White Truck Tale of Woe

 I believe in Hell. With the capital H.  It is a place where the innocent must deal with the evil creations of automotive engineers. This subset/splinter faction of the engineering profession has the mission of placing as many impossibly small tabs, clips, bolts and retaining rings in the most unreachable, unseeable and unwrenchable places possible, and creating a gauntlet of steel and plastic torment for all those whose life choices brought them to this desolate and cramped Forum of Absolute Suffering. The most comfortable truck repair yoga pose for me was on my back in the driver's side footwell with my feet in the door pocket.

Perhaps I'm overdramatizing, and thank god Orris saved me from creating a practice fire for the Matinicus volunteer fire crew, or going all Jack Nicholson and putting my splitting maul first through the windshield and then through every other surface on my once beloved Silverado 2500 HD. I don't golf, so the maul would be the next best thing. Better really. 

The actual problem presented when Megan went to move the truck in order to mow the lawn. The shift lever was flopping about in all positions at once, none of which would result in the vehicle moving off that patch of lawn. 

After my routine assessment of everything I've done wrong in life which brought me to this place, and my usual self-blame for simple mechanical failures, I ordered a new shifter cable from NAPA. Henry, my mechanically gifted nephew, was coming out the next weekend and agreed to install it. 

The report back from Henry was encouraging with one exception, which is that he didn't get the new cable properly entwined around Satan's own support bracket, resulting in the new cable breaking apart when he shifted into drive. 'Support bracket' is a little misleading in that this is a sturdy metal silly-straw-shaped contrivance bolted to the upper and inner surface of the steering column in a place one cannot see or reach into. The DIY videos mostly skip this part because it does not cause people to like and subscribe. 

After a good bit of diligent procrastination, I ordered a second cable from NAPA and watched videos, including Henry's where he stuck his phone into the upper under-dash orifice to conveniently identify the proper routing of the cable through Lucifer' silly straw. 

I started fresh around 7 a.m. and promised if I wasn't making progress by 9, I'd just find something else to do. Aside from the really hard parts, almost every step of the process of removing the broken cable and installing the new new one showed me the malevolent face of pure evil from automotive engineers. Each fixture presented a fresh set of tests of my fingers and my sanity and my ability to be upside down for lengthy periods with flakes of rust falling into my mouth while I was trying to utter long strings of profanities.

The cable comes in an upper and lower segment and there are no re-do's when connecting them. Once joined, three bishops and a cardinal could not annul the union. 

And so I pushed the halves together. Pretty much. By pretty much I mean I couldn't get them apart, but things did not look right. There was much fiddling with plastic locking collars and other elegant horrors created by said engineers. When I thought I had things connected, I tried to start the truck with no luck. I assumed the battery was dead from sitting for 2 months, which would prove incorrect. 

For whatever reason, the automotive engineers also had great concern about 35 pound truck batteries floating up out of their snug sockets, and so placed a retaining bolt in a place requiring a very long socket wrench extender. Thankfully, this is where I called Orris for such an extension.

He and I wrestled, jumped and used a battery booster go-go box thing to try to start the truck with no luck.

Then he took a look at the not perfect union between the upper and lower parts of the cable and suggested disconnecting the cable at the steering column end. With that piece of mechanical insight and a good bit of shoving and growling, the ends and all the elegant plastic horror pieces went together properly, at which point the truck shifted into park and started right up. 

I like to find meaning in these struggles and I suppose this time it is the collective wisdom of Henry, Orris and I against the dark forces of automotive engineering. 

Breaking Bar

 May 19, 2021 - One of the difficult things I've had to learn as a perpetual novice lobster boat operator is that diesel engines need to get run hahhd at least once a day. "It's the worst thing for 'em, idling around all day hauling traps," Art Stanley told me, "those engines need to work."  

My instinct is to baby every machine- to go easy around every corner and over every bump, start and stop gradually - be gentle. 

This I learned from Malcolm. Before leaving for college, I only ever had one job, starting in 3rd grade or so. I started by following Lucille around taking care of shrubs and 'helping' with yard work, lamenting my fate when weeding on a wet mosquito-filled morning, but also marveling at my $.25/hr salary when I got it. I graduated to mowing lawns, and then headed for the big time with Malcolm and the haying crew, where I stayed until leaving home at 18, learning about the coefficient of friction,  weight in motion and to operate and respect heavy machinery with big metal teeth.

Back to Malcolm. One year he purchased an F-150, for, I believe, $100.00, and got many seasons out of it on the farm. He could drive a vehicle slower than anyone else I've known. I believe I could count each RPM, especially on those rare occasions when 2nd or even 3rd gear was called for. Perhaps the velocity dilation actually changed time in that truck, which could possibly explain the longevity of what was already a fully depreciated piece of equipment. It probably also helped that the 1970s F-150 was made of actual metal.

What I took from these lessons was to try and feel the moving parts and joints, listen to the mechanical conversation from the vehicle, and go easy on 'er. You'll get a little more from things that way even if the world passes you by.

As much as I respect Art's advice, Mal's is hardwired. Which brings us to Black Beauty.

Megan bought a 1996 Mazda B4000 pickup truck for $800.00 in the Spring of 2014. Already fully depreciated itself before journeying to Matinicus, BB has trucked every single trap from my yard to the Steamboat Wharf and back for 7 seasons, going into #8. Well, almost every trap. At the end of last season, while trucking gear back from the wharf, a pronounced smell of burning rubber and overheating temp gauge put a premature end to Black Beauty's season. 

I ordered a serpentine belt from NAPA last week. Somewhat amazingly, there is a decal beneath the hood showing which pulleys the belt goes over and under and, more importantly, how to relieve enough tension to slip the belt onto the last one. There's also a fan to be navigated which makes for some Escher-esque spatial visualization in getting it threaded into position. Then the easy part is finished. 

The hard part is never having heard of a 'breaking bar.' I tried for a good long while to use my 3/8" socket handle to torque out the tension. Then I went and got a metal tube from the barn, thinking I could slide that over the socket handle for some extra yoink. Then I went and got a hacksaw so the tube would fit under the hood. Not happening this day.

Bart stopped in the next morning, and since his idea of winter relaxation is to tear down a '92 Volvo and rebuild it from scratch way prettier than brand new, I figured he might have some ideas. 'There's a hammer here. That can't be good. First, get rid of the hammer.' 

'ok.'

Bart's insight involved us applying a lot of upper body strength to push down on the tensioner and the belt at the same time. 20 minutes or so of stubborn diligence, but again, no.

The decal was trying to tell us something. It showed pulling up on the other side of the tensioner as the path to success, rather than pushing down on this side. The problem though, was that with the fan and its plastic hood getting in the way, there was no chance of getting the bulky tube and wrench combo into position. 

Clayton stopped in and mentioned a 'breaking bar.' Now I'd learnt something. I can see why it's good for breaking  stuck bolts, knuckles and for tantrums. This ingeniously simple implement is just a long, extra heavy, but relatively thin and stripped down version of a socket handle. 

 A few seconds of fiddling into place, one good yoink and on goes the belt through a combination of leverage and pulling in the right direction. 

Air in the tires, gasoline in the tank, a charged battery and she's off.