Troy's Rants and Ravings

So there I was…

Having actually survived getting to school, I now had to stay in school long enough to actually get credit (read PAID) for it. And seeing someone I had, once upon a time, known at a dealership far, far away was making this more and more unlikely…

So the Incredilbly Insensitive To My Needs Technician Formerly Known as Mr. Randy Smith, previously of Bob Baker Nissan, Kearny Mesa Mossy Nissan, Night Crew and all around trouble maker has found his way to the Dark Side and is actually in my class.

“Hmmmm” I thought at the time, “This could go one of 2 ways…”

Little did I know there was a third and 3/4s option I had never thought about. It seems we both, in our old age, decided at the same time that us going fist city in a World Domination Motor Car Corporation classroom would, in all probability, actually, not be such a good idea.

Beside the obvious nipple effect I noticed a bunch of not too subtle changes about him. I noted he was looking WAY older than I look, I also noted that his forehead seemed to be making inroads to colonise the back of his head, and he had about him the distinct look of a man who has not had a really good bowel movement for over a week or 2 (lack of bran probably – I’ve seen it before…), Randy was much the same trouble maker I remembered him to be. The only difference I could see, up to now, is he was not sending paper airplanes sailing toward the instructor, yet.

However it was still early.

[begin honesty]
In all honesty (or at least as honestly as I will ever get in these pages) instructor Joe was really great. (I haven’t got a chance in hell of figuring out his last name so I am not even gonna try… It’s some commie, pinko, frog, French Canadian Bacon last name like L’arterial Thrombosis or some damned thing…)
[end honesty]

So at the first break it was like a continuation of things where we had left them 12 years before…

We made fun of Pat.

It was not that Pat was a bad guy, had his pants cut too short, had a beak a toucan was jealous of or the fact that he worked at Nissan for 40 years and still could not fix cars. It was the fact that Pat was a bad guy, had his pants cut too short, had a beak a toucan was jealous of, the fact that after 40 years he still could not fix cars AND that he was constantly threatening to kick our asses on a regular basis. Mind you, Pat was the Barney Fife of mechanics. His heart was in the right place but his head was up his ass.

I mean, honest to Gawd, 6’2″ and 135lbs does not tend to intimidate me. Hell, it never even seemed to intimidate Randy Smith either. Which is something else I will touch on later… But I suppose he had to do it for his “street cred”. (Street Cred = Street Credibility for you folks that aren’t anywhere near as hip and tuned in to the vibe as I am…) Pat may have been at some point in his life normal, but due to an accident at a secret military installation, well, he became Pat.

There are 2 stories related to Pat out of many that I could relate but will not due to the relationship to my relative relation of the reality of this revelationary report. The first one follows, followed by the second one, which, when you think about it, follows a perverse sort of logic, doesn’t it?

When Randy and I worked in the Hell Hole currently and previously known as El Cajon, California, every tech was issued and given responsibility of his own oil drain. These were 16 gallon capacity drains and that, folks, is a lot of oil changes. When the drains appeared to be reaching capacity you had to wheel this damned unstable contraption over to a holding tank to be drained. Now this was always a perilous adventure due to the fact that the casters were cheap junk and the oil liked to jump out at every bump and gully and splash on your shoes. There was also the chance meeting with a pebble that would jamb a caster causing the catastrophy known as the damn thing tipping over. This was undesireable. So as a preemptive precaution you always drained it at about the halfway mark. No biggie, right? Well, not for Pat. Pat’s solution was taking his FULL drain and exchanging it for a fellow worker’s empty one rather than risk having to actually WORK. One day soon after a dread “double dump” by Randy and I, we finally figured out how our drains were being filled to the rim after using a completely empty drain and doing an oil change on a single Sentra. We vowed revenge. As most of you reading this know, I generally go a bit overboard on my misc “revengings”, and this one was no exception.

Pat came back from lunch to see his immaculate oil drain exactly where he had left it… Little did he know that the slightest movement in the magnetic core of the universe would cause a spill the likes never seen before in the history of automotive repair. We had filled his drain the top. No, actually we went beyond that. Oil has a very high amount of surface tension. We used this to Pat’s disadvantage by doing a modification of the trick they show you in high school science, with the glass of water and paper clips to cause water to actually be a “dome” over the glass and not spilling due to surface tension.

And then, for the cherry on his sundae, we used a ladder to pile every single oil filter we could lay hands on into the “funnel” at the top of the drain. I swear to Gawd there must have been 200 filters carefully stacked and barely secured to the drain stand. I swear to Gawd it was actually creaking under the load. The concrete was showing stress as its capacity was being sorely tested. The paint actually lept off of the floor and was last seen heading north.

Now most folks would have at this point known they have been had and spent at least 5 seconds figuring out the fact there might be some peril in moving what amounted to a thermo-nuclear hand grenade that has had the pin pulled…

After his forever trademark “Gaaawwwd Damnit!!!”, he actually went to move it before disarming it.

Did I mention that every tech, detailer, parts guy, and even some of our better customers were informed and standing by to witness the carnage? Hell, I’ve seen less people gather to watch an Evil Knevil show and for the same reason: You don’t show up to see him make that jump over 9000 buses, you’re there to see every bone in his body pulverized and then cheer when it happens… You are all sick, deranged bastards and I am damned glad to call you my friends!!

