dust, rust, and spiders are being shaken from the car, the poor old bias-plys are starting to shed rubber and smoke. The noise is fierce. We are actually only moving forward, and slightly sideways, at about ten miles an hour. The neighbors are out. The shaking is so bad I can hardly laugh. Now for the worst part. Between the back-fire (possibly it bent the throttles) and our wonderful throttle linkage ( now binding because the engine has torqued over with it’s soft old mounts) the throttles will not close. We now have eight holes feeding the motor. WWWWAAAAARRRRRR………..zing….tink…clunk…….wheeez…….silence. Two red lights glowing in the dash.
There we sat, in the middle of the street, one house yard away, a single solid black line stopping at a smoking tire, a trail of rust, dirt and fleeing spiders marking our passage. Crap. Something let go in the bottom end, spun a bearing again, who knew? Likely, with all the cranking with no oil pressure, dilution with all that gas, and more revs than Dodge ever counted on for a stock motor, caused it’s demise. The Kings were duds. We pushed the smoking hulk back into the carport. T’was a sad 1967 day that one was! Ev’s carport inherited ultimately, a short block, the manifold and four-barrels,
( he did sell them ) and more nuts and bolt from swapping out a wrecker engine. We went to school that last year in my Austin.
Stay tuned for 1968. Martin Luther king is killed, Soviet tanks invade Prague, Opollo Eight orbits the moon, Richard Nixon is elected…… and I get my 1958 Chevrolet Delray, straight six engine, three on the tree.
Keith law
March 1, 2000
TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO
GARAGES - PART I - IN THE BEGINNING...
ga-rage\ga-razh, raj\ :
* a shelter or repair shop for automotive vehicles.
* to keep or put in a garage.
What this definition does not include is that a garage is a wonderful repository of dreams, projects planned, failed creations, collections of incredible STUFF, virtual museums of our lives. For those of us that have been involved with cars for a good chunk of our lives, this usually means many garages and carports used over time. How many of us learned the fine art of vehicle maintenance, lying on our backs in the carport, on a hot, dusty August day, or freezing with the cold winds of December?
As I think back to some of those garages and carports I spent time in, some good, some bad, I wonder if we will ever have a generation of young people that will learn about their cars like a lot of us have? Step back in time with me now, the year is 1966. Ralph Nader is in the news, the U.S. military is gearing up in Vietnam, the mini-skirt is revealed and I turn sixteen!
My first “carport” is in Richmond, at the edge of what was then a new subdivision. My Dad has a 1962 Mercury Station wagon, 390 C.I.D., four barrel carburetor. I laugh at the people and their S.U.V.’s today, thinking this is all new. That ole’ wagon would carry four up in the front, four up in the back, plus six kids behind the rear seat. And there was still room for gear!! Occasionally, when we were cruising down the highway, Dad would tell us to hang on, he was going to “blow the carbon out!” He just loved an excuse to lean on that four-barrel. That car did not seem to care what the load was, it just picked up and motored down the highway, that deep intake moan drowning all other sounds. We would wheel into our open carport, filling the whole space with the smell of hot engine and brakes. My job was to check the oil. You almost needed an engine hoist just to open that huge expanse of red hood. It was immense, I had to lay across the fender, just to reach the dipstick, great waves of heat blasting my body. Our tools then were comprised of a hammer, plug wrench, vise grips, pliers and a motley collection of worn screw-drivers. I began learning the fine art of changing plugs with a worn out plug wrench, using pliers to get the wing-nut off the air cleaner to change the filter, and, making a Robertson screwdriver get a Phillips screw out!! Lining that carport was a mixture of old summer and winter tires, a cabinet, some deer horns and our failing bikes. The surface of the carport was covered in that classic miasma of old oil drippings, tranny fluid, and that white fluff from all the Cottonwood trees. Throw in a mixture of sand and dog hair, this was to be my learning ground for my first car…….a 1948 Austin A40, four door sedan.
