Old Ugly - Shake Down Run Part 2: The New Acquisition

In the last installment of Old Ugly - The Shakedown Run...

Levi and I set off (at 2 in the morning) for the historical Sun Valley, Idaho; facing grave dangers with nerves of pure steel - the kind they cord tires with.

Now join us for Part 2 of:

The Harrowing Tale of the Old Ugly Truck in the Valley of the Forbidden Sun!!!

***

The agreement I had made with the owner of the bike was that I would call him when I was 'close' so he would know to expect me. This agreement was reached on the previous Friday, just before he gave me the directions.

The marvelous Sun Valley, (or the Sun Valley area of Wallace, Idaho - whatever it is...) was carved into a deep and sharply twisting ravine that must have been formed by some pretty awesome geological forces. Mountains jut almost straight up everywhere you look, and a network or rivers wound its way between them. Any directions that one could receive on how to get anywhere in the Sun Valley area are bound to be deeply intricate. As an example, my directions were something like:

Go to the third stop light after passing the gas station. Turn right. The road goes to the left. Then, the road splits. Stay on it. Go past a yellow house. There'll be like three bridges while you're driving. Somewhere in there is a stop sign. Don't turn after the curve to your left. Go over a hill. Two bucks will be fighting on your right. Wave. Look for Lincoln street -it's around there somewhere. Turn either left or right after that. You'll get to another street. I live on the next street after that. If you get to a dead end, you went too far.

Mystically, I found it (I've since realized such things can only happen in spectacular Sun Valley), but I got so involved in following the directions that, before I knew it, I was already there. Even more mystically (and this part is absolutely true), he was waiting for me when I got there - like Hannibal Lector when Jody Foster first comes to interview him, only he looked more like the wild 60s love-child of Moses, Albert Einstein and that Keystone bitter beerface guy. He was in his 70s, dressed in pajamas, with a white afro, sipping a cup of steaming coffee. I got out cautiously.

"I thought you were gonna call first," he shouted in his morning voice across the distance.

"So did I."

"Hippy Dave" turned out to be a pretty cool old guy. The bike didn't look too bad either - from what I could see under half the cover. It was kinda dirty, but looked like it had been kept inside most of its life. Dave said it hadn't been stored outside for long. He had gotten it on a trade for some dental work he had done on a guy or something (that's a joke, but doesn't seem far enough from whatever he meant by 'work'), and he was just lookin' to trade it for somethin' he might want a little bit better (the ad mentioned he was lookin' to trade for a "rotariller, gen, gun, CASH works..." He had mentioned over the phone that the 'mufflers were shot,' and he wasn't kidding, but on the bright side, the exhaust appeared to offer most of the appearance of a complete and legal exhaust system, without any of the harsh, noise canceling effects.

He invited us inside for a minute before he showed me the bike. We talked. He watched some local news on his computer and sipped at his coffee. We hung out... He offered Levi some juice in a little bottle, and then talked to his old dog that would bark if you stood up too fast. We chatted for 10 minutes. Levi explored. I waited - for him to do whatever he hadn't done yet. It turned out what he hadn't done yet was mention he was waiting on me.

Outside, it was barely bright enough to see. The sun was well below the tall half-bare mountains that surrounded the place, even though it was half past 6. The celestial name Sun Valley, it turns out, was just a mean joke.

Dave had left the petcock on the night before on accident, and it had flooded, as it tended to do (he had forgotten to mention over the phone). He cranked it once or twice (with the make-shift starter button he had also forgotten to mention), but it wouldn't start. Supposedly the battery was new - it wasn't a day over a year old. Certain it would start, the old man hopped on (picture this: SantaMosesHarley) and started kicking away. If I could have had only one picture of the whole ordeal, it would have been of that...

To my amazement, on the second or third kick, it actually fired up. It didn't idle great, but it was surprisingly smooth. It was too early and too cold, and I had Levi with me so I didn't want to take it for a test drive, but it was more or less what I was looking for, and I planned on going through it, so I wasn't too worried about how it rode - at the moment anyway. I would've taken it for the price he was asking even if it wasn't running.

We shook hands, signed paper work, exchanged "CASH" (because it works), and then it came time to load her up. That's when I noticed that the clutch handle was bent. Then I noticed that the gas tank had a big dent right on the logo on the clutch side. Then I noticed that the front brake caliper - the one the previous owner had just had repaired (oh, he might have forgotten to mention that over the phone too) - didn't want to release, making it pretty hard to push up a board and into the back of the truck.

