AEROBUS Chapter 13 - CRUISING THE NET The next weekend I rode a bus back to Sacramento to pick up my truck. I was anxious to share Bud's big road trip experience with my friends there. Vilma thought the whole attempt was very brave on my part. She seemed to be starting to have some confidence in Bud and my ability to restore it. "Why don't you paint that thing so I can ride in it?" "Oh I'll let you ride in it just the way it is." "You know what I mean, it's so ugly." I didn't try to convince her that Bud's ugliness was compensated for by its character and uniqueness. I simply determined to get it painted as soon as possible. With my truck back in Monterey the following week I didn't drive Bud as often owing to the difficulty of parking it. My family was still living in Sacramento so I didn't have too many evening distractions and I was able to write quite a bit of this story. On the Internet Checker mailing list that week someone submitted a short story about how they found their Checker and asked if there was anyone else willing to share their story. Well what a fortunate coincidence, because I had about a dozen pages written and I submitted them. I think most people were overwhelmed by the volume but one person wrote back to encourage me. Kathryn Bassett founded the California Checker Club about 10 years earlier and served as its first president. She owned a Checker Marathon sedan she named "Sherman" after the Army tanks of the same name. Sherman was significantly damaged by fire. One of Kathryn's claims to fame was she held a funeral for Sherman after the fire. A story and photos of the funeral were published in the National Enquirer. Kathyrn also self-published a book on the history of Checkers. After the loss of Sherman she started concentrating on becoming a valuable repository of Checker ephemera and built a large collection of taxi related merchandise. More on that later in the story. Kathryn contacted me saying she liked my story. She asked if there was much more to it and if I would mind telling it in each quarterly issue of the Checkerboard News, the national Checker club newsletter. She told me she was sometimes pressed to come up with something for the California club's portion of the newsletter in each issue. She thought that telling my story, about 3000 words at a time, would be of interest to the readers. I agreed to do it and with a deadline to meet each quarter, proceeded at a pace it might not have otherwise. When I wasn't writing the story after work each day I would take Bud down to the town of Carmel, where Clint Eastwood had been mayor, and still maintained a strong business presence to include being part owner of the Pebble Beach Corporation. There were always plenty of tourists there to show Bud off to. There was also Cannery Row on the waterfront in Monterey, made popular by John Steinbeck's novel of the same name. It was a tourist Mecca and I would cruise the street and listen to pedestrians shout things to one another to call attention to Bud. Bud certainly must be in more tourist home movies and photo scrapbooks than any other car in the area. Listening to the tourists comment about Bud was a boost to my ego but it also continually reinforced in me a desire to see the project to completion. I desperately wanted to get the bodywork and paint done but I wanted to do it myself. Bud was a one-person project and I was determined to finish it all myself despite the fact so much labor would be required for the bodywork. I was anxious to have it done but decided I wouldn't feel pressured to hurry. Already four years elapsed since I originally laid eyes upon it in Jaime's driveway. One day, when starting Bud, it idled extremely rough and didn't get better. After letting it run for a bit with no improvement I smelled gasoline. I opened the hood and saw puddles of gas on the top of the engine. I panicked! I was worried about a fire. I rushed to turn it off and grab a fire extinguisher I kept inside of Bud. I stood nervously in front of the now silent engine ready to extinguish any fires that might ignite from one of the puddles of fuel but none did. The carburetor is the only source of fuel on the top of the engine so I removed the screws holding the top of it on and looked inside. I saw immediately the fuel float, that controls the amount of fuel that is delivered, was broken so I unbolted the whole carburetor from the top of the engine and removed it. Once in the garage I dismantled the carburetor and noticed the float wasn't broken at all but appeared burned or melted. This was a frightening observation. The float sits in a bowl of gasoline inside the carburetor. I wondered how it could burn or melt without igniting all the gas it floats in. Or did I stop it just in time? I decided I shouldn't try to rebuild this carburetor again but should just go buy a new one. After a brief search at the parts stores for a new carburetor I determined I wouldn't be able to buy a new one for less than two hundred and fifty dollars. One store recommended I take it to a carburetor specialist in town and have them rebuild it. They thought it would probably save me money. I took it to the place they recommended. "I can overhaul it for one hundred and ninety five dollars." "Wow, why so much? New ones are only two-fifty." "Yeah but my books show me this is the original carb for your Checker and there's something to be said for keeping it original. Besides that, my work is better than the ones the factory turns out, they're just rebuilding old ones too." I agreed to have him do the work. He was fascinated by the melted float also. He didn't have a positive explanation for how it may have occurred but confirmed I was fortunate the fire went out and only burned the float. There was a world of difference in Bud's performance after the carburetor rebuild. Despite not having done the work myself I was satisfied