The year is 1967, the Boston strangler is captured, Cassius Clay refuses military service, A.J.Foyt wins Indy, Che Guevara is killed and the War in Vietnam escalates with the Tet Offensive. My Mom and Dad have given me a car!!! It cost my Dad $25.00. Yep……25.00 dollars. As I was soon to find out, an English car is really something. For a country that built one of the best fighter airplanes, the SuperMarine Spitfire MK40, how could they make something this bad?! Don’t get me wrong, it is wonderful at the time, freedom at the turn of a key (when it started). This is truly the beginning of Mr. Gadget.
Lucas Electrics…. Most of us have heard of, or, have had experience with the “creator of darkness”. My first problem was with the turn signals. They were little “wings” on solenoids that popped out of the pillars between the doors. I stopped at a traffic light in Richmond (not many in 1967). The fellow behind me got out, walked up to me and started chewing me out, something about going in the opposite direction than I had signaled, and, not enough warning. Oh. Sorry! JerK!! A couple of lights, and turns later, this happens again. What the hell! I head home to check this out. I sit in the carport and push the signal indicator. Nothing. Rats! But what’s with the “going the wrong way”? I get Dad to follow me around the block. Seems even though I signal “right” as I turn the corner, the “G”-forces force the LEFT signal wing out! The solenoids have died and Mr.Electron has reversed himself. I can fix this!
I went and bought a tester and a ton of wire. Ever worked on cloth covered, nineteen year old wire with faded color coding? Neither had I. What also is confusing was the English decided to use positive ground. I forgot, only having one small fire. I re-wired the small parking lights to become the signals…..ha no problem. There was now a ton of old wire, solenoids and turn lights on the carport floor. As I had all this wire, and knowledge, it was time for SEX LIGHTS! The “Summer of Love”, 1967 remember!? You could sun-bath with all the lights I had on in that interior. This eerie red glow would light up the neighborhood, and run down my battery in twenty minutes if I left them on. The neighbors would be looking out through their curtains as I toiled into the night. I now had some good side cutters and wire strippers for my tool collection, and two dead batteries in the carport.
Next disaster was the clutch fire! My friend Evan and I were cruising through Richmond one sunny July day, feeling on top of the world, when we smelled hot oil and a funny burning smell. Two traffic lights later (there were only five) the car started to fill with smoke. At the third light we bailed. Right in front of a bus stop…loaded with people. Talk about the two stooges, trying not to get run over, trying to get the “bonnet” open, and grab a CO2 fire extinguisher that my Uncle had fortunately given me after my electrical fire. “You WILL need this some day”, he said. I could see a lick of flame coming out of the bell housing. I gave it a shot and it went out. I SHOULD HAVE LET IT BURN! Talk about embarrassed. There we were, standing in the middle of #Three road, smoke pouring out the doors, the sound of Rescue 1 coming, off in the distance. Rats!
I had the car towed home and the diagnosis began. The neighbor, who was coincidentally English, had had a similar problem. He suggested that it was the clutch. We jacked it up, blocked it, and began to try and dismantle it. This is where it got interesting. Seems the English used a whole different set of nuts and bolts called Whitworth!!! Not metric and not SAE. ARG! I could see the hammer, vise grips etc, were not going to cut it. The neighbor came to the rescue with his tools that he had brought from England. After a huge amount of swearing, hammering, and bleeding knuckles, we emerged from beneath the car, dragging one very oily transmission. We too were covered in oil, sand, Cottonwood seed and dog hair. Mom wouldn’t let us in the house. Here is the clincher……. The English, in their infinite wisdom, used a carbon faced throw out bearing! Imagine this wonderful mix of carbon dust, engine and trans oil. As it had worn to the metal it went nuclear ( red hot ) and ignited this beautiful barbecue starter mix. Oh, well. While we were at it we changed the clutch and pressure plate.
The carport now had all the old clutch parts, misc. bits left over, more wire from re-doing the brake lights and a steering arm that we noticed needed replacing. Mom was starting to make comments about losing her carport.
Next, in a long line of legendary disasters, came the “RUSSIAN TANK RADIO EPISODE”. This is still talked about during family get together.
