AEROBUS Chapter 10 - DISPOSING OF THE BODY I had a busy schedule at work that week and didn't get back to the rod and custom shop until Saturday. I arrived to find the engine already removed from the Yucatan Liquor Stand. They paid me the four hundred dollars for it and I spent the rest of the day taking the parts off that I needed. First out was the gas tank. I was anxious to see if it was in as good condition as it seemed when I first crawled under it behind the In Cahoots. The tank on my Aerobus appeared good on the bottom too but proved to have many holes on the top when I removed it. Once I got this tank removed I saw it was in significantly better condition than I could have hoped. It was removed in the recent past and been treated with a thin black undercoating to protect it. The condition of the tank and the re-chromed bumper indicated someone tried to restore this vehicle properly. Why they left it behind the club to be smashed by vandals remained a mystery. With the tank out of the YLS I set my sites on the transmission left behind when they removed the engine. I didn't need a transmission but felt it was small and portable enough to hang on to in case I needed one some day. I jacked the front of the YLS high into the air to give me room to slide the transmission out from under it. While it was jacked up I also disconnected and removed the three-piece drive shaft from under the car saving all of the mounting hardware and bearings. Most cars have a one-piece drive shaft. The Aerobus uses a three-piece shaft with four universal joints and two collar bearings holding it into place. I wanted to remove the wheels and check the brakes just to see what kind of condition they were in but decided not to because I told Marshall it was all his. I didn't need brakes anymore but I was curious. I never looked. I poked around the YLS looking under all the seats. Under the front seat I found a set of four original Checker hubcaps. Under another I found both of the taillight fixtures I thought were missing. These were unexpected bonuses. I thought about removing the whole dash with all of its instruments but decided to leave it intact since I didn't then need anything from it. Marshall told me he already had four Aerobuses stored between Berkeley and Oakland. Since I was selling this one so cheap I felt I could always ask him to give me minor parts off of it in the future if I needed them. The only other part of any significance I removed was the tailgate crank because I noticed mine was starting to give me trouble. I didn't know until much later what a fortunate decision that was. Working tailgate cranks are one of the proverbial hen's teeth among Checker parts along with Aerobus brake drums. I trundled my cache of recovered parts back home and stowed them quickly in my storage room before Vilma could complain about "more junk" being dragged in. I called Marshall the next day and told him the Aerobus was ready to be picked up and he had a week to do it. He assured me he would be there but made some comments about needing to find the right kind of tow bar. Marshall called me later that week to say he couldn't make it. I was disappointed because I wanted to keep my agreement with the rod and custom shop. I asked him to come get it as soon as possible or I'd have to sell it as scrap iron, a prospect I knew wouldn't be easy, and I really wanted this car saved against the day I might need more parts off of it. There was no one I knew besides Marshall, with his four Aerobuses already, who had the capacity to store another one. I went to the rod and custom shop that day and explained Marshall's delay. I felt bad and apologized profusely but they assured me they didn't mind waiting a bit longer. I also called Beth and asked her to hold off sending the title transfer paperwork in. Until Marshall actually came and got it I couldn't be certain he ever would. I really didn't know him yet. She said she would wait a bit longer. As it turned out they would both wait another two weeks. Beth also told me she found the other bumper. I rushed down to the club to pick it up from her. It was just like the first one, wrapped in paper and freshly re-chromed. It was obvious she hadn't opened the paper and didn't know what she gave me. The two bumpers alone were worth more than I paid for the whole car. I excitedly went home and swapped the bumpers out on my Aerobus. The shiny bumpers made the car look like an ugly kid with new braces on his teeth. I wasn't sure it was a net improvement but I was as pleased with it. The same kind of pleasure a teenager gets who inherits his mom's old car only to put some new wheels on it thus convincing himself he's got something really attractive. In the process of changing the bumpers I learned Checker used the same bumper for the front and rear of their cars. The only difference being the back bumper accommodates a license plate light. I supposed the front would also but it's not wired for it. Instead the front bumper has a large washer and bumper bolt concealing the hole for the light. I decided to throw the old bumpers in for Marshall if he ever showed up for the remnants. When he did finally show Marshall was as much a character in person as he seemed to be on the phone. He was short, at less than five and a half feet. The buxom blonde accompanying him standing more than six feet tall skewed his size. He introduced her as his girlfriend. The contrast between them was amusing. I presumed he must have money. She took off jogging as soon as they arrived and I didn't see her again until, as if on cue, she showed up just prior to Marshall's departure. It didn't look like Marshall did any jogging for many years, if ever. "I run a limousine service in Berkeley. I