A garage story as well as any other story. It might be a bit long and it is not about Mopars, but still it is a garage story.
Sorry for not using smilies. I have never gotten the idea on how to use them properly so I don´t.
My garage is well equipped. At least when comparing with the average Joe. You know, a broken roof rack on the wall. Some three year old old skiwax at the windowsill and toothless pliers somewhere in a corner. I have various sanders and cutters, pullers and honing tools beside my basic set of hand tools. My neighbour is in the habit of loaning. The other day it was time for that again. He was about to change the exhaust system on his Saab. I lended him a cutter and he left. Then he called. Now he wanted help welding. When cutting some of the rusted bolts he accidentally cutted two holes where not supposed to cut. I was quiet listening to him at the phone.
-Stop grinning, he requested.
Even though I kept up appearances, he knew that I was smiling as a fully satisfied tamagucci.
-What an amateur! Cut holes in your exhaust by mistake. Twice!!
-How about the doors, are they still on the car, I carefully asked him?
He then shouted some ugly words and hang up the phone. Shortly thereafter he roared up to me with his Saab. I rolled out the Migwelder and made a kettle of coffee. He was relieved after restoring the exhaust pipe and told that I was handy around cars. I agreed on what he said and told that teasing is good for the neighbourliness..
When he left without loaned tools I remembered a Whitsun weekend a long time ago. My 1977 Caprice had gotten a 6,2 litre dieselengine and a new lockup transmission. My Caprice now rattled ten kilometres on less than a litre of tractor fuel. (less than 24 US mpg). Sweeeet. Before summer I decided to change the glow plugs. So that it is done until winter, I reasoned. It had been a lot of work converting the car to diesel, and bringing this to an end with this last, not absolutely necessary but preventive measure, it felt good. The extra touch of it, to top it off. New glowplugs were purchased and lied in a row on my workbench. The old ones were unscrewed. 1,2,3,4,5. Three to go. Number six was stuck in some way. It unscrewed from the threads but when pulling it out it stuck. I unscrewed 7 and 8. Strange. I pulled and I jerked. The glow plug came out about 1 cm, the stuck. Now I started to get really irritated. I had already gotten my new jeans dirty and burned myself on the exhaust manifold. This that was supposed to be smooth and easy. This that was supposed to be done in relaxed triumphant way while I was whistling a Helix tune. I felt cheated. My precious victoryceremony was unjustifully taken away from me. After the hard and heavy mechanical work, the final tuneup was stolen from me. I stopped thinking. I grabbed the crowbar.
Now some words of wisdom. The crowbar is a tool for prying planks. A carpenters tool. When the crowbar is fetched in context to work on your car, something is not right. Beware! I did not. With the crowbar round the number six glowplug I became hemistrong. It creaked, something gave up and I grinned wickedly. Ha, now you little
And up comes half a glowplug. Just about at the same time a sound -ping, came from cylinder number six. I stiffened. In a split second my brain goes through all of the cavitys of the engine, establishes the fact, and blows a fuse to protect itself from major meltdown. I stand like an idiot without a brain! My arms are hanging down my side feeling all hollow and empty. On top of the number six piston, there are a foreign metal object It is Whitsun in Sweden. Two holes in the exhaust system would have been much more pleasant. I might be much more handy than my neighbour, but he does not do half as the stupid things as I do, or make as half-assed decisions in the garage as I do.
Ps: After four days the number six glowplug was replaced together with a new head gasket.