with my decision and the money I spent to do it. Many more weeks went by in Monterey and I was finally given the keys to my house there. I moved my whole family down from Sacramento the following weekend. After settling in the house I was using the Internet one evening and Charlie said he wanted to create a web site. The idea immediately appealed to me because I would be able to post pictures of Bud and document my progress restoring it. It seemed like a natural companion to writing the story as well since I knew I would be able to post my writing to a web site. The problem was neither Charlie nor I knew the first thing about making a web site. We heard about "dot-com" companies offering free web sites but we didn't feel qualified to design our own. Still, I poked around on the pages of three companies offering "web-hosting" as it was called. I designed an opening page at all three places finally settling on the one I really like. The company made it easy for me to create a web site using their "tools" and techniques and providing tutorial guidance throughout the project. Since I found no other web sites devoted to Aerobuses I decided to create the first one and become the repository of all Aerobus information for anyone in the world who needed it. It was creative work and it was fun. It continued to be a work in progress. After a flurry of initial work I would occasionally go back and improve a page or post another chapter of my book. People sent me photos of their Aerobuses and I created separate pages for them and their cars. It was a rewarding time developing the site and locating many interesting Aerobuses and their owners through it. I expect many changes in the Internet over the next several years and the method for identifying and locating web sites may change but you should always be able to locate my site simply by searching for "Checker Aerobus". I expect my site will remain the only one with that much information on Aerobuses. The city of Seaside, the town adjoining Monterey, hosts a monthly car show during the summer. A large portion of Broadway Avenue is blocked off for people to park and show their cars. The show is free for entrants and spectators but cars have to be at least 25 years old to qualify for entry. After the show there is often a police escort of the two or three hundred entrants through the streets of Monterey and Cannery Row. I started taking Bud to these shows. Another regular participant kept teasing me about painting my car so one day I set about to do it. I tried many methods for removing the old paint until deciding on a wire-brush wheel in my drill. I only managed to strip about four square feet that first day. I stripped two coats of paint, the top tan coat and the factory white coat, as well as the coat of factory primer until shiny bright steel showed. I don't know why people told me Checkers didn't use primer because Bud certainly had a coat, at least on the roof. For repainting I first used red-oxide primer and then followed with white primer to coat the area well before the cool, humidity-producing, Monterey night air settled in. Four square feet a day was too slow for my liking so I finally settled on a random orbital sander with 40-grit sandpaper on it. I used the 40-grit to take it almost to bare metal then switched to 80-grit for the final sanding. It still took me three whole days to strip all the paint off that big roof and coat it with spray cans of primer. I used a type of spray paint recommended by an auto paint supply store but the owner still cautioned me that nothing from a spray can would hold up. He told me the only satisfactory method is to use a catalyzed primer. For several weeks after priming the roof I sought the advice of as many people as possible to see if my methods were going to work. Time would tell but most of the people said it wouldn't work so I halted my efforts with the roof. Now I had a blemished tan body and a bright white-primer roof. For several months I tried to organize an Aerobus get-together in Monterey. I knew Gary and he knew a couple of other people in central California who had Aerobuses. We set one date and cancelled it because Pebble Beach was hosting the U.S. Open Golf Championship for their once-in-a-decade cycle and it was also the 100th U.S. Open so there wasn't a hotel room to be had in the entire Monterey Bay area. I set a new date to correspond with the next Seaside street car show. Fortunately Gary was going to be able to make it as was his friend who lived near him and also owned an 8-door Aerobus. I invited everyone on the Internet Checker mailing list and got some interest from a guy who just purchased a 4-door Checker Marathon station wagon. I wanted this to be an Aerobus get-together but certainly wouldn't discourage any Checker owner from attending. I told him we would welcome his "miniature" wagon. Gary came to my house the afternoon of the show and at five o'clock we went down to find the others were already at the show. We had a good time lining up the three Aerobuses and the Marathon. I was satisfied to have primered my roof but seeing my rusty hood opened next to Gary's brightly painted yellow car convinced me to put some more effort into getting mine sanded down and at least primered. I was still very concerned all the skeptics would be correct about my methods and it would begin to rust soon where I primered it. The car show was on a Friday night and all three guys showed up with their cars and wives. It didn't seem like much of a get-together with only four cars but all the people were exceptionally nice, interesting people. The kind you wouldn't mind being seated next to on a long airline flight. I was familiar with Gary and knew what a great person he was and I was pleasantly surprised to find out what natural people the others were. After the car show we joined in the cruise of Cannery