We did get it loaded up finally, and cinched down. I thank him, cinched Levi down, and then went to Hippy Dave to shake his hand and bid him farewell. The old man looked at the bike with a knowing glance, then looked at me and smiled.

"Ride the wheels off it," he said tenderly as he shook my hand, his eyes glistening a little. "Rebuild it, then ride the wheels off it again."

I told him I would.

To Be Continued... Again...

Old Ugly - Shake Down Run Part 1: A Grand Adventure

The following occurred on March 17, 2010. I'm getting around to writing this on February 20, 2011. I've postdated it for April 2010 for continuity purposes (it seems to take me forever to write these things, probably because I drone on and on, adding layer after layer of pointless subtext and parantheticals, ad nauseum, long out-lasting the patience of my single digit audience with this wearisome diatribe). At some point in the spring of last year I forgot the password to this blog, and then, just today, I figured out what it was. Luckily I made some pretty thorough notes:

I also apologize in advance that there aren't any pictures. It all happened at night. Part 2 makes up for it though - I promise.

***

Against my better judgement, I decided that Levi and I would take the wholly unproven Old Ugly on an inaugural 472 mile run to pick up a nice looking 1975 Honda CB550 that I had found on craigslist. Having been without a motorcycle for nearly a month, I was already going through painful withdrawals.

Not remembering the circumstances surround this plan, I honestly can't fathom how I came up with it, but I decided that Levi and I would depart Walla Walla at 2 in the morning, drive through the night (during which, I reasoned, Levi would sleep peacefully) and arrive in the scenic Silver Valley of Wallace, Idaho at or near 6 in the morning - a time at which the bike's current owner assured me he would have already been up for only an hour or so since, after all, it was a Sunday.

Well, Saturday night rolled around, and even before I left my plan was unraveling. First off, I hadn't considered that, having been in bed since 8 o'clock, the six hours of sleep would be more than enough to sustain Levi through an entire night's worth of excitement on this "Grand Adventure" (as we had billed the ordeal). Instead of loading a quietly sleeping child into the truck just before taking off, I had an enraptured three-and-a-half-year-old assistant help me load up the truck before we got on the road.

The forty five minute drive to Dayton passed without incident, and I got to explain what the word Adventure means at least twelve times. Being the first real opportunity to drive Ugly, I noticed a few... we'll call them 'traits:'

1.

The driver's side door wouldn't stay shut. No matter how hard I slammed it, it would slide open just enough to turn the interior light on. Not to where it would fly open, and I could, say, realize that this whole foolhardy enterprise was ludicrous and decide to actually get some sleep on Saturday night instead of risking the life and limp of me and my little boy at the hands of who knows what dangers - trusting in a truck that was taking every reasonable opportunity to suggest how unreliable it was - so I could pick up some old bike that had caught my fancy... No. Just far enough to keep Levi awake and chatty, and provide a nice gentle freezing wind on my left side.

2.

The speedometer and tachometer didn't work. Well, the speedometer didn't work. The tach... it tried. I knew they didn't work before I set out, but I guess I kinda underestimated their importance.

3.

The thermostat seemed to be stuck on because the motor never built up any heat. I mean, I could feel heat coming out of the heater, but the needle just wouldn't move off of the cold mark.

Finally in Dayton, I decided it would probably be a good idea to top off the tanks, as what lay ahead was 67 miles of... wheat. That's it. Wheat. 67 miles of wheat. At least we wouldn't go hungry. Oh, and there was a bridge. And a river. The snake river. A bridge over the snake river.

At the gas station, I filled up and, to convince Levi that he was in good hands, I got down and sort of glanced around underneath - like I was checking on something. I thought maybe I'd touch the transmission? See if it felt hot or something? The transmission was fine, but as I stood again to get back out of the cold, I noticed something drip down onto the pavement right where I had just been laying. It was off to the side, under the second fuel tank - the one I had just topped off. I got back down and noticed that gas was leaking from somewhere on the top of the tank and dripping on the ground. The smart money seemed to be on the transfer valve. Great. At least it wasn't dripping anywhere near the exhaust. I decided to press on - I'd just use that tank first to minimize the leakage.

From there things went as well as could be expected. We made it though the bread basket without problems. We didn't even have to stop for gas in Colfax - the first station we came to. I did notice 'trait' No. 4 though:

4.

The high beam switch (more like the high beam pedal - it's on the floor to the left of the clutch) had a mind of its own.

