GOING, GOING, GONE!

Greetings! Thank you so much for reading this post, and all my posts. I've enjoyed writing the blog and I sincerely hope the content is of assistance to some and entertainment to others.

Although I missed playing with the grandsons, I did less babysitting and more wrenching in the shop today. My goals were: 

1. Remove the front sheet metal from the '51 Chevy business coupe
2. Remove the engine and transmission
3. Sell the old engine/trans combo

Around mid-morning today I enlisted the help of my son, Joey, and the two of us were able to lift the two fenders and grille up off the chassis as one piece and set it on the concrete slab across the parking lot from my shop door. 

That left the engine bay delightfully exposed, making the next step so much easier: removing the engine and transmission.

When we were carrying the sheet metal across the parking lot I was struck with how pleasant and mild the weather was. It was nearly mid-November and I was thinking of taking off my sweatshirt. I left the roll-up door up all the way and enjoyed the sunshine pouring in the shop. It made me pity my poor customer, Gary, since he was at that very moment somewhere in Mexico near Cabo San Lucas working on a domestic maintenance project in the glaring heat. Poor guy. 

I spent the balance of the day mostly on my back, disconnecting the clutch, shift & emergency brake linkage, and separating the enclosed driveshaft. Yeah, the enclosed driveshaft... I want to tell you about that. What a bugger! I had to take out 4 bolts that loosened a cover for the enclosed U-joint and then I had to remove the 4 other bolts that held the U-joint in place. Once those four bolts were removed I could separate the transmission from the driveline. The difficulty of the task was enhanced by the use of small metal retainer flaps that are bent up around the head of each bolt to prevent the bolt from loosening and falling out of place. It is a good safety measure but SO difficult to undo while laying on one's back using a drop light while one is surrounded by leaking coolant and oil. My face and hair were fertilized by generations of dirt and dust that I knocked down on myself with each movement of my arm or hand. There were a few moments where I was blinded by debris that landed in my unprotected eyes. I can understand where lesser men would have resorted to profanity. 

An observation on profanity: I was in town visiting the shop of my father-in-law one evening a couple of weeks ago, and there were 3 generations of my wife's step-family working on young Caleb's '67 Firebird. It was looking really fine but that evening I visited there was tension in the room and pressure to complete a certain task. It didn't go well, parts didn't fit and one or two of them were expressing themselves with an experienced display of profanity. The radio in the background was playing some '80s rock tune that inspired nobody in the '80s to fall in love. I didn't want to do anything, or offer to do anything, for fear that I would have the profanity directed at me. I left the stage.

Contrast that with today's experience. I was listening to a vintage CD of Mike Oldfield, Songs of Distant Earth on shuffle/repeat in my Bose Wave Unit, the shop was well-lit and a pleasant temperature. My father-in-law, Crusty Chris, agreed to buy the old engine and transmission that I was struggling with and seeing that I was having problems, stayed with me to assist. A couple of weeks ago he was at the family shop work party that I mentioned in the previous paragraph, but tonight there was no profanity, no accusations of incompetence and no stress in the air. Chris handed me tools and turned the engine over by grabbing the engine fan. He offered to come down under the car with me, but I was laying next to a cocktail of automotive coolant and used oil and he would have had to wallow in it.

He was very helpful, and it's truthful to say that I couldn't have completed the task nearly as quickly if he hadn't stayed to help me. He and I got the engine and trans out, loaded it up in his pickup and he went home to dinner. I can't say that the work was a pleasant experience, but nearly so. Maybe it was the pleasant music, or the attitude of cooperation we shared, but the accomplishment of all 3 of my goals made the whole struggle seem justified. I'm even looking forward to tomorrow's oh-so-fun goal of removing the front suspension and rear axle! Sometimes I worry that I'm the only guy having a good time.

Doug