AEROBUS CHAPTER 3 - Time To Go I got the new ignition switch installed and the steering column put together within an hour of arriving back at the car. I reattached the temporary plastic two-gallon gas can to the steel fuel line in back and reinstalled the battery. Now I had gas and a battery, fuel and spark, and keys. The engine was as loose as I could make it from spraying solvent into it and turning it over by hand the week before. I climbed in, stuck the key in the ignition and turned. Something happened. The engine turned over. I quickly shut it off before it had the opportunity to start. I wanted to consider the noise the engine made in that short burst to see if anything sounded unusual. After running the sound through my mind a couple of times I decided that it had sounded healthy and normal. I gave the key another turn. This time allowing the starter to keep turning the engine to let the oil pump distribute some oil throughout the engine and the fuel pump to get gas up to the carburetor. I knew the fuel delivery would take a while since there was about twentyfive feet of fuel line to pump it through. I let it crank for a little while but it was not firing so I stopped to give the starter a rest. I hopped out and stuck my nose up to the carburetor to see if I could smell gasoline there yet. Nothing. I took a little gas and poured it into the carburetor to prime it. Tried starting it again. Nothing. This should have told me something. I hopped out again and pumped the throttle on the carburetor to see if gas was squirting into the throat. I couldn't make out anything but it was hard to hike myself up over the big Checker fenders to peer directly down into the carburetor. I'm six feet tall and I could tell that those fenders were going to get tiresome before this whole project was done. Okay now, think, think, think, what could it be? No fuel to the carburetor. Must be the fuel line. I disconnected the fuel line from the carburetor and went back inside to crank it again. A quick crank then dash around the hood to see if gas had squirted out. Nothing. Back inside for a longer crank. Back under the hood. Still nothing. All right, must be the fuel line or the fuel pump. I pulled the rubber hose out of my gas can and left the other end connected to the car's fuel line in back. I stuck the end in a clear glass mayonnaise jar I salvaged from Jaime's trash. I disconnected the fuel line in the engine compartment and poured some gas down, what was now, about twenty-four feet of steel fuel line into the glass jar. Dashing back there I discovered clean fuel in the jar which suggested that the fuel line was unobstructed and clean. All that was left to check was the fuel pump and the small section of fuel line from the pump to the carburetor. A bad fuel pump was to be expected. It has a rubber diaphragm in it that pumps the fuel. I was almost certainly encountering the first failure of a rubber item on this car. A part I knew from experience was not costly or hard to replace on a small-block Chevy. Mechanics distinguish Chevy V-8 engines by small block and big block. One advantage of a small block is that most parts interchange over a thirty year period of manufacture and a half dozen major size configurations. A short run to a nearby parts store and the fuel pump was back at Jaime's. To install a fuel pump in a small-block you have to hold up a steel bar that connects a lobe on the camshaft inside the engine, to the fuel pump and thereby drives it. Unless the engine is on a bench upside down it's a trick to hold that rod up inside while getting the fuel pump bolted into place on the outside of the engine. Gravity makes the rod want to slip out. Installing it on the Checker was compounded by the placement of the smog pump. The big fenders made it impossible to perform this task from above so I was laying on the ground reaching up at odd angles trying to accomplish something better suited to three hands and good visibility. I kept having to bring my hands down to my chest and let the blood run back into them and the fatigue run out. I was trying to hold the steel rod up, hold a gasket in place, insert the fuel pump and start the first bolt. If I could just get that first bolt started I knew I had it licked. There are many tricks that the experienced mechanic learns when performing difficult tasks on an engine. There are books written with compendiums of small-block tricks. I was wishing I knew the trick for holding that rod into the block so I could perform the other three tasks. When my arms refused to raise up into the darkness another time I reach the point of frustration and realized that I was going to have to confront this differently. After another trip to the parts store for some gasket adhesive I had the gasket stuck in place on the engine. One less thing to worry about. Then I took an old hacksaw blade out of