Somehow, in our youthful exuberance, myself and another good friend, Jim, ended up with a WWII, fully functioning, Russian tank radio. This was too cool. To this day I cannot remember where it came from…….or…..where it went. But, we had it, complete with an eight foot whip antennae. Wow, lets put it in the Austin we thought. Going to need more wire, BIG wire. A bracket for the antennae. Lots of friction tape. Into the carport the Austin went, on a sweltering hot August summer night. “What are you doing out there?”, Mom yelled out the window. “Nothing, just installing a radio in the Austin!”, I yelled back. Little did she know. Yet. We were always scrounging stuff out of the dump, made sense we might have found an old “radio”.
This Tank radio was about two feet long, one foot deep and maybe sixteen inches tall. We slid the front passenger seat back as far as it would go, to build a plywood base on the passenger floor, to tilt the face of the radio up. We ran power wires, hooked up the antennae, and mounted the microphone on the dash. We toiled till 2:00 AM, Mom yelling at us occasionally to keep the noise down, the neighbors peering through the curtains yet again.
The next day we headed out, that youthful excitement ready to greet the day. The Russian radio was, of course, covered in Russian writing! We had know idea what anything did, just lots of cool knobs, dials, and indicator gauges. Even if it was in English, we would not have known! As I drove along, Jim started keying the mike, fiddling with the knobs, and asking if Mission Control was receiving us. As it was a truly simpler time in history, the twelve-year-old kids trapped in seventeen-year-old bodies, occasionally came out. Once in awhile we would hear something….. truckers….taxis…..maybe even more official sounding than that. Who new? The generator caused quite a bit of whine. We cruised all over Richmond, pretending to be Astronauts, or, on a search and destroy mission for the military. Or, just hoping to talk to someone. Little did we know!!!!! Jim and I drove around for a couple of weeks before the S..t hit he fan.
As maybe you can imagine, we would sit in the driveway, either before, or after a drive, with the engine off, to see if we could hear anything really intelligible. On that fateful day we sat there, taking turns fiddling with knobs, talking in the mike. It had been a great day, hot, the beach was wonderful. As we sat there, we could hear sirens off in the distance. Wonder where they are going we thought. Sirens in quiet old Richmond were cause for interest then, what car wreck they might be going to, or a fire. The sirens were getting closer! COOL, maybe it will be around here. Some excitement on this stifling, August afternoon. The birds stopped chirping, the motley crew of neighborhood dogs stopped their continuous din of barking and yapping, the fellow next door shut off his lawnmower. We could sense the excitement in the air. Wow, something was HAPPENING in our neck of the woods! As we climbed out of the car, a large white van, bristling with antennae ground to a halt in front of our driveway, followed by two RCMP cars. Oh, Oh….the happening appeared to be us. A very large, very angry looking man approached us from the van. “Where is the transmitter,” he asked. “WWHHAAT,” we said. By now ALL the neighbors were out, my Mom was exploding out of the house, and the dogs had begun their background din again. “ Where is the ILLEGAL transmitter?” he asked again. The light was beginning to come on for Jim and I. It turns out that our Tank radio was disrupting and jamming communications for a fifteen mile radius, every time we powered up the mike! Guess what is only four miles from where we lived……..THE AIRPORT! Holy good God, we had disrupted control tower to flight communications! AARRRGGG! It had taken the Federales two weeks to triangulate where we were hiding. Considering that 1967 was at the height of the Cold War, I think that they thought they had uncovered a den of Commie infiltrators. Instead, what they found were two kids hanging their heads in embarrassment, and one Mother about to come unglued.
They wanted to seize the radio right away, but, we had it wired and bolted into the car in a major way. After much discussion with the RCMP, the Feds, and my Mom, it was agreed that it would be removed from the car immediately. After a stern lecture from the Communications guy, something about planes falling from the sky, they left, shaking their heads. I did catch one of the RCMP officers laughing as he returned to his cruiser. The neighborhood returned to it’s sleepy August mode, after having witnessed the most excitement since my brother and I fell off the roof testing our twelve-foot stilts.
