BENZ DR.
Oh Dan is alive and well. We had been emailing one another about parts I need and the state of Snow White. He said he was coming to town this weekend and would drop by at some point. Showed up at my door today. I had sort of assumed he would call before he came, he sort of assumed I knew he was coming, so I was at my son’s music lesson when he rang me on my cell phone from the phone in my kitchen. We got this mis-communication sorted out in all of ten seconds, and I sent him downstairs in my house to find the guts of the shifter assembly in the laundry room. Told him I’d be home in an hour.
I rolled in the drive in the Sewing Machine exactly an hour later to find Dan in my garage with the shifter assembly already together. He’d had a pleasant gander at Snow White without my prying eyes by this time. I’d never met Dan by the way, but I liked him immediately. He was much as I pictured him.
I cranked up all the space heaters on full, as though not unpleasantly cold this isn’t exactly Florida where I live. We got to work.
The first order of business was to hook up the transmission shifter. This took about ten minutes, mainly because every time I climbed under the car I didn’t have the right wrench/screwdriver/whatever for the task. I should have taken all the tools; but then again, I should have been born a mechanic.
Got this done and then cranked Snow White to life. She was a tad crabby and cantankerous, farted to life and settled into her loopy idle.
“Runs pretty good for a five cylinder car,” Dan said drolly. “Shut her down. I will fix.”
And thus began what I can only describe as a five hour long performance of mechanical ballet.
Now I am what I will call, without any condescension, a skilled garage mechanic. My peers think me a wizard, but that is only because they don’t know one end of a spark plug from the other. I am skilled, and eventually I will figure out just about anything. But in the presence of a real mechanic I will simply watch in awe.
Today I watched in awe as Dan, Benz Dr. to you all, worked his magic on the lovely Snow White.
He was not happy first with the throttle linkage, so he ripped it off the car, stuck it in my vice, and wished he’d brought an 8-mm wrench. Well, I had one, and dug it out for him. He fiddled and adjusted, we cranked Snow White to life, and she ran lousy.
“Wish I had an Ohm meter,” lamented Dan, frowning mightily at my spark plug wires. So I went and got him mine. They were fine.
“Must be this!” wailed Dan. It wasn’t. “How about that?” It wasn’t. He cranked the injection pump adjuster valve twenty turns, screwed the idle adjuster up to about two grand, and Snow White fired happily to life. On five, and then without warning, on all six cylinders.
“Well, except for the fact all the settings are retarded, we’re getting somewhere,” said Dan. He winked at me and stared at my motor.
Reaching down he touched some obscure hose. Felt the rad. Grinned to beat the band.
“I’ve got it! This hose/valve/system is plugged. I must fix at once!”
I handed him every tool in my arsenal to no avail.
“If only I had an oxygen/acetylene torch this would be a piece of cake,” Dan lamented
Luckily I have one. I just had to go and get the hoses, which were where we weren’t.
Armed with heat and enough tools to build the CN Tower, the part was off in two minutes.
“Too bad we don’t have any Silicone Blue sealant.”
I had some of course.
We had to pause for dinner, simple fare but lots of it. Dan went wild for the chocolate sauce on his ice cream for dessert.
Back to the garage, where parts were flying left right and centre. Finally found what Dan was looking for, a blockage in the coolant system around the intake manifold. On the right front side of the car where all the other blockages were. Dug out the worst of this stuff with a screwdriver then flushed it all in the laundry tub downstairs.
“Now she will run like she’s supposed to,” Dan assured me.
Back to the garage, wrenches flying, Dan calling out for this, that and the other thing, which of course I have.
Sparked up the lovely Snow White and she fired instantly to life.
“That’s no bloody good,” announced Dan. “Too rich.”
Fiddle.
“Too lean.”
Fiddle. Fiddle. Fiddle.
“Put her in gear and stomp on the brakes.”
Some serious grinding noises from the back.
“Have you got any lug nuts?”
Is the Pope Catholic?
“Stomp on the brakes. Put her in gear.”
The tach never moves.
“I love it!” Dan announces. It is almost 10 PM. A fine white mist of exhaust is filling the night behind the open garage door. Dan steps into it and takes a mighty sniff.
“Ah, the smell of a Pagoda that is running right. It is unmistakable when you know what to smell.”
I step into the mist and give it a sniff. It smells like a GM car with a bad catalytic converter.
“That’s how it’s supposed to smell?” I ask Dan.
“Trust me,” is all he says.
And I do.
Up on her blocks we admire the lovely Snow White, purring away like a kitten. She never hesitates, never stumbles. This is going to be one fun day in the spring.
But I have to ask the question.
“So what do you think Dan? I mean, you know way more about these cars than I do. I’ve never owned a Mercedes before. What do you think of Snow White?”
“You want me to be honest?”
“Of course.”
“I thought when I read your posts that you were somewhat knowledgeable about what you were doing. I admired your love of your car, but figured that you like almost all my clients overstated the importance of their car simply because they owned it. I had a pretty good look around before you even got home.”
“And?”
“And Pagoda’s rust here. They rust there. I checked. I was sort of surprised to find that you were right. I thought, if this thing runs half as good as the frame, then this is one seriously lovely mouse nest.”
We had a laugh at that. 5 hours of artistry later, Snow White ran as she is supposed to run.
I will meet Dan again I’m sure. The food here is good, and the company is better. He will always be welcome in my house.
His love of these cars is obvious. His skill is obvious. I made a new friend today.
