Chapter 23
To Build A Fire (With apologies to Jack London)
And then one day you find//Ten years have got behind you//No one told you when to run//You missed the starting gun
..
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
Not to steal any thunder from Jack London, but I'm sure most of you at one time or other during your lifetime has either had to build, or tend a fire. You can't build a fire by simply grabbing a log, or several logs, and touching a match to it. Even if you dump lighter fluid on the logs, once the fuel burns off, the flames go out. You need tinder; something to light easily and get the flames burning.
Tinder wont do the job by itself, though. A properly built fire is structured with several large logs at the base, usually in a square, with a small pile of ultra-fine tinder in the center, surrounded by larger tinder (small branches and sticks, etc). Once the tinder is lit and the larger tinder begins burning, you have to sort of hand-feed the fire; keep the tinder coming as its consumed, until the large logs begin to burn. Soon you'll have a roaring fire, with intense, hot flames leaping into the air and forcing you back away from the heat, perhaps singeing your clothes or hair. But, a roaring fire will quickly burn itself out, exhausting all the fuel as fast as you can heave it on. Not only is this counter-productive to the guy who spent all afternoon gathering or splitting wood, but it can be deadly if you are relying on the heat to sustain you. Far better to let the roaring fire ignite the big logs, then bank it down. The warmth won't be as intense, but the fuel will last a whole lot longer; it will sustain you.
Quite frankly, most of us approach our car hobby like the first fire; we get it burning and then heap so much fuel on it that it becomes a roaring, raging blaze that quickly consumes all the available fuel (time, money, family and job patience) and leaves us, well,
cold. In a way, this is what happened with the li'l red minx and the Duke. All the intensity of those years makes you want to rest, let the fire just burn out lazily and slowly smolder out.
One time, while on a camping trip, I kept a campsite fire going nonstop for seven days. At night, when the flames had died down to gently flickering orange embers, I would pile the embers up in a tall pyramid. Next morning, I would spread the pyramid out evenly, throw on some fine tinder, and with a little air, the still-warm embers would ignite the tinder and soon I'd have a blaze going for cooking breakfast. It was much the same with the Duster. For over two decades, the ashes had been piled high under that tarp, cold as a stone on the outside, but maybe still warm at the core? It was time to see if there was enough warmth to ignite a little tinder.
***
Time had caught up with me, so to speak. You can leave a car under a tarp for two decades. Double that time and the car may still be there, relatively unchanged. But will
you be? I was reliving the Glory Days with one of the guys at work, spinning yarns about the minx and The Duke, and reminiscing. We laughed and joked about it, and I defended my stance on the hulk under the tarp with a bold statement; Hell, it's been sitting there for 25 years, if it sits there another 25, I'll still have it.
He replied; Yeah, but will you be able to even drive it?
We laughed it off, but later that evening, the truth of what he'd said began to nag at me.
How long is
too long?
Will you even be
able to drive it? Nobody knows what the future will bring.
Even
if
, will you even
want to drive it?
Time to find out.
Better to die of exhaustion halfway through the trek than to never start out at all.
***
I raised the hood and stood there staring. It was not a pretty picture. No carb, no distributor, the old Offy manifold perched on top to cover the lifter galley, Mickey Thompson/Edelbrock rocker covers perched carelessly over the rocker shafts, dirty, corroded, lusterless. I grabbed a trouble light and just started looking, like an undertaker sizing up his next client.
The first thing I noticed was that the left header had a hole rusted through one of the tubes the size of a finishing nail. I grimly noted that I'd be needing new headers. The Pontiac Blue paint was covered with grease and dirt, that is; where it wasn't rusty and peeling off. The water jacket freeze plugs were covered with a white, powdery corrosion. I gingerly lifted off the manifold and looked at the cam. A little surface rust. Some on the lifters and push rods as well. I lifted off the loose rocker covers and was relieved to see the rocker arms and shafts still looked good. But it was still winter, cold and damp. I decided to grab a notepad and begin listing what I wanted to do and what would need replacing. I still had several months to think about this. I put the pieces back and held my hands over the pyramid of ashes. There was warmth in there yet. Yeah, there was.
***
I fed the small, feeble flame all through the winter, reading Mopar Muscle magazine, searching websites, and thumbing through catalogs. I briefly flirted with the idea of doing a full concourse restoration, rebuilding the 340 to stock '72 specs, but soon chucked that idea in the gravel. It just wasn't me. My car had to be, like my Buell, different. Stock just wouldn't do. Relieved to have put that rather disturbing thought behind me, I earnestly began planning the build.
