One of the more interesting aspects of MV ownership is the occasional visit from someone whose curiosity cannot be contained any longer or, they are simply seeking help with an older vehicle and believe this would be a good place to find it. Having a bunch of jeeps out front along one's driveway is a sure way to invite guests. Those jeeps are a lot like saying, Now hear this. Now hear this. The smoking lamp is lit. Everyone lights up. Or, for the rest of us, who are landlubbers, it's also like standing in front of a convenience store yelling, FREE BEER! People come a-runnin. Today was one of those days.
This afternoon, an old fella knocked on my front door. My son answered and quickly called to me. This guy was a local and lived not too far away. His story was he had an old CJ and as it turned out is was kind of a hand-me-down heirloom; ran when parked and now, would no longer start and could I give him some advice? I told him it would be far easier if I could actually have a look at it. So, off we went in my great big truck (I imagined I would be having to pull a large jeep-shaped piece of rust out of its final resting place) and I also brought along my 'go bag' of usually useful tools just in case we got lucky. Anywhere else I'd likely have been robbed and murdered and my body fed to the hogs but this is Texas, where most of us are still pretty friendly. We ended up way back on a ranch which was nestled snugly in the foothills of the famous Hill Country of Texas....serenaded by a chorus of noisy sheep which were, to my ear, curiously annoying. And there were not one...but TWO rather complete looking CJs. One belonged to his brother in law who bid me Do. Not. Touch. My. Jeep. (Well, I'm not here for you, Chuckie....nor will I be in the future if you're gonna act like that right out of the starting gate) We walked past his precious jeep and over to a tiny red CJ sitting under a shed roof.
It had seen better days but was looking game enough to soldier on. Someone had made some rather questionable modifications to the wiring, moved the coil to where it never belonged and had installed an el-cheapo ignition switch with wires that went to some very mysterious places. I spent some time just looking it all over, trying to get a sense of it which was a bit like looking at a big pile of spaghetti noodles whilst trying to determine which one was the first to hit the plate. So, finally, I bypassed everything and hot-wired it. Then used my big jumpers to power the starter.
She cranked over quite happily but no joy. We checked for spark... Nothing. I put my hand on the coil and it was hot. Too hot. Okay, there's the culprit...or at least one of the culprits. Off to Auto Zone for a new coil. Returned and relocated the coil to where I felt it belonged. It made more sense to me, anyway. I improved our hot wire job somewhat and....nothing. Stood there stroking my beard. Oh, wait! Am I an idiot, or what? I had put the ground wire from the coil on the negative post of the battery. (face-palm moment) Duh! That lead needs to go on the distributor, dummy. Crank-crank-cra....VROOM! Oh YEAH, she wanted to run! The sweet sound of the Go-Devil motor drowned out all the ridiculous noises the sheep were making. Big grins all around and the (also sweet) sound of success. I hope Chuckles heard it. His Willys doesn't run. NO SOUP FOR YOU, MISTER! After we settled down we figured, that's enough for one day, right? We ended on a high note, right?
So Near And Yet, So Far
Not so fast. He wanted me to drive it. So, I ask, does it have any brakes? Now that question is like being asked, do you still beat your wife? There's just no good way to answer it. Pregnant pause. His eyes are looking up and to the right, because he is trying to access that creative part of his brain which will yield a suitable answer. Sure, he responds. Ok, I'm game. What could possibly go wrong? I climb in (Ok, I squeeze in, cause I'm a fatty) and the brake pedal goes right to the floor. *ahem* Permit me to rephrase.... Does it have any working brakes? Well, it did, he says. Not anymore, I says. Ok, I'll turn it around so at least the front of this thing won't be up against the barn. (Yeah, I wanted to drive it..) Backed out slowly, conducted a three point back-and-turn, and then backed ever so slowwwwwwwly up to the barn (happily, and uphill) to its new place of honor. Once again, life breathed into an old Willys.
In For A Penny. In For A Pound.
My father used to say, "At the end of the day, all you really have is your reputation." I always have that on my mind. So this fella asks if he can pay me.. Money? Nope, I've already got money. But, you know what my interests are, and inn the off chance you come across something that I might want to hear about, please let me know. (This fella is a realtor. That puts him in a unique situation to discover lost treasures.) And so, I told him we would get back in there, straighten that wiring out as best we could without any superhuman efforts and finish off with getting some working brakes on his little truck because his family will be using it on the ranch. We wrapped things up today with everyone going home happy.
Hope the rest of you have experiences this year that are equally as satisfying.
Cheers,
TJ