Jim and I retreated to the carport and began to strip out all our wonderful work. Onto the carport shelves went one Russian radio, two miles of wire, various brackets and some broken plywood. Oh well, in one fashion we did get “MISSION CONTROL”.
During that long summer of 1967 another project was underway in another friends carport. Only a few people ( Don Nimi would be one ) were in a certain motel room a number of years ago, at Knox Mnt., will fully understand the : “Ev had a Dodge,” line. My good friend Evan did indeed have a 1957 Dodge Mayfair, 318 CID, 4-door, pushbutton automatic. The engine had spun a main bearing, so Evan’s Dad had given him the car. Evan’s carport was freestanding, gravel floored, with sides only four feet high. The car was put up on blocks of wood, giving us all of two feet of clearance to work. The plan was to remove the oil pan, drop the crankshaft, replace the bearings, and be back in business. Now, for some more background. We had taken Power Mechanics in school and felt we were now QUALIFIED to build motors!! Ha! After all, our Briggs & Stratton in shop class ran just fine after being dismantled and re-assembled. Ev was also the first to have a V-8 powered car. We envisioned our-selves being able to boil the tires after school, heroes in front of our friends. To back this up, Evan had bought a huge, after market manifold, with TWIN, FOUR-BARREL, 750-CFM Holley carburetors, with MECHANICAL secondaries. This was obviously used by a serious drag racer, on a serious race motor. We really knew nothing then….hasn’t changed much, has it!
So, there we were, lying on our backs, hot wind blowing sand, dust, and the ever present cottonwood seed into the carport. First we dropped the oil pan and began the task of measuring the crank with plasti-gauge. Ever used that stuff? Diabolical! We must have gone through a mile of that stuff. The crank in and out, measuring, comparing, wiping dust from the crank, comparing thickness on that little paper chart. The battle with spiders was ongoing. Some of you know my fear of those little buggers….I think it started in those years in the carports. We would be lying there, sweating in the heat, me holding the crank up in place while Ev would bolt the mains back on. Suddenly, I would see a spider coming down from the engine compartment. “AAAAHHHHH…..SPIDER…..!!!!!!” We would bail from underneath the car, smashing heads and knees in our haste to escape. It was hell. But, we soldiered on, giggling and talking about how AWESOME this motor was going to be. It took us about two weeks in that sweltering month of August to get the bottom end done. We planned to have the car ready for the first day of school.
The next step was to change out the intake manifolds, thankful to be off our backs. The carport was littered with tools, empty soda bottles, oil soaked cardboard, left over nuts and bolts. We had hosed down the engine compartment with water, trying to drown those bloody spiders. We got the stock intake manifold off, laying open the guts of the engine. The continuous winds were always stirring the never ending clouds of dust and debris in the carport. Huge wads of cottonwood fluff would stick to anything remotely oily. We opened the hood the day we were to put the four-barrel manifold on and found our covering cloth had blown away. The galley was filled with cottonwood fluff! Oh well. We struggled and cursed getting that manifold on, wrecking two gaskets in the process. Finally, it was on! Fighting with the throttle linkage was another trial of patience, but perseverance ultimately paid off. The day of fire-up was finally upon us, one week till school……the heroes would be ready.
We must again remember, we had NO idea what we were doing, no idea about actual air requirements for an engine, and absolutely No idea about setting up a carburetor, let alone two. We were armed with excitement. We decided to wait till the next morning for the start-up.
