Car Stories I

Here’s another in the “Sunday Story” series. A break from politics – just stories, this time about mechanics, cars, and driving adventures.

Oil Change

Yesterday I changed the oil on my 2004 Jeep Wrangler (or in “Jeep-speak” a TJ).  That’s not a big thing, I’ve been working on cars since I got a driver’s license.  I can still “turn a wrench”, at least for the simple maintenance stuff.  Most car mechanics left me behind when it required a computer to “diagnose” an engine, but changing oil hasn’t evolved much.  It was good to get my hands dirty.

I’ve never been a “new car” guy.  I owned thirteen cars in the almost fifty years I’ve been driving, and only two were new.  The rest were somebody else’s troubles.  Adventures with my cars (and vans, trucks, and SUV’s) often revolve around a piece falling off, or a critical part breaking, or, the worst, the engine catching on fire (twice).  

The Fury

1969 Plymouth Fury III

It started with my first car, when I was sixteen years old.  In 1973, I paid my cousin $250 for his 1969 Plymouth Fury III. It seemed like an “old car”, and my cousin drove it hard, with over 200,000 miles on it. That was the result of his selling artificial flowers across a territory that stretched from Kansas to Indiana, Wisconsin to Missouri.  And it didn’t work, at least not well.  Starting the car created a cloud of dark smoke.  Even then, it felt like we were changing the environment for the worse each time I turned the key.

But our Cincinnati neighbors were more than happy to teach me the “fine art” of engine repair.  On one side was Carlos Phillips.  Carlos was a sales manager for Monsanto, but on the side was constantly repairing and refining his two, classic ‘356’ Porsches (1955 and 1956).  On the other side was Tom Morgan, a more practical Proctor and Gamble engineer.  Tom fixed cars all of his life, and was more than willing to pass on the knowledge to an eager young driver/mechanic.

So we rebuilt the Plymouth engine in Tom’s garage, with Carlos lending a hand, and my Dad falling asleep against a tire leaning on the wall.  I learned all about blown gaskets and warped heads, torque wrenches and “cheater” bars.  And, when things weren’t going just right, Tom had a P&G Engineering tool – a ballpeen hammer.  Sometimes a bolt just needed a little more persuasion – just a “rap” or two would do it.

Side note – it’s Dad’s birthday today. He would be 104. He’s been gone for six years now and I miss him still. He wasn’t a car guy – but he wanted to support what I was doing. Happy Birthday – Dad!!

Riding in Style

We put the Plymouth into driving shape, and it was my “ride” in high school, and the first year of college.  It drove like a “boat”, with two huge bench seats.  After my freshman year at Denison University, my summer job was a “day camp” for 11 and 12 year old boys.  I had as many as eight, but that was no problem for the “Fury”.  Five in the back, and four in the front, plus me, and we could go anywhere.  Seatbelts – well there were a couple in the front seat – none in the back. Cars only had to be equipped with them at all in 1968.  We cooked out at the local parks, and went on “road trips” to museums.  The “Fury” was our dependable ride.

During my college sophomore year the Fury’s engine blew again.  It was time to send it to “the car farm”; you can’t sell a broken car.  So I gave it to Dad, who donated it to the Goodwill and took a tax break.  The last ride of the Fury was from the house to the Goodwill, smoking enough to create global warming, and finally quitting just as I pulled into the parking lot.  I glided to a spot and handed over the keys.

The Fury Label – and keys

The Squareback

1967 VW Squareback

Carlos let me “kibbitz in” on some of his Porsche work, and I fell in love with the four cylinder engines in the back that you could almost pick up by yourself. The four-speed stick shift on the floor made driving fun.  I could never afford a Porsche, and the next best thing was a Volkswagen.  But there were two problems with that.  First, I needed more room than the Beetle offered.  I had to move back and forth to school, and would spend my junior year of college doing a lot of travelling.  I worked for the Carter/Mondale Presidential campaign in the fall, then studied at American University in Washington, DC in the spring.

But Volkswagen made a “station wagon” that they called the Type III, a Squareback.  It was the perfect car for me, with enough room to put all of my dorm stuff inside (the couch was strapped to the roof).  And it still had that little air-cooled four cylinder engine in the back, almost just like Carlo’s Porsches, and “four on the floor”.  I found a white, 1967, all ready for me.

The second problem was Mom.  Mom was British, and was a “spy” in World War II for the Special Operations Executive.  She still bore a grudge against the Germans, serious enough that I wasn’t sure I could bring a German-built car into the driveway and survive the experience.  We had to have some serious discussions about the War (after all, it was thirty years ago) and how some things changed.   She wasn’t happy, and seldom took a ride in the Squareback, but she grudgingly agreed it could have space in the driveway.

Blown Engines

The first time I “blew” the Volkswagen engine was on State Route 37 south of Granville.  I was passing a truck, going down the big hill.  A car was coming, faster than I thought, and I forgot to shift from third to fourth.  I got around the truck, then realized that I was “red-lined”.  The little engine was screaming, and I quickly popped it into fourth gear.  But it was too late.  The Squareback got me onto I-70 and ten miles west towards Columbus, but started smoking just at the Reynoldsburg exit.  I managed to pull of the Brice Road exit, and coast into the Shell station.  

Mr. Spangler, the owner, was about to head home for the night, but was willing to tow me back to Granville.  We stopped and got a twelve pack of beer on the way, and shared a couple as he told me about his home nearby in Pataskala. I didn’t know much about it at the time. He dropped the car in my dorm parking lot.  I called Cincinnati and told them I wasn’t going to make it home for dinner.

Advanced Study

VW Piston – note hole in top where valve went through

Dad came up and got me the next day, and I borrowed his “back up” car, a red 1969 Cutlass, for a couple weeks.  That’s how I drove the Volkswagen engine parts to the store, as I rebuilt the four cylinder engine in my dorm room.  It probably wasn’t “acceptable” by the student code, but I wasn’t the first to do it.  A guy a few doors down rebuilt his engine, but while he was working on it, his car got “loose” and went down the hill into the woods behind our dorm.  So he was stuck with an engine as room furniture and no car to put it in.

It took three weeks, a week to tear things apart, a week to get the parts machined, and then a week to put it all back together.  And there was probably some studying going on too.  But the Squareback would “ride again”;  to Washington DC and back, through a blizzard in the Pennsylvania mountains, and even around the hookers in Times Square in New York City.  

The Sunday Story Series

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.