I didn't even switch off the leaking tank until Spokane. So far so good. We got to Spokane, and soon it was onto Highway 90 - the Speedway to Idaho and Beyond. Then came the next issue.

It started as this dim sense that something (else) was wrong. We had just got on the 90, so I thought maybe it was just some wind noise. Through Spokane the feeling would come and go. Something just seemed off. Was it performance? Was I loosing power? I tried to get Levi involved. "Do you hear something?" I'd ask. "Yes." "What?" "You." A few miles later - "Did you hear that?" "What dada?" "I don't know." "Is it the motor? I think it's probably running."

Finally, just past the Idaho state line, I pulled over to check things out. The gas leak had dried up. The transmission felt normal. Was it a u-joint? The differential? It only seemed to happen when we got up to speed, but I couldn't even put my finger on what 'it' was. It was really strange - like this sixth sense would just kick in and I'd feel like something was wrong.

Back on the road, I began to catch hints of something actually sounding weird. At irregular intervals the truck would make these quiet little screeches, for lack of a better term. My first thought was that it was some sort of relay or solenoid, but it didn't seem to be in connection with anything. I wouldn't lose power. The lights wouldn't dim. It was just this weird little sound. I thought maybe I was losing the rear end.

We pressed on. The sun rose. We entered mountain territory.

Levi was an absolute sport. He never once complained about being strapped into his government mandated safety chair for the better part of five hours - instead enthusiastically asking me questions about where we were going, what a valley is, what the sun is, what a star, is, what a solar system is, why space is up in the sky, what a motorcycle is, why motorcycles only have two wheels, what a thing that drives on the road is that only has three wheels, about how silly it would be if a car had no wheels, what wheels are, what tires are, why people call wheels 'rims' when the rim is only the outer part of the wheel that holds the tire, why we need gas to drive our cars, what gas is, about how they make gas at the gas factory, what a state is, what a country is, what a nation is, what an indigenous people is, why we stole land from the Indians, if I was a communist, about the logical inconsistency of the subjective quantum view, and where in my body my soul was...

Before I knew it, it was 5:30, and finally, at long last we had made it to Idaho's storied and picturesque Sun Valley... turnoff.

To Be Continued...

The Resurrection of Old Ugly - The Clutch

It's always strange to drive a new vehicle, but those first impressions can be telling. During my test drive of Old Ugly, a clutch issue was obvious from the very beginning. And not obvious like I'm an expert with years of experience who felt that slight hint of diminishing clutch grab in the last half millimeter of engagement travel. Obvious like, did Chevy equip these trucks with a clutch and a torque converter?

Here's how the test drive went:

The truck is idling. I know it's warm because it had just been driven for an hour from the tri-cities. I put it into low, give it a tiny bit of throttle, and slowly (some could even say cautiously) let the clutch out... and let the clutch out some more... and keep letting the clutch out... further and further... further than seems possible... further than any engineer could have possibly thought was a good idea... and just when I think the thing is going to keep coming out until it traps my foot between the pedal and the bottom of the dash... I hit the end of the travel...

...and then, after a long and pregnant pause, the truck slowly, gradually begins to move. That's when I finally identify the smell I first smelled when the guy opened the hood. The distinct, metallic, sintered smell of burned clutch.

Out on the road, it was painful (and noxious) to drive it at all. Anything more than 1/4 throttle in top gear (3rd or 4th, depending on if you want to call ratio #1 granny or first - the button on the transmission calls it gear L) and the engine would rev up without any noticeable change in speed -- at all -- ever.

Each gear shift was accompanied by a sickening period of time in which the engine would suggest a speed to the transmission; the transmission in turn rejecting the engine's suggested speed and requesting that the engine resubmit it's speed request. The engine would then resubmit it's speed request using form SR-125All2. That speed request then being sent to the transmission speed request review board for review and approval. The speed request review board would want more information, and send a Speed Request Review Appraisal Inquiry form (QRN-282-454N) to the engine by registered mail. Upon receipt of the QRN-282-454N, the engine would have to provide copies of three forms of identifications, fill out line 27B-"place of manufacture", and submit oil samples and all maintenance records. Once the review board then had the necessary documentation, it would approve only a partial speed change. The engine and transmission, tired of all this bureaucracy, would settle their differences, agree on their own shaky middle ground, and finally the speed of the truck would start to change.

Eventually.

All the while, the clutch torn between the two like a child in a messy divorce.

