Bodily Harm!

I had a 1962 Ford Station Wagon a few years ago, well, several years ago, 1967 in fact.

It had a 6cyl engine with some little carpenters inside. At least they were metal workers.

There’s an old saying, “The pistons sound like they are swapping holes!”

At this particular time I didn’t know very much about the inside of an engine…but I knew that it wasn’t supposed to be a black-smith’s shop with all that hammering going on and blue smoke from his furnace coming out the tailpipe.

Have you ever heard someone say, “If I had a nickel for every time I have done so-n-so, I’d be a rich person today!”?

Well, I met one. And he was younger than I was. He told me he could make my car purr like a kitten.

All we needed was an old leather boot!

Personally, I saw no way of putting that boot down in the engine through the little hole where you added oil every time you wanted to crank it.

He said all we had to do was drop the oil pan and take the rod bearing caps off, cut a piece of the leather boot to fit the cap, put it back on and “Presto”, no more noise.

Sounded good to me, I had two old boots we could use.

This was a Saturday morning, about 9 o’clock.

We jacked the front of the car up and put some concrete block under the front tires.

I talked my wife into letting me borrow a blanket to lie down on, my friend was already rolling on the grass and redbugs.

We drained the oil and took all the bolts out of the oil pan.

After a little persuading with a twoXfour and a large hammer, we got the pan to come loose and drop down, but not come out.

For some strange reason the pan would not co-operate with him.

We struggled with it, took the engine supports loose, jacked the engine up, and drank a couple more…soft-drinks.

I kept telling him it looked to me as though we were going to have to pull the engine out of the car, but he kept reassuring me that he had done this a thousand times.

About 4 o’clock that afternoon he crawled out from underneath, stretched, and asked, “Where is that hammer?”

Hammer? What would he need a hammer for?

So I asked him, “What do you want a hammer for?”

“I’m going to do bodily harm to this @~%$* thing!!!”

I don’t think so.

Calmly, I asked, “Why don’t we take a break and get something to eat?”

He agreed, and said he would be back later to finish this job.

That’s been over 30 years ago.

I finally removed the engine from the vehicle and replaced the necessary parts, but I didn’t use my boots.

Conclusion?

If you are going to do repairs on your vehicle and you are not real sure about the procedures, contact someone you can trust to guide you in the right direction.

About the Author

Tommy Sessions has been in auto repair since 1970. He publishes Bad Car Again Auto Repair Help Newsletter. He is in the process of setting up a blog for you to read the newsletter and get auto repair answers. Check the site often to get the details of how to get the Blog. http://www.badcaragain.com