my toolbox and put a bend into it that would lift and hold the end of the rod into the engine. I duct taped the other end of the blade to the engine block. Surely I had stumbled upon the trick for fuel pump rods. Now all I had to do was insert the pump into the engine and pull the hacksaw blade out at the last second before the rod slipped down. It worked! The pump was in. Now all I had to do was locate the two bolts lying on the ground near me while holding the pump in place with one hand. I must have been quite a sight under that car flipping and flopping searching for the fasteners that were out of sight underneath me. I was cursing a blue streak. The arm that was not holding the fuel pump was flailing wildly searching for the bolts. I never heard Jaime approach. "Whatcha' doin there?" he startled me with his question "Oh help me will you?" I cried "There are two small bolts somewhere on the ground and I can't find them because I can't let go of the fuel pump." Jaime couldn't bend down but he did locate the bolts and knocked them into my field of view with his cane. I grabbed one like a madman and quickly got it started in the hole until I was sure that the threads had found their way in. At last I could rest my arms. I just laid under the car resting, looking things over, arms lying still on my chest. After a while Jaime inquired, "You okay?" "Sorry Jaime" I replied. I had forgotten he was there despite him having freed me from my frustration. "I'm just resting. Wake me if I'm still here in the morning, would ya'?" "Sure, but I'm going back inside for now," he replied, not responding to my humor. I still had to stand up and reach over the fenders with a wrench and tighten down the bolt on the fuel pump and install the other bolt. I was anxious to complete it and get the car running but I was exhausted from my effort and resting felt so good. I finally stood up and got the first bolt tight but then frustration reared its ugly head again. The smog pump was so close to the other bolt that I could not get a socket wrench in there to start the bolt. It came off fairly easily because the bolt was already in place. Al I had to do was jam the socket in where the bolt and its washer already were. But now I had to get a bolt into an area that left me no room to maneuver; no room for my fingers. I finally jammed a tire iron into the gap from above and pried it to give me enough room to get the threads of the bolt inserted. I used a round bar-like socket wrench extension like a hammer to gradually tap the bolt in to where it made contact with the threads. A similar operation got the socket jammed in there to the point where it connected to the bolt head. After much profanity and frustration I was able to connect an assortment of socket wrench extenders and get the handle on the end of it all at a point where I could turn it. I was physically winded after this job that only involved one bolt but took nearly 45 minutes to insert. I was seriously questioning my commitment to this project. Perhaps I was growing too old for this. Old cars are frequently owned by younger people with boundless energy and no money to complete them properly, or older people who have the money to have someone else do all the grunt work to restore them. I was caught squarely in the middle of both segments of the population. With the new fuel pump installed I hopped back into the driver's seat and turned it over again. It turned and turned and turned but didn't ignite. A check of the carburetor showed that I was getting gas up there! That was very encouraging. Now what? I wondered in frustration. Was I ever going to get this beast out of the driveway? Now that I knew that my fuel system was working the problem must be with the spark circuit. Responding to the sound of my cranking the engine over, Jaime hobbled out to see what I was up to. "Won't start?" he inquired. Good guess, I thought to myself before realizing that it was my frustration doing the thinking. "Yeah, I don't know what more I can replace to make it run." With a particularly poorly time question Jaime asked, "When do you think you'll be able to get it out of here." The questioned angered me in my already frustrated state but I knew that I had overstayed my entitlement and I owed it to him to stop taking advantage of his good nature and either pay him or give up. "Next Saturday for sure." I replied without really considering how I was going to do that. "Whether it's running or not." I continued I had come to the conclusion that I was going to buy this vehicle even if I couldn't get it running. If all else failed my five hundred dollars would be a bargain for a really long trailer. So now I was committed. It added to my frustration but gave me the satisfaction that a decision had been reached. An ultimatum. Now I had to make it happen according to my promise. "I'll be back next Saturday