Row with the other 200 or so participants. It was a busy evening in that tourist-intensive part of Monterey and the cruise was very slow which gave spectators more time to observe our cars. We snaked our way back and forth along the route a couple of times before turning off and meeting back at my house. We talked for a while and agreed to meet the next morning and go as a group to look for scenic backdrops for photos of our cars. Despite being August, the next day was overcast and chilly, not uncommon for Monterey, but also not great for picture taking. Nevertheless we found some nice spots along the coast and lined the cars up for group and individual photos. We concluded the day with a bar-be-que at my house. We all agreed the weekend was a lot of fun despite not accomplishing much. There aren't a lot of Checkers on the road and for four of us to have assembled left us all with a feeling of camaraderie. We talked some about the California Checker Club car show coming up the next weekend in Los Angeles. The owner of the Marathon station wagon lived near L.A. so he intended to go. I was still not willing to subject Bud to the six hour, one-way trip even though I was fairly certain it would make it. Gary and the other guy said their schedules wouldn't permit them to make it either. Later that week Gary called me to say he and his friend had such a good time in Monterey they wanted to go to L.A. They were both big-rig truck drivers and had access to car trailers we could use to haul our Aerobuses down rather than driving them. I was interested in that and was anxious to go for several reasons. People had been giving me positive feedback on the early segments of this story they read in the national newsletter. Several people wanted to meet me and I them. I wanted to see more Aerobuses and see how their condition compared to Bud's. As it turned out Gary could only get a trailer for two of our three Aerobuses so it was decided the ugly Bud would remain behind. I sat in the sleeper of Gary's truck most of the way to L.A. and the three of us talked a lot about Checkers and other car-related subjects. It didn't seem like a six-hour drive. We were the first people to arrive at the L.A. County Arboretum in Arcadia, the chosen site for the California Checker Club's annual show for several years running already. We got the Aerobuses unloaded from the trailer about the time Kathryn showed up to unlock the place. We got them inside the building first because they were long and the most difficult to negotiate through the doors and get situated inside the hall. Since Kathryn lost Sherman to a fire she brings her collection of ephemera and taxi memorabilia to the show to display instead. We helped her set up tables so she could spend the first hour or so laying out all of her artifacts. It's an impressive display. Kathryn just finished setting up her exhibit when the owner of the Marathon station wagon who came to my house, showed up in his car. He was very surprised and pleased to see us there after we told him we wouldn't be making it. No other Aerobuses came to the show that year which was a disappointment but there was a guy there from San Diego who brought his Checker Marathon sedan and talked about the four Aerobuses he owned. He was a wealth of information for me. He knew where I could acquire exact replacement roof lights for Bud. He seemed to know all the specifications and details on Aerobuses. He agreed to assist me in my search for information for my web site as well as anything I might need to restore Bud. I was finally able to meet Joe Pollard the West Coast Checker parts maven and long-time president of the California Checker Club. Joe was an affable guy and certainly a font of information himself. He had a couple of the best-looking Checkers at the show. I came away from the show with the realization that not many people had show-quality Checkers and it was quite acceptable to be proud of your car in spite of its blemishes. There wasn't a perfect one at the show but Gary summed it up on the ride back from L.A. that night, "Checkers aren't classic cars like a 57 Chevy, they are merely nostalgic. There is nothing particularly attractive about a Checker other than its unconventionality." The next week I made contact with the guy from San Diego and asked him about the roof and fender lights. He said Checker had a tendency to purchase over-the-counter parts for their cars rather than go to the expense of tooling up unique parts for themselves. He found a company that still made the lights and they were only about ten dollars each. I was skeptical they would be exact matches to my original ones but he sent me a set in the mail and they were perfect. Having new lights prompted me to get moving on primering more of Bud. It hadn't been long enough to prove the nay-sayers right or wrong on the longevity of my previous methods on the roof but I decided to improve them anyway. It was only two weeks until the Pebble Beach Concourse d'Elegance car show. This is the elite car show on the West Coast where people like Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld and Nicolas Cage bring their cars to show. It's actually a weeklong celebration of automotive excess. There are classic automobile races and road tours. There are club meetings and specialty shows for many types of automobiles. The Concourse culminates on Sunday when hundreds of invited cars are parked along the 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach golf course, arguably the most expensive bit of real estate to be parking some of the most desirable cars of the world on. There are several world-class automobile auctions that week with cars selling for multi-million dollars each. I thought if I could rid Bud of its blemishes and drive it around that week some money-is-no-object car enthusiast would see it and just have to own it. I