***

With the test drive over, and the truck now fully in my custody, the very first order of business was to fix the clutch! I took a quick look in the glove box. To my surprise, it actually had an original 1978 owner's manual. Let's see... clutch... clutch... clutch... Sure enough, there it was:

"Clutch adjustment should be checked and adjusted periodically as necessary to compensate for clutch facing wear. To check, depress pedal by hand until resistance is felt. Free travel should be approximately one to one and a half inches; if very little or no free travel is evident, clutch adjustment is required."

-1978 Chevrolet Light Duty Truck (gasoline) owner's and driver's manual. p. 2-17

Right, so, first check free play. There is none. In fact, from what I can tell, the clutch isn't even half engaged when all the way out. It's a wonder the guy even made it from the Tri-Cities at all, and no wonder it smelled like burned clutch when he arrived. The last time I smelled that much clutch was the first time I went solo in my mom's Tauras SHO (a car which, incidentally, broke a half-shaft before wearing out its CV joints. I wonder how often that happens). So, it seemed, I was about to get a crash course in clutch adjustment.

Usually, when faced with a mechanical problem, I use the following patented "Mechanical Expert's Field Guide to All Repairs Automotive" flow chart.

It goes as follows:

a). Call my dad.
b). Poke around to see if anything is obvious.
c). Do a search on the internet.
d). Look in a service manual (if I have one).

Then, as an absolute worst case scenario, I;

e). Call my dad again.
f). Do another internet search.
g). Bang on the problem area with a wrench or other suitable tool.
h). See what the vehicle would go for on kelly blue book, nada, craigslist, and/or ebay.
i). Give up for a few days.
j). Spray it with WD40.
k). Consider reclassifying it as a parts vehicle.
l). Check to see if it's magically repaired itself.
m). Purchase a case of Vernors™ as a bargaining tool in my third attempt to bribe my Dad into helping me.

and finally, if absolutely all else fails:

n). Wait for my wife to start threatening to take it to someone who's actually qualified to repair it...

...at which point I revert back to a). and work my way down again.

It's only failed me seven times, but that's another story...

On this day, because I was watching the kids, and because the weather was crummy (overcast), I skipped right to step c). and took to the internet.

I can now say, with absolute certainty, that if I ever become the proud owner of a 1970-1974 Chevrolet Malibu, a 1967-1972 Chevy or GMC Truck, or any year of BBC equipped El Camino, I will be able to adjust its non-hydraulic clutch with ease. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those... yet.

So much for the internet.

Working backwards, that evening I reverted to step b). and crawled under the old beast. To my surprise, there it was - a long, threaded shaft with two nuts: one for adjusting, and the other for locking the adjustment. A quick trip to the garage for some wrenches, and within five minutes, I was adjusting away. Not more than half an hour later, clutch resistance was felt at one and one quarter inches of travel. Perfect. Now for the test.

I knew when I started it one of two things one going to happen.

1.) The clutch would be toast, regardless of adjustment,

or

2.) by some miracle of science and sheer over-engineering on the part of a certain GM engineer in a drafting room in 1973, the 'two years of driving it this way' that the clutch had endured would have somehow failed to destroy the non-asbestos, multi-layered friction material, and the clutch would still work.

I put the key in the ignition.

I pumped the gas pedal 2 and a half times to prime the carburetor (a trick I learned from my Dad).

I turned down the radio (Shana had driven it last on her maiden voyage).

I grasped the key.

I turned it...

...and the starter motor spooled up, but the engine didn't turn. Sounds like the starter has a bad solenoid, but that's for another day.

I tried it again.

This time the motor cranked, and then...

I once read this great article by Isaac Asimov about suspense and anticipation.

...the motor started.

Alright, it was time. The moment of truth. I put the clutch in, this time feeling like the properly adjusted piece of driving equipment it was supposed to be.

I moved the shifter into L (1st, or low, or granny or whatever...)

Slowly, tenderly, I let the clutch out...

...further and further...

...until about two inches out...

...and...

...the...

...truck started moving. Like a normal truck with a manual transmission.

"Good" I thought, "what's next on the list?"

The Resurrection of Old Ugly - The List

After acquiring our 1978 Chevy C30 1 ton truck, I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of the thing by making a list of everything I could find that was wrong with it. So, here goes:

1. It's ugly.

2. It's old.

3. It's broken.

I think that about covers it, but just for my own sake, I guess I'll expand a little on the third one:

The clutch doesn't work right.

The driver and passenger front doors don't latch well.

There's a pretty serious leak dripping off the front of the transmission.