I still remember that late August morning, no wind, hot, the dazzling clear sun, real blue sky that we do not see any more in Vancouver. The birds seemed extra loud in their cheerful chirping. A wonderful day. I had on my CLEAN jeans, new, RAT FINK t-shirt, ready to cruise. We only had to start the car, right? Ev’s Dad was to give us a hand. As this was Ev’s project, he got to start the engine. I remember opening the hood, those gleaming four-barrels staring at us with their implied POWER. I stood on one side of the engine compartment, Ev’s dad on the other. Ev slid into the drivers seat, beaming at the thought of driving this monster. The World was good, the World was as it should be! He put the key in and started to crank. RRRRRRR, went the engine. Nothing. “Hit it again! “ I yelled. RRRRRRRR, it ground again. Nothing. “Again!” RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Nothing! Rats! “Pump the gas pedal!” I said to Ev. Pump, pump, pump. “Crank it again!!! RRRRRRRRRRRRR. Pump, Pump, pump, pump, RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, nothing. The sweat was starting to break out. Ev’s Dad suggested that we look DOWN the carbs to see if it was in fact getting gas. We put some old wooden Coke cases by the wheels and climbed up to peer into the carburetors, Ev’s Dad on one side, me on the other. “Pump it again,” we yelled. Pump, pump, pump. Yep, lotsa gas. As a matter of fact, these were double-pumpers! HUGE amounts of gas was being dumped into the engine on every pump. Imagine if you will now, that with all this pumping, there is likely two gallons of gas sitting in the manifold, the engine, and in the exhaust system!!!! We didn’t!!!!!!!!
As Ev’s Dad was peering around the engine compartment, he noticed that we had NOT hooked up the power wire to the coil! Wow….. there was our problem….. no Mr. Electron.! Being the Great Mechanics that we were, we had forget to check the basics…..no spark. Ev’s Dad took up his position again, as did I, peering down those monstrous four-barrel carbs. “Hit it Ev!” I yelled. He hit the key……….
Step back for just a minute here. Picture me leaning well over the engine compartment on the drivers side, looking down the rear carb, Ev’s Dad on the right side, looking down the front carb. Ev starting to twist the ignition key. It’s now about 11:00 AM on Saturday morning, neighbors out gardening, the birds in full song, all is as it should be. I have this next moment quite literally “burned” into my memory.
He hit the ignition key, and gave those carbs another pump. The engine likely turned about twice….. and Mr. Electron finally got through to the plugs!
CHAAA---WUUMPFH-----BANG---KABLOOIE---Booommm!!!. A great, searing, blue/yellow fire ball erupted from those mighty four-barrels. I can still see the four individual rings of fire coming up toward me. Individual, yet one. The blast hit me straight in the face, the heat searing, the concussion awesome, lifting me up and back, whacking the back of my head on the hood, and dumping me off the fender, to the carports’ rocky surface. You may have heard of the “Hand of God?” Well, this was the “FIST OF GOD!!” And I think He was giving the shade tree mechanics a lesson. The same thing had happened to Ev’s Dad. I sat there stunned for a minute, marveling that I was alive and could still see. I stood and looked across the engine compartment, at Ev’s Dad, now standing also. His eyes were as big as fried eggs, his mouth was moving, but I could hear nothing. As a matter of fact, the whole neighbor hood seemed to have gone dead quiet. The ringing in my ears was the only thing I seemed to be aware of. Ev’s Dad was also turning red, that terrible, I have fallen asleep in the blazing sun for five hours, red.
He also had no facial hair left and the front of his shirt had a slight charred look to it. His mouth was still moving and he was now gesturing wildly. He turned and stormed off to the house, in what appeared to be in complete silence. Strange, I thought. My face was starting to sting and I started to realize that if he looked like that…..SO DID I!!! AAAHHHH! I looked at Ev, who now had emerged from the car, his eyes too, as big as saucers. Then he appeared to start to laugh, but I could hear nothing, only the infernal ringing that was getting louder. By now he is doubled over with laughter. I bend down and look in the side-mirror. My God….my eyebrows are gone, the hair on my forehead and by my ears is a shriveled, wrinkled mess, my face and neck is absolutely beet red. To top it off my Rat-Fink T-shirt is charred and the Rat-Fink decal itself has melted together. Crap. My face stings like hell, I wrecked my T-shirt, and I cannot hear! Crap! Ev is on the seat of the car he is laughing so hard. So much for cruising I thought. I remember sitting on the Coke crate, wondering if I was ever going to hear again. As my face was stinging quite badly, I decided to head home for some first-aid. The start up could wait for the next day.