Later that same day, after the EPA declared this the largest man made disaster since Madonna, Randy and I pretty much had stopped crying from laughing so hard. Were we caught? Oh, hell, EVERYBODY knew it was us!!! But since it was Pat, the Department of Justice issued Letters of Commendation and we were given Honorary Wrenches To The City, and a Yield sign over in Santee was named in our honor.

That incident was supposed to wake that idiot up to the fact that we were tired of him.

And since he did NOT seem to get the message, a further lesson was required.

Pat had a very nice Nissan Pickup. it was relatively new and PAID FOR!! He decided, in his infinite wisdom, to trade it STRAIGHT ACROSS for a primer grey piece ‘o crap Chevy P/U with a “three on the tree” column shifted maunal trans. This goes beyond mere dumb into the realm of pure imbicile. He traded a truck worth ~ 6K for a pile of junk worth $1500 when seen at night by a blind guy…

Anyway, he was pissing me and another tech off and saying he would “mop the floor” with us if we did not back off. This could not be tolerated. Because he insisted on parking his “truck” in his stall (violating all kinds of rules) we were unable to do anything for quite some time. However one day his wife (Nanook) took him to lunch and we had our chance to “Get Him!!!”

As mentioned above, Pat was and probably still is an idiot. So playing on this, we attempted something that would be found relatively easily by anyone with half a clue. We opened the hood on his beast and changed 2 spark plug wires around. Now the firing order of the Small Block Chevy has been 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 every since it was introduced in 1955. We did this in 1995. See where this is going? We made sure to make the spark plug wires look exactly like they should be where they were. This changed his truck from a smooth running V-8 to an extremely rough running T-6. Our lookout informed us he was on his way and we ran for cover, bumbling into each other and landing in a heap behind a car where we could see him. He was, (as was his habit) starting his weekend at 1pm on Friday.

Or so he thought.

He climbed in. Engaged the starter. Nuh nuh nuh nuh nunch!!! Bang, boom, crash went the engine as it struggled with 2 dead holes on the same bank. He shut it off and we thought “Well that was fun!” figuring he would fix what we had sabotaged.

Nope!!

He looked under the hood. Looked around. AND SHUT THE HOOD!!! He revved the poor engine several times trying to clear it and all he got was the poor thing shaking itself silly and a muted backfire out the tail pipe as the unburned fuel ignited in the muffler.

Now, since this was a ’73, there is basically very little smog control on this engine. He is also pumping unburned fuel out 2 cylinders, and the other 6 are working pretty hard to carry the load. All this = STINKY!!!

He had a habit of driving out of the shop, parking in the service drive (blocking traffic of course) taking his time going down to the time clock, punching out, adding his hours and then strolling back to his truck and finally leaving. This day was no different. Except unburned fuel + burned fuel + old chevy = stinky, sulfurous, eye watering… Well, it was making people ill, literally. To the point where my co-conspirator and I were getting ready to call it off to save the innocent civilians from the collateral damage being caused by our little war. It was a good thing we didn’t because the payoff was coming.

To drive a stick shift, normally you accelerate, ease off the gas, switch gears and continue. The engine runs rich (more fuel) as you accelerate and then goes very lean (less fuel) as you get out of the gas to prepare for shifting. A lean mixture by nature is extremely hot. See where I am going here?

Pat finally left the service drive to go home, still misfiring and running like crap. As he decelerated to make the turn out the driveway, several things caught our attention.

1. The extended idling in the drive had killed at least 14 people and had also filled his muffler with fuel.

2. As mentioned before, he decelerated as he approached the driveway.

3. The combination of #1 + #2 equaled a HUGE BACKFIRE and an accompanying gout of flame about 6 feet long out of his truck’s tailpipe. This caused the survivors on the service drive to hit the deck and crawl for cover and my cohorts and I to scream ourselves silly laughing.

Still unperturbed, Pat went home followed closely by the sound of his acceleration, deceleration and earth shattering KABOOMs as he disappeared into the distance.

Fast forward to the following Monday.

Everyone is laughing and shooting coffee out their noses at the retelling of the story for those who were not witness to the conflagration that happened Friday. Calm was slowly being restored, the National Guard had returned to their barracks and things were returning to what generally passed for normal at the three ring circus I worked at. Until…

Off in the distance: boom.

Seconds later: Boom

A bit later: BOOM!

My fellow conspirators and I looked at each other and voiced our common shock with 2 succinct words… “NO WAY!!!”

Yes, at that very moment we spied Pat heading toward the delearship in the predawn darkness closely followed by an ear shattering KABOOM!!! and blinding flash of light.

Randy, standing at my side muttered as he tried to uncross his eyes “Nobody is THAT stupid!!”

Unfortuantely, yes, Pat WAS that stupid. There was bumbling around and fighting for survival to clear the area for the “gas attack” that was a poor running ’73 Chevy p/u as it made it’s noisey arrival. It actually destroyed a plate glass window in the Body Shop with a well timed and executed backfire coming up the drive.

Later that same day, Pat was mercifully helped by the Mother Teresa of mechanics, Herb, who asked if he had bothered to check the firing order. This was after Pat spent about 5 hours looking at an ocilliscope, even though he could never figure out what he was seeing when he used it before. There was much threatening of ass kicking and a new muffler was soon installed because the old had gone from a flat oval shape to a cratered mass of baffles, broken welds and exhaust clamps that had made the ultimate sacrifice.

And even though Herb, bless his heart, had helped Pat on the road to automotive salvation, even he had a crack.

“Hey, Pat. Never saw a Nissan do that…”

To be continued…

Troy Work