The first thing to do was convince myself that a total teardown of the motor was necessary. It didn't take that much convincing. Low mileage or not, I wanted this thing done right. Next thing was to find a good engine shop. I had no idea whether Sexton Automotive was still in business, and besides, it was over an hour drive, even if it was. No good. My son Chris had found a shop in nearby Kenosha, a guy by the name of Tony who seemed pleasant and knowledgeable on the phone, and he invited me up to see his shop.
Not only did I see it, he gave me the grand tour! Not only that, he spent a great deal of time responding to my emails and questions, and seemed to have a genuine knowledge of the smallblock Mopar. I was sold. Relieved to have found a shop I could trust, I pushed forward.
***
June, 2004.
I had just attended a car show the weekend before. Not much in the way of Mopars, but enticing, nonetheless. Spring had come late this year, with winds, rain and below-normal temperatures that pushed my timetable back some. But the weekend of the car show had been sunny and warm. All systems go.
Now, I mentioned earlier that it started with a motorcycle and a screw. I told you about the motorcycle. Now let me tell you about the screw.
It was a little screw; one that held the fender tag on the left fender well. There were two of them, to be exact. June 27th, 2004. Once again, I raised the hood and stared. I lifted off the manifold and rocker covers once again
. But this time I didn't put them back. As I pondered the project ahead, my hand unconsciously picked up a Phillips screwdriver and undid the two tiny Phillips screws holding the fender well tag to the inner fender. I popped the screws and the tag into a Ziplock baggie and labeled it 'FW tag'
..and we were off and running. Just like that.
Four hours later, a heap of similar-looking baggies and assorted parts lay at my feet. The headers, oil filter adapter, alternator hardware, and everything else I could see or reach were loose, including the driveshaft, linkage, cross member bolts and engine mount bolts. I'd brought the engine hoist home from work in the back of my car; I assembled it, then pushed the car halfway out for some working room. Deep breath; I was ready.
My son and his friend were there to help. Hang time was about 15 minutes, start to finish, then I set the motor and tranny on my four-wheeled dolly and pushed it out of the way.
An hour later, it was perched on my virgin, never-been-used engine stand and I was tearing into it like a cat on a tunafish sandwich. I knew I had to be careful not to put too much wood on the fire, but the heat felt good. Damn, it felt good!
***
I didn't have a lot of spare cash to play with
. Still don't, for that matter. There was a lot I could do without the use of cash early on. There were motor parts to be cleaned, an engine bay to be cleaned and painted, decisions to be made. I succeeded in getting the engine apart, down to the block with just the crank resting like a sleeping baby in its cast-iron crib. I did some cleaning and degreasing of the engine bay and front suspension, trying to decide which way to go with things. At last, a plan emerged through the mist. This car would be redone from the axles up. The front suspension was in poor shape; the rubber bushings dry rotted, brake lines rusty and corroded, tires old and hard. It would hardly make sense to make a 12-second run at the strip, tromp on the brakes, and have the pedal go to the floor, squirting DOT-3 all over the track and me pissing my pants and doing a Fred Flintstone. That meant pulling the entire front suspension, removing the K-frame, and priming/undercoating every piece of the unibody, and painting or powder coating every single piece of suspension. At this point it dawned on me that it was academic whether or not I ever finish the car. Its the
journey, not the destination, I tell myself. I also want to avoid the
poseur trap so many fall into today. Guy buys a car. Guy sends out the motor, tranny, body and suspension, has the motor built and assembled for him (or worse yet, buys a crate motor), has the whole car assembled, then off for paint and interior, then parades it down Main Street with his chest all puffed out; Look at me! I have a musclecar! I've spent
thousands! I'm important, and Oh, So Fortunate!
Ummmm
..Excuse me
, but youre a
poseur
. Nothing but a chucklehead in my book. You did nothing except sign the title and exchange greenbacks for someone else's talent. I'm impressed by your machine, but not by you. I'm dazzled by the art, not the artist. That gangly 17-year old in the gray-primer Dart next to you
..now,
he's the one that impresses me. See, he did it all by himself, with the help of his family and friends. No, the Bondo's not perfect and it won't win any awards for concourse restoration, but the kid has a heart the size of New Jersey
. Just look at the sweat and blood and emotion he put into this thing!
That's how I see it. Maybe, now, I could afford to have somebody build me a car. Maybe not. No matter, I won't. If I can do it myself, I will. Because I can. So someday, I'll have a hard drive full of digital pix that detail every nut, bolt, every drop of paint, and
every drop of blood that goes into building a car like this. I might even paint it myself (although I wouldn't feel like Benedict Arnold by having a pro shoot it
this time around. One 'Battle Of Midway' with kamikazi walrus-flies is enough!) This is not about the car;
the finished product. Not at all. It's about the garage-therapy, the struggle, the busted knuckles and the empty wallet and the triumphs and victories, however small, that make up a project. And if I never quite finish it, the journey will have been sweet. And I hope you will share it with me.
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