I greeted Sunday morning with a face and neck that looked like it was severely sunburned… and it felt like it. When I got to Ev’s, he was not looking too happy. Seems after I left, the neighbor had come over. What he had seen when the engine practically exploded, was about ten feet of flame come out the dual exhaust pipes. “Looked like one of those flame throwers in a WWII war movie!!!” he said. What Ev was not happy about was the two mufflers that had their seams opened up. It was my turn to start to laugh, must have been enough gas in that exhaust system to run a bus for a week! Ev’s Dad was just glad we had not burned the carport to the ground.
Ev had lowered the car to the ground and was ready to re-try starting it. He gave it one turn with the key and away the engine went…… straight to the moon! “SHUT IT OFF….SHUT IT OFF!!!!!” I screamed. Seems the carbs were not set low enough to get to the idle circuits!? We did not know! But hey, it sure sounded tough with those blown mufflers…HEH, HEH. Start, stop. Start stop. After much fiddling and adjusting we got it to KIND of idle. Spitting and coughing it went, but I was too afraid to go anywhere near those damn things when it was running! We got the timing light out. We found the timing was out a bunch, set it, and things started to smooth out. We could not get the idle down below 1,500 RPM.. Who knew? This car had a push-button panel up on the dash, for the auto-transmission. Ev and I were ready for the test drive….we thought. Ev pushed –R. Thunk went the transmission, the rear of the car squatted up as it engaged, some gravel spitting out as the wheels bit into the driveway. COOL. It sounded even tougher. We just about shot across the road when he released the brake, the idle was so high. COOL. Ev straightened the car out on the street, that immense hood pointed into suburbia. Ev pushed – N . Ev started to rev the engine………
Step back again for another frozen moment in time. There we sat, engine starting to rev, and getting quite loud. It is Sunday morning, truly a day of rest then. The neighbors had not even started their mindless pilgrimage to the garden. The noise of what is now a more or less un-muffled engine is now starting to get the neighbors attention. Evan and I are grinning from ear to ear….WE WILL BE KINGS.
Evan pushes –D, AND STEPS ON THE GAS MORE. A few events now happen almost simultaneously. The car leaps violently forward for a second, Ev and I are pushed into the seat, or, more importantly, Ev is pulled away from the gas pedal for a second. The car falters, Ev drills the gas pedal even more, we launch even more, Ev is pulled away from the gas pedal again. ( If you have ever been in a throttle oscillation situation, you know what this is like.) Yep, he drills it a third time…..and opens those four-barrels up. BAAA—WWWAAAA……….The rear end is now going through massive axle tramp. The whole car is shaking violently, dust, rust, and spiders are being shaken from the car, the poor old bias-plys are starting to shed rubber and smoke. The noise is fierce. We are actually only moving forward, and slightly sideways, at about ten miles an hour. The neighbors are out. The shaking is so bad I can hardly laugh. Now for the worst part. Between the back-fire (possibly it bent the throttles) and our wonderful throttle linkage ( now binding because the engine has torqued over with it’s soft old mounts) the throttles will not close. We now have eight holes feeding the motor. WWWWAAAAARRRRRR………..zing….tink…clunk…….wheeez…….silence. Two red lights glowing in the dash.
There we sat, in the middle of the street, one house yard away, a single solid black line stopping at a smoking tire, a trail of rust, dirt and fleeing spiders marking our passage. Crap. Something let go in the bottom end, spun a bearing again, who knew? Likely, with all the cranking with no oil pressure, dilution with all that gas, and more revs than Dodge ever counted on for a stock motor, caused it’s demise. The Kings were duds. We pushed the smoking hulk back into the carport. T’was a sad 1967 day that one was! Ev’s carport inherited ultimately, a short block, the manifold and four-barrels,
( he did sell them ) and more nuts and bolt from swapping out a wrecker engine. We went to school that last year in my Austin.
Stay tuned for 1968. Martin Luther king is killed, Soviet tanks invade Prague, Opollo Eight orbits the moon, Richard Nixon is elected…… and I get my 1958 Chevrolet Delray, straight six engine, three on the tree.
Keith law
March 1, 2000