Thus begins Mr. Jalopy’s blog entry about going to the Maker’s Faire.
There are four types of people in the world:
- Those that will never remove an exhaust manifold bolt AKA the Lucky Few
- Those that have broken an exhaust manifold bolt
- Those that will break an exhaust manifold bolt
- Those that lie about whether or not they have broken an exhaust manifold bolt
I have broken exhaust manifold bolts. It sucks.
Mr. Jalopy goes on to describe fixing two broken manifold bolts two days before driving to the Maker’s Faire. It’s a great write up.
He then goes on to describe his road trip in his 1960’s vintage automobile:
Road trips in old cars are different. There is never a complete relaxation. Automobile journeys used to be harrowing and they still can be when you are driving a 40 year old car. I think of cars from the ’60s as being comparatively modern, but there is no denying the decay of materials over time. Old cars get old. After driving for about an hour, you can feign relaxation and even dramatically stretch your arm across the generous front bench seat but you still can’t let down your guard.
Every scent, noise, shimmey, knock, ping or tug must be carefully examined and evaluated as most catastrophic automobile failures are prefaced with a scent, noise, shimmey, knock, ping or tug. The attention that an old car requires becomes a sixth sense as you are able to track issues faster than you can think. It means there are a lot of false alarms. When you hear a crow or smell carne asada tacos, before you are even able process what you are smelling or hearing, you leap to immediate terror mode.
‘What’s that! What’s that smell!? Tacos! Is that my car? Are tacos a car smell?! Do cars make a cawww like a crow before the trans goes up in smoke?!’
This is how I feel when I ride my 1982 BMW motorcycle across the country. But I also believe, like Mr. Jalopy, that if it breaks, I can fix it.
He talks about reading the Byte Circuit Cellar columns when he was in high school. I loved reading Byte magazine when I was in high school!
I really love this blog entry, and I really need to add HooptyRides to my daily read list.
Mr. Jalopy has the same attitude about making things and fixing things that I do. I’ll end with this quote that sums it up for me:
I am not an expert in sheet metal. I am not an expert in anything. But it doesn’t keep me from doing it anyway. When you have a broad base of mediocre skills, you twist and fit your projects to your materials and abilities.