at nine and I'll get it out of here one way or another. I'll stop by one day this week with the rest of the money." "Okay, I've got the title ready for you." "Can I ask you not to date the title? I don't know how long it's going to take me to make it run and I don't want to have to pay registration on a vehicle that I can't use yet." "Yeah, no problem. I understand completely." With a deadline set I was anxious to leave. I no longer cared why it wouldn't run. My problem now was where I was going to move it, and how. All the way home I ran options through my mind. I didn't want to take it to a storage place because those places don't allow work to be performed. The base had an Auto Hobby shop but its hours were so limited that it would be difficult to get any work done at a time that was convenient for me. Their prices were also kind of high for a vehicle left overnight. I had the feeling that this vehicle was going to take me a while. I couldn't take it to my house without being registered because I couldn't park it on the street. My driveway was too steep to get a non-running car up into and I wasn't sure my family was ready for this ugly duck to be parked in our driveway. There didn't seem to be any solution to my problem. I entered the back of the base housing complex on my way home and passed John's house. John, that's it! Why didn't that occur to me sooner? John was a friend I had been stationed with at my last assignment in the Azores. He lived in a cul-de-sac in the base housing area where I now lived. It was a flat road with an equally flat driveway. It would take no effort to get my new acquisition into his carport. John didn't own any good vehicles so perhaps he wouldn't mind giving up his covered carport for a week or so until I could get the Checker running. John was a very good mechanic. Someone who's advice I felt I was very near to needing badly. Taking the chance, the only option I felt I had at the moment, I approached his front door. Fortunately John was awake. John was a single parent, his wife having left him for another guy shortly after their return from the Azores. She left him with primary custody of their two young girls. I gave John a lot of credit for raising those girls. He didn't have much money but he provided well for them. This partly explained why he drove a run down 20-year-old Toyota. His skill as a mechanic kept it running well after all the years. "Hi Ed", he greeted me at the door. "Hi John, howzit' goin'?" I asked, anxious to get to the point of my visit. "Good, good" he replied with a look of a question in his eyes. "Say, I was wondering if I could use your carport for a little while" "Yeah, what's up?" "Well, I bought this car and I can't take it home." I proceeded to tell him the whole story of my experience and what I had gotten in to. John agreed to let me use his place and even offered to help me get it there the next Saturday. He felt we could flat tow it with a chain. He assured me that even without fluid in the brakes we could put a little in the system and they would work well enough to get the couple of miles from Jaime's house to his. When I got home from John's house I found that I had received a return letter from Paul Ryan who had written an article in the Checkerboard News. Paul's letter was very long and informative and he gave me detailed advice on getting my Checker running again. I felt smarter reading his letter because most of what he advised I had already done. Paul included his phone number so I gave him a call. He was as friendly on the phone as his letter suggested. He asked me everything that I had done so far and seemed pleased when I told him. The last bit of advice that he gave me before we hung up was, "Don't worry, your Checker will start. They always do. I was a mechanic for a fleet of Checkers in Los Angeles for many years and you can't kill one of those baby's." Those were the kind of encouraging words I needed to hear. Wednesday I went to Jaime's house with the remaining payment. He gave me the title and my deposit check back. I assumed he cashed it since I told him it was non-refundable if I didn't take the car. I took the check back, and gave him five hundred dollars cash instead. True to his word, he had filled out the title transferring it to me and had not filled in the date of transfer. I assured him that the car would be out of his driveway on Saturday. When I looked at the title I noticed that it indicated that the car was a 1970. "I thought this was a 1972?" I asked surprised. "But it says here that it's a 1970." "Oh, is it?" Jaime seemed confused. "Yeah I guess that's right. I forgot after all these years." I loaded the stinking fuel tank into my pick-up truck. I thought that cleaning it and coming up with a solution to the perforations would keep me busy until Saturday. I had no idea just how many Saturdays it would take. |
