“One Lousy Bolt. Auto Mechanics Gone
Wrong”
This remembrance, story, has
several elements to it, so hang with me. Oh, this an auto mechanics story so it
you not into mechanics, forget reading any further.
Element 1: my father-in-law. My father-in-law, now deceased, was a used car
salesman. Well, not really, as what he did was go to insurance auctions and buy
low mileage wrecked or stolen and then found, cars, repair body damage and then
sell them. He was very good at what he did and made a decent living for
himself. He was not however, an auto mechanic. If one of the cars he bought had
an engine problem, he would just buy another auction car and swap engines.
Element 2: my Dad. Now my dad knew about a lot of things but auto
mechanics was not one of them. Yes, he changed oil in cars but did little
beyond that. Not sure he ever even swapped out a spark plug. Now from time to
time, he would ask my father-in-law to keep his eye open for a good used car
that my Dad might like and over the years, think either me or my brother or my
Dad bought one or more cars from my father-in-law. One such car was a Fiat, 4
door, piece of crap with like 100 miles on it. Now in those days, mid 1970’s or
so, Fiat was not a household name outside of some major East coast cities and
my father-in-law could buy a Fiat cheap. He once bought a Fiat Spyder, which
was a 2 seat, sporty, convertible, for $900. Brand new with 10 miles on it but
front bumper damage getting car off car carrier. So for $900, father-in-law
bought a $5000 - $7000 car. Of course took him 3 months to get replacement
bumper but hey, he made good money on that car. Ok, so my Dad buys this Fiat 4
door from my father-in-law and this is where the third element comes in: me.
Element 3: me. Now since my Dad did not do auto mechanics, I did not learn from him growing
up but after college and marriage and children and a lot I will not get into, I
became the proud owner of a VW bus. An infamous now, VW bus, (well at the time
it seemed just the thing as it haul a lot of people and the one I had was
actually a camper and thus served as a mini-RV as well and Chrysler had not
introduced their minivan yet.). Anyway, a VW bus was like owning a horse. It
required constant maintenance and a decent amount of auto mechanics knowledge
to keep it running. So slowly but surely I began to learn all sorts of skills:
adjusting valve lash, setting distributor timing, replacing spark plugs and
setting gap, rebuilding carburetors, swapping out distributor rotor button,
replacing points and setting them, replacing head gaskets, etc. etc. Even tore
an engine completely down and put it back together. And the point to all this
is that after while, I had a lot of confidence in my auto mechanic skills and
often volunteered my services to others when they had an engine problem of one
kind or another. Ok, so now back to the Fiat my Dad bought from my
father-in-law.
Element 4: Fiat. Go to visit my parents one weekend after my Dad has taken possession
of Fiat piece of crap and is taking about it to me. Says it idles fine but when
you try to drive it, no real power when under load like going up a hill. Ok. “Bet
you I know”, I say to him, “Probably points are not set right.” So we head to
the garage, I pull distributor cap off, we turn the key and I watch the
distributor rotate and sure enough, points not opening at all. So go get feeler
gauge, look up points setting in manual with car, replace all and start up car.
Runs fine but when we put on load, still some lack of power (beyond the fact
that it had something like a 1200CC engine in it!!!!!). Ok, check timing with
timing light. Sure enough, not set correctly. So using socket, take out (2) bolts
holding distributor from turning and with engine running, set distributor in
correct location, shut down engine and replace bolt 1, no problem but bolt
number 2 will not go into hole and eventually drops down into engine compartment
darkness. Look under engine on the floor. Rock car body back than forth. Bang
around engine trying to get bolt to drop down onto floor but no go. SO, I check
distributor mount and appears that single bolt going to be enough to hold it in
place. All fixed.
Element 5: one lousy bolt. So
this one bolt falls down into the engine compartment some where and I can not
find it and can not get it to drop out on the floor. Ok, how much harm could it
do anyway? So we start up engine and for 30 seconds it is fine and then there
is the terrible screeching sound and the engine dies completely. Deep sigh. Gulp!
Dad looks at me, I look at him. What? Try to start engine again but no go. I
check distributor and all ok there and still engine will not start. I feel
terrible. Dad trusted me to tinker with his new car. Although it was not right
before I started, at least the engine ran and the car would move. Now nothing.
Fell terrible but what to do? Nothing. And so I leave and go home. Later, Dad
has car towed to real auto mechanic and turns out that, that one
lousy bolt feel down onto the exposed timing belt and got caught in a pulley
and put all the valve timing out of whack to the point that all valve stems got bent when they got hit by piston!
What? So head had to come off and all valves replaced. Ugh. Have to thank my
Dad again, even though he now long since passed away, for not reminding me of
my great auto mechanic skills over and over like he could have. Of course never
touched one of his cars again and have been always very careful when working on
an engine to not drop bolts or screws and if I did, finding them one way or the
other. Exposed timing belt. What was those Fiat people thinking anyway????