The hood is kinked.

The left front fender is bashed in.

Both dually fenders are broken.

The speedometer doesn't work.

Neither does the tach.

The brake lights don't come on, but the flashers work, and so do the turn signals, so its not the bulbs.

The front seat upholstery is worn out, and the carpeting is house floor carpet.

The right mirror is missing, and it was torn out of the door at some point, probably when someone took out the dually fender.

The right side tail pipe is about to fall off.

The trim is mostly bent up, and what isn't bent is missing.

A few of the marker lights are burned out.

It squeaks when you turn the wheel or hit the brake.

The motor vibrates pretty bad when you rev it up.

The fan noise is really loud.

That's about all I can tell for now. I guess I should look at the bright side; it does start and move under its own power - for now.

Goodbye ugly bike, hello ugly truck.

The other day we came across an ad on craigslist from someone looking to trade their dually, four door Chevy truck for a motorcycle that could make it from the the Northwest to Virginia. Shana and I had been looking for a towing truck for as long as either of us could remember, and as it just so happened, we had a running bike in the garage, so on a whim one night we wrote to the mystery address asking for pics and offering up the Honda VT500 Ascot Shana and I had received in exchange for her watching a vengeful vietnamese potbellied pig.

Long story short, a few days later, this giant, hideous, green Chevy C30 1 ton dually crew cab truck comes whoosing down our road and stops in front of our house.

The very first thing I noticed upon greeting our perspective acquisition was a horrible burning smell that recognized, but couldn't quite put my finger on. I ask the guy if he knows what the smell is, and of course he has no idea, but he assures me it's made that smell ever since he got it. Oh, great, it should be fine then.

We look it over... It's rough - very rough rough actually. The hood is bent in the middle as if it's meant to be opened accordion style. The battery has a knife switch wired in. The cab has household interior carpeting. The seat cushion has more holes than fabric. At some point someone managed to tear off the passenger side camper mirror and tear a hole in the right side fiberglass dually fender. I wonder what the other car looked like... The left side dually fender looks good from the front, but wait, no, someone must have backed into something with it because it had a big tear across the back.

None of these are problems though, we're assured, because the industrious fellow has reinforced the hood with bits of scrap wood, fixed the electrical problem that necessitated the knife switch by... realizing that the doors don't stay closed and checking every time he gets out of the truck to make sure that he pushes them back in and the interior light goes off, sanding through the paint on the best surface of the fiberglass fenders to make 'repairs,' and installing a CD player with the speakers on the floor beneath the driver's and passenger's feet - the music from which can distract you from the, shall we say, challenges of the driving experience.

But somehow, through a process that defies logic (and my better judgement), I fall in love. This truck, despite all its flaws, fits like the last border piece of a puzzle - where you know exactly how high and wide the puzzle will end up being even though you still have a mountain of pieces left to sort through. During the test drive, it doesn't matter that the clutch slips so bad the manual transmission feels for all the world like it has a torque converter (that's what the smell was, burning clutch) and that the engine spins hopelessly faster than the rest of the driveline in third gear, or that the engine vibrates horribly, or that the speedometer and tachometer don't work, or that I know I'll be luckly to get 10 miles per gallon... All this is tuned out because somehow, this truck fits into this vague notion I have of automotive bliss in a way that a sun faded, square headlighted, dirt tracker inspired 1983 Honda Ascot never had. By the time I get back from the test drive, I know we've got to have this truck.

Through ignorance, and impossible optimism, I had somehow imagined that I could fit this whole exchange into a half hour at the beginning of a very packed day. That didn't turn out to be the case, and I got back from the test drive to discover that I was late for a video shoot. I rushed the poor tradee through a crash course in Honda Ascotism. First, I asked how long he'd been endorsed. Oh, he hadn't quite gotten around to that just yet. Had he brought a helmet? Not as such... Had he ridden a motorcycle? Once... a few years ago. So... riding to Virginia on a bike he knew nothing about should be a piece of cake, right?

Not my problem. I showed him where the throttle, brakes, clutch and shifter were. ...and here's a pile of spare parts, like the foot pegs and the muffler. Oh, and you'll want to track down a replacement headlight because this one's cracked... and... let's see... it's illegal because it's too loud. Alright, see you later, have fun. With that I was off to go film an overgrown chain saw on tank tracks (Barreto track trencher). Shana was the paper work expert, so I left him (and his wife and two kids in a second car) in her capable hands...

Goodbye ugly bike. Hello ugly truck.