Category: default || By jt3y

First, another Tube City Almanac speedtrap warning: Dravosburg public works crews were out this week repainting the VASCAR lines on Richland Avenue (aka "Dravosburg Hill"). Get the lead out of your feet. You have been warned.

Now, onto weightier matters.

I am of the firm opinion that the bright people in Detroit, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Coventry and Seoul who design cars ought to be forced to service them. Preferably in their own driveways, using tools from Sears --- or better yet, Chinese tools from the flea market.

No engineer who was forced to change a set of spark plugs that were buried under a hot exhaust manifold, or replace an oil filter that can't be removed without disconnecting the starter, would ever design another vehicle with those problems again.

Nor would they force the motoring public to use the lousy jacks that are supplied with the spare tires in most cars.

I was thinking about this last night as I lay alongside the sleek, gray Mercury, holding my bloodied knuckles and muttering dark imprecations in the general direction of Dearborn, Mich., home of the Ford Motor Company.

In retrospect, some of the things I said were foolish. I don't even know Bill Ford's mother.

Anyway, the sleek, gray Mercury is due for its annual state safety and emissions inspection --- or as we like to call it, Uncle Ed's Revenue Enhancement Plan --- at the end of this month, and my mechanic has promised to take it on Thursday.

The thought occurred to me yesterday that I'm not sure if it's going pass the safety inspection; I've had the car for about nine months and have never replaced the brakes. (My previous sleek Mercury went through brake pads like Marlon Brando went through pizzas.)

Well, I figured, I can always pull the wheels and look at the brake pads. Since it was getting dark by the time I got home, I decided I wouldn't waste time changing clothes. I was just pulling a wheel; I wouldn't get that dirty. And since FoMoCo thoughtfully provided a jack in the trunk, why bother dragging out my hydraulic floor jack? Besides, this would give me a chance to make sure the spare tire jack worked! And it would save more time!

There are at least three serious errors in my logic, as stated in the above paragraph, as we'll soon see.

I pulled off my tie, chocked the front wheel, opened the trunk, retrieved the jack and the tire iron (or as we say in the Mon Valley, "tahr arn"), and popped the hubcap off of the right rear wheel.

Instantly I was covered in filth.

Well, too late now. I broke the lug nuts loose, placed the jack under the car frame, and began cranking it up.

And cranking it up.

And cranking it up.

And cranking it up.

My previous Mercury came with a bumper jack, possibly the worst thing Detroit ever foisted upon the unsuspected masses besides the Chevrolet Vega and Kid Rock. I have no idea how many people were killed or maimed by bumper jacks when their cars fell off of those wobbly contraptions, nor do I know how many cars came crashing down onto their undercarriages during routine tire changes. OSHA records show six fatalities and one amputation caused by bumper jacks, though their statistics only show people hurt or killed on the job. Doubtless there were many more.

I used the bumper jack on the old Mercury only once before saying "never again" and buying a cheap bottle jack for the trunk. (I also bought a cheap bottle for the driver, haw haw haw.)

The present Mercury comes with a scissors jack. And while using the bumper jack was like playing Russian roulette with bullets in five chambers, at least it did one thing: It lifted the damned car off the ground. (Usually, the car then fell on your foot, but you can't have everything.)

Apparently, in their haste to invent something less dangerous than a bumper jack, engineers designed a jack that works incrementally slowly. Maddeningly so. Cranking the little swivel on the jack 3,120 times, for instance, lifts the car about 1/100th of an inch.

Which wouldn't be so bad if the jack handle stayed in the little swivel while you were cranking. Instead, the swivel is almost --- but not quite --- deep enough to clamp onto the jack handle, so that as you furiously crank, the swivel presents enough resistance to allow you to bear down with all your might ....

... and then the jack handle slips out of the swivel, tossing you off balance, so that you fall onto the jack handle and gouge a dime-sized chunk of skin off of your finger.

A smarter man would have done this once and said, "Well, this piece of junk doesn't work, it's time to get the floor jack." But by gum, I was hell-bent to show this scissors jack who was boss. They haven't yet invented a car repair tool smarter than me (though they're awful close).

Two dollars' worth of skin gouges and 10 minutes later, the car's right-rear wheel was off of the ground. I had sweated through a nice pinstripe Oxford shirt, turned its rolled-up cuffs into a filthy mess, and let loose a stream of profanity that knocked bluebirds from their nests two blocks away and woke babies from their cribs.

Never let it be said that I don't, eventually, learn my lessons: After lowering the rear of the car, I used the floor jack to lift the left front wheel off the ground.

"And what of the brakes?" I hear you ask. Ah, yes. That was the point of this whole miserable exercise.

Um, I don't know. I looked at them, and I'm firmly not sure if they'll pass. The back brake pads looked OK, but the front ones were marginal. And since I won't have time to do a front brake job before Thursday, I'm at the repair shop's mercy.

So, basically, pulling the wheels was a waste of time, an exercise in futility, of railing against the forces of nature and man and accomplishing very little in the process, besides aggravating myself and making a lot of noise.

Somewhere in there is a metaphor for my life, I fear.

Postscript: Since the Mercury is going in for inspection, it was also time to renew the registration. I decided to do it online. Not only was it remarkably easy, it was quick: I filed the forms electronically on Thursday, and the new owner's card and validation sticker arrived Monday. Finally, a government service I like! Visit www.dmv.state.pa.us and click on the menu for "Online Vehicle Services."