basically run drunk college kids around town. Only one of my Aerobuses is running right now and I've removed one bench seat and turned another one around to make it more limo-like." "That's cool. I'll have to stop by and see them." "Here's my card." He gave me a business card with a good line drawing of an Aerobus and the words, Classic Limousine printed on it. Marshall arrived with a very large pick-up truck with dual wheels on the back of it but he didn't have a tow dolly or trailer with him. He said he was unable to get the rig he wanted and he knew I needed something done with the carcass so he brought a bumper hitch to mount on the parts car. It was fortunate for him I decided to give him the bumpers but one had to be installed on the front of the car to accommodate the hitch. I grabbed some tools and threw the bumpers into the back of his truck and we went to the rod and custom shop. I don't know what the difference was but all four tires held their air since that angry Sunday when I towed it. The front bumper bolted easily onto the YLS but I wasn't sure it would make it the 90-mile trip from Sacramento to Berkeley. Nevertheless we got it all hooked up and connected to Marshall's truck. He drove around the parking lot and it seemed to track perfectly behind him despite not having someone in the car to steer it. Perhaps he would make it to Berkeley after all. Marshall took me home, picked up his girlfriend, gave me one hundred dollars and still tried to talk me into giving him my newly re-chromed bumpers. He then made reference to the CHECKER license plate on my Aerobus. "I'll warn you now, if you ever come into my neighborhood you'll lose those plates." "Why's that?" I inquired, thinking he lived in a bad neighborhood. "Because I'll steal them from you." "Thanks for the warning." "I'll give you three thousand dollars for your car right now" which seemed like a generous offer from a guy who bargained my original price for the parts car from two hundred down to one hundred dollars. "Sorry it's not for sale." "I'll own it one day." "Tell you what, if I ever get to the point of selling, I'll give you first refusal." "Yeah, like that will happen." "Hey, I'm in the military. They could give me an overseas assignment and I won't be able to store this." "Okay, I'm going to own your car some day" he repeated. It was good to see Marshall leave and conclude this episode in my Aerobus adventure. I had the unlikely good fortune to locate, purchase and dispose of a parts car. And not just any parts car, but one exactly matching mine. I now had nearly all the parts I needed to complete my Aerobus but most important, a good fuel tank. I parlayed the deal into getting everything I needed off the parts car with essentially no expense. And who could forget those bumpers? It seemed like the ultimate fish story but this one didn't get away. Finding the Internet Checker mailing list was just the beginning of the computer's involvement in the story of my Aerobus. I was immediately able to connect with several other Aerobus owners and even located a fellow Checker owner in Sacramento. He didn't own an Aerobus, just the four-door sedan or taxi style known by the designation "Marathon", but it was good to see another Checker on the road and he came by my house several times for advice or assistance. I never felt I did him much good because the problems he had with his car were often unusual. I think he paid too much for his car, given the condition, but he was happy with it and eager to dump more money into it. He was a writer but he must have received some other source of income. Perhaps he just had money because he owned his own home and didn't have any kids. He was enthusiastic about his car and didn't mind paying for parts that would improve it. In fact when his wife asked him, the day he first brought his Checker home, what he was going to do now that he finally had a Checker, his only answer was "Parts." He quickly bought an original Checker AM/FM radio from a used Checker parts supplier and he surprised me by ordering the only piece of Aerobus script missing from my car. Script is the chrome emblem on a car that tells you what the make and model is. On an Aerobus there is supposed to be Checker and Aerobus script in three places on the car. My car was missing one of the Aerobus scripts since I bought it from Jaime. One day he told me he named his Marathon, GUS for "Goddam Ugliest car in Sacramento. I'm not given to anthropomorphism but I liked the idea of a name for mine. I quickly settled on BUD, both for its connotation of being something I was well acquainted with and also as an acronym for "Big Ugly Duckling." It seemed to fit my car well and, until I could paint it, was an apt description. So my Aerobus had a name, thanks in part to the only other Checker owner I ever met in Sacramento. It was time to transplant some of the parts I removed from the ALS; to transplant some of Bud's vital organs. The new fuel tank installed easily and only had a tiny leak at the point where the fuel line went into it. It leaked at the point where the threaded connector was welded to the tank and there was no easy or cheap way to weld a gas tank, given their propensity to explode when exposed to open flame. I got some epoxy clay, designed to repair leaks in boats below the water line while they are still in the water, and kneaded it all around the welded joint. By the next day there was a hard permanent seal that remains to this day. It was time to address the brake fluid I noticed leaking behind a couple of wheels after the Trunk-or-Treat. Brake fluid on a tire generally means only one thing, a wheel cylinder has failed and leaked its fluid down the inside of the wheel and tire. The wheel cylinder