Steady leaks
I watched a concert this afternoon. A celebration of life for a friend. And what really surprised me was the people on stage. Not that there were people on stage but that I knew so many of them. People that I had performed with in a long distant period of my life. Anyhow. The rabbit hole on YouTube dragged me in another direction this afternoon as well I learned about driving a 1928 model A Ford for several days. The back story was very interesting. The new owner had purchased it on eBay by accident. And then he felt obliged to get it back home. Not on a trailer like most people would do. Instead, he opted to get the motor running and then drive it for as far as he could. Spoiler alert: he made it home. Along the way I learned a lot about how old motors work. If I showed, you my knuckles the first thing you would notice is the lack of scar tissue. I have never owned a car, nor have I worked to keep it going for long periods of time with a handful of wrenches. I think it takes a different set of knowledge than I have. However, given my advancing age I have been around other people with cars for most of my life. And car owners talk. Incessantly. I will not claim to have heard it all, but I’ve heard more than my share. As I watched this new owner repack a bearing or figure out how to advance his spark I was not lost. Puzzled, but not lost. I think that when you own a car the knowledge you acquire is added to a mental library. And the next time you have a card that breaks down you dig deep into the archives and figure out what to do next. This car was seriously old. Forget those new gadgets that allow you to plug in and see what’s going on with the motor. Here you listen and watch and decide what is dripping out of that particular section. Old cars had a lot of fluids. And along the way this driver had replaced most of them over and over again. I may go back and re-watch the video just to see how many times he came close to not getting any further down the road. Back in that time did vehicles die along the side of the highway. Probably. It explains why we have so many garages or at least used to. I am not going to post a link here. Your search skills are probably superior to my own. Just look for someone driving an old model A Ford for too long with far too many problems. When you find him, you will understand.
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