started to really clean Bud up in anticipation of all that money coming to town but partly I also wanted to see how much attention a rather utilitarian vehicle could attract from people like that. With just two weeks left before the show I decided to at least get the front fenders and hood painted. These pieces together are often referred to as the front "clip". I decided to do it as right as I could and remove the parts I was going to paint. To do that required removing the front bumper first then the grill, headlight covers, turn signal chrome and lenses, front splash pan then the hood, outer fenders and inner fenders. There was a lot of stuff bolted to many of those components and the dismantling required a whole day. I learned a lot about Checker construction that day. In fact at one point I had to call Joe Pollard to find out how to remove the outer fenders. Something was holding them on after I removed all the bolts and I couldn't figure out what it was. It turned out that there was one bolt on each side that was only accessible from inside the car and up into the corner reaches of the dash. I thought Checkers were built for ease of dismantling and repair for all the taxis they produced. Bolts way up in the hard-to-reach corners of the dash seemd stupid to me. True to Joe's word too, both bolts snapped in half when I tried to remove them. Brilliant engineering again! Someone on the Internet Checker mailing list suggested that Checker fenders come off easier when the inner and outer fenders are removed as one unit. So on the second side I heeded that advice and they were correct. They were much easier to remove and the expletive quotient was significantly lower. Once I had the fender off and separated I still needed to remove all the parts I didn't want to get paint on like the trim and Checker Aerobus script as well as all the miscellaneous hardware. I started the painting project by sanding the underside of the hood down to bare metal and made it as shiny bright as I possibly could. That done I decided to run an experiment with some metal solvent that I purchased. It was sold as a primer and preparation solvent. It went on thin and clear but didn't seem to do much. That was until I gave it time to dry. The next day my shiny steel had a dull gray sheen to it resembling old tin or pewter. It was obvious the solvent did something but whether it would prevent rust remained to be seen. I applied the same two coats of primer as I did on the roof and then repeated the process on the rest of the parts. For the inner fenders I also used a high gloss white finish coat. If I knew how good that was going to look I think I would have done the whole car that way. As it turned out, the paint on Bud was going to take an unusual turn in another year. This painting experiment took me the entire two weeks leading up to the Pebble Beach Concourse. Midway through the process I was contacted by a Checker Club member who saw my story in the newsletter accompanied by my Monterey address. He wrote saying, "I've had an old Checker sitting forlornly in my garage at Pebble Beach for many years. I wonder if you could advise someone who may be able to spruce it up a bit for me?" I agreed to have a look at it for him and give him some advice. As it turned out I ended up taking the project on myself. Concourse that year was a real kick for me as it always is. I got involved with it through some volunteer work and was able to observe many of the activities behind the scenes and get a free ticket into the one hundred dollar main event. Bud was a hit wherever I took it. I parked it across the street from the show, at the Pebble Beach gas station, and it seemed to get as much attention as many of the multi-million dollar cars. Bentley, Rolls Royce, Bugatti and Duesenberg cars were commonplace out there but there was only one Checker Aerobus. I was still hoping someone would offer me a parting sum of money for Bud but it wouldn't happen out there that year. The project that I took on was a 1975 Checker Marathon sedan still in the possession of the original owner. It was repainted one time but it was in exceptionally good condition for a Checker. The upholstery was perfect as was the vinyl top. I agreed to do the work on the car for a very low labor rate compared to local mechanics. I went back a few weeks later and put a new battery in it and it limped its way to my house. I was hoping it only needed a lot of detail work. It would be a challenge getting it to pass the California smog check since the original straight-six engine was replaced by a V-8 that wasn't been carefully installed. I ended up working on that car for over a year. Granted it was only a few hours on weekends when I could fit the time in but in the end I developed such a relationship with the owner that I couldn't bring myself to charge him for my labor. I negotiated a reasonably priced paint job for him and did all the paint preparation work to keep the expenses down. I made a fair amount of mechanical improvements under the hood and got it to pass the smog test. The interior cleaned up nicely except for the headliner. I ordered a new headliner only to discover that to install a headliner in a Checker requires the removal of the windshield and rear window. Once I calculated the cost for a glass shop to remove and reinstall the windows combined with the expense of new window molding I decided to wait and see if I could find someone with the expertise to do the job without removing the glass. As of this writing I haven't. I virtually ignored Bud for over a year. One week, in order to perhaps finally finish the Marathon project, (pun intended) I arranged for four days in a row to work on it. I rounded up all the materials I needed to complete it and on the appointed day I stepped out to the garage, started to walk past Bud, and just then a thought occurred to me. |