is the part that pushes the brake shoes apart to make contact with the brake drum. I removed the wheel and confirmed this diagnosis. Sooner than I expected I was faced with the cost of having taken a shortcut when I restored the brakes previously. When I replaced all the brake parts I didn't replace the four wheel cylinders or the master cylinder. I knew better but gambled anyway. All those cylinders have rubber parts in them and I told myself from the start of this project that anything made of rubber was going to fail eventually. Jaime let the Aerobus sit for ten years and rubber won't tolerate that kind of inactivity. I decided to do it right. I went to a parts dealer and he found the Aerobus in his paper catalog. The wheel cylinders were in stock but the master cylinder wasn't. I made another trip out to the clutch and brake specialist where I purchased most of the brake parts previously. They didn't have my master cylinder either but they could send mine out to be rebuilt for about the same price as similar ones they had in stock. I decided to have it done. That had the added advantage of keeping my car original. I hadn't taken the master cylinder off the parts car because it was replaced at one time by an incorrect one. I was determined to keep Bud as original as possible, as long as possible. After a week's wait to get the master cylinder back I was ready to go with all new parts. I eagerly pulled the first wheel and brake drum off and held the new wheel cylinder up to the leaky one and saw it was the wrong size. Since front and rear wheel cylinders vary on most cars I pulled a back wheel and drum off and nothing matched back there either. Fortunately the correct size of each wheel cylinder was cast onto the bad cylinders so it was easy for me to return the incorrect ones and replace them. Remarkably the correct ones were also available in stock. With everything correct the installation only took one day. Since the brake system was opened it had air in it again. I spent about three hours the next day with my son Charlie pumping the brake pedal while I bled the air out of the whole system again. When we were done the brakes worked well enough but the system still lacked the abrupt stopping ability created by having power brakes on a car. That's usually caused by poor vacuum from the engine so I resolved to look into that eventually rather than assume my master cylinder was rebuilt improperly. For now the brakes worked, I just had to press the pedal fairly firmly. Finally, everything involved in stopping the vehicle was brand new. That was reassuring. I was certainly ready to do some serious driving now. I drove away from my house and got up to about 40 miles per hour. Suddenly it got very loud and started running poorly. I pulled over, jumped out and rolled underneath to see that my temporary patch to the exhaust system gave up completely and blew through. I was encountering my second lesson in doing things right the first time. It was so long since I last drove it in the Trunk-or-Treat that I forgot it was running poorly then. I knew when I made the temporary exhaust patch it wouldn't last very long but it seemed like each failure was timing itself to coincide with the repair of another part. Bud looked bad with its long-neglected coats of paint and scratches all over it. I was satisfied driving something ugly but couldn't tolerate it sounding ugly as well. It seemed respectable to have a work-in-progress car as long as it wasn't obvious I was ignoring something mechanical. I was only a short distance from a recommended muffler shop so I drove to it. "How much for a single exhaust system from the manifold to the tailpipe?" I asked the grizzled owner. He took a long look at Bud and told me to drive it onto his hydraulic lift to have a better look at the underside. Barely fitting on the lift it couldn't be fully raised because Bud stuck out the garage door. "Two hundred and fifty" came the eventual reply accentuated with a big wad of spit as though the answer was borne of contempt. "Can you do it today?" "Well I suppose since I ain't doin' nothin' else." "Great" I answered, wondering why this place was so well recommended. I stood there for a while waiting for some follow-up reply but none came. "I'll be back, in what, three hours or so?" "Humph" was the only sort of reply I got so I eventually wandered off, wondering when he would get started on it. I caught a bus back home and returned three hours later. When I got there Bud was off the lift and parked in front of the place. "That shore is a big summbitch" commented muffler-man when I returned "I should have charged you more." "Hey, well I appreciate it" I replied, not giving him an opening to elaborate. "It's still a little noisy because you need an exhaust gasket." "Yeah I'm aware of that, I can do that myself." I was disappointed he didn't replace the manifold to engine gasket but I only asked him to go from exhaust manifold to tailpipe so that was my fault. A good shop would have probably done the work since it wasn't expensive and didn't involve much labor over what they already did. "I replaced two gaskets as it was so that's another ten dollars in parts I hadn't figured on." That bugged me a little but I simply wanted to get out of there so I paid the money and left. Bud was running much quieter when I started it but as I accelerated it got louder. This was consistent with a failed or failing gasket so I picked up a set at the parts store on the way home. However, the further I drove the louder the noise became. This wasn't consistent with the gasket he said I needed so I was growing suspicious. What I was about to discover would set me back a few months and require many weekends in my carport to fix. |
