You might think every morning I emerge from the elevator at Autopian Towers like Miranda Priestly arriving at the Runway magazine offices. I haughtily remove my sunglasses and cast a dismissive eye over the unwashed masses (underpaid interns) before me as I swish into my corner office, where the interns have made me a fresh espresso and spread out a line of expensive design magazines on my desk for me to sniff at. And you’d be right. That’s exactly what it’s like.
But never let it be said I am not homo populi. Last week, I fitted a new set of faucets to my bathroom sink. Ok, one exploded a few days later nearly causing a flood, but the point is I have known one end of a spanner from the other. Almost 30 years ago when I started driving, I had a succession of shitbox rear-wheel drive Euro Fords. To a car, they were reasonably shagged, so I was no stranger to curbside wrenching. I once had to replace a starter motor on my Capri in the morning before heading off for my late shift as a manager at McDonald’s in the afternoon.
I haven’t really had cause to do anything requiring me to get my hands dirty for years, because I’ve owned proper cars that haven’t needed constant attention, and I’m a great believer in the dignity of other people’s labor. Also, garage space is a precious commodity on my bumptious little island so a project car has been out of the question. Last year I pulled half the Range Rover’s interior out to fit an Apple CarPlay adapter, but I’ll have to check with David as to whether that counts as wrenching or not.
But now, I’m risking my pristine black nail polish for you, because it’s what you deserve. We’re crossing the streams. Your fancy British designer is getting his hands properly dirty by wrenching on his Ferrari.
I should explain. I am not a total idiot. With a Ferrari, provenance is everything. In the unlikely event were I ever to sell it, the buyer will want to see a nice telephone directory stack of receipts for reassuringly expensive work carried out by someone who knows what the fuck they are doing, not some noodle-fingered perfume wearer like me.
I do have a Ferrari specialist reasonably local to me; I borrowed them last year to trace a mystery coolant leak and to fix the fuel gauge. That necessitated dropping the tank out and I was without the car for seven weeks right at the start of spring when I wanted to be driving it, which boiled my piss no end. So for something minor that I could do myself, I didn’t want to send it to them again.
There’s nothing mystical about Ferraris. They’re not made from unicorn bones and pixie glue, and they don’t require disassembly in a hermetically sealed clean room by surgeons in yellow scrubs. They come apart with a spanner from a tool bag full of rusty water like just any other car. The main problem is parts cost and availability. What is available can be expensive, but with the help of the forums, you can be a bit clever.
I had no choice last year but to choke down the cost of a new set of ignition leads to cure a misfire at £300 ($370), but I managed to get the digital clock (no longer available, unsurprisingly) and the original Pioneer stereo fixed cheaply by sending them off to a friendly electronics firm. I thought the central locking had packed up at one point and it turns out the solenoids are a commodity part shared with some Fords. That actually turned out to be the lock mechanism itself which I replaced with a second-hand unit for £65 ($80). The Mondial is from 1983 so it’s pretty analog; last year I was chatting to a guy with a 360 Modena who had just had to replace two engine ECUs at £2500 ($3,000). Each.
Ferraris don’t like sitting idle for too long; they need to be warmed up and used. I normally try to get mine out every two weeks or so, even if it’s just for running errands. After a trip to Wales for the holidays the car sat in its storage for about a month, longer than I usually like to leave it. I always crouch underneath to see if any vital fluids have pissed onto the floor, and this last time there was a large wet spot in front of the driver’s side rear wheel. A dab of a finger and a lick confirmed the sweet, sweet taste of coolant.
A check of the header tank confirmed what the red warning light said – it was low.
The cooling system is pretty bog standard. The radiator is in the nose (which is why it has those horizontal strakes on the front), then the top and bottom hose run down the spine of the car to the engine, where the top hose turns 90 degrees and runs up to the top of the block on the driver’s side (passenger side for you colonials.) The bottom hose does the same in the opposite direction, and then oddly joins the block at the top underneath the injection plenum.
From underneath I could see coolant dribbling down the aluminum panel inside the fender, but I couldn’t see a conclusive drip. The leak last year turned out to be the hose from the thermostat into the metal sleeve so I could rule that out. I knew my problem would be further in the bowels of the engine bay. I followed the metal sleeve through its bend to where it met the next rubber section and bingo. Although tight there was a deep ring of coolant at the join. Obviously, when hot expansion was causing coolant to escape here and run down the length of the hose and everywhere else it wasn’t supposed to.
The problem was going to be one of access. A mid-engined Ferrari is not like some old American boat where there’s enough room for you and your buddies to sit in the engine bay debating the next move over a cold beer. It’s tight in there, and even though I’m a tall skinny supermodel reaching in over the trunk was a stretch. It was only two hose clamps that needed loosening, but they were going to be an absolute swine to get to.
The first thing to remove was the air filter cover and intake ducting. Four big screws for the cover and two really annoying twisty strap clip thingies for the rubber intake pipe saw them out of the way. Luckily the top hose clamp was facing toward the block, but there wasn’t room to get a screwdriver on it. I prayed to the tool gods that in the random collection of rarely opened boxes I had the correct combination of 7mm socket, adapter and ratchet. So equipped, I managed to get the top clamp loose.
The bottom hose clamp was facing the other way towards the inner fender. Because of course it was. No hope of getting a ratchet or screwdriver on there.
I figured life would be easier if I could get all the remaining intake ducting out of the way. At least that way I’d be able to see what I was dealing with. One bolt held it to the edge of the engine bay, but at the bottom, it was attached to the bodywork. Five screws and some swearing later, and I managed to wriggle the strakes free of the fender. Now I could see the base of the ducting was held in place with another five screws. Removing these released the ducting, but there was no way I would be able to remove it completely because at the top it wouldn’t wiggle past the air conditioning pump and hoses. Bugger.
But I now had a nice hole in the bodywork. By manipulating the ducting rearwards as far as it would go, I was able to reveal the bottom hose clamp in all its glory. Sticking my hand in I got the ratchet on and turn it with my fingertips, a couple of clicks at a time. I imagine this is similar to how a farmer feels when they’re up to their armpit in cow.
Eventually, the clamp was loose enough for me to grab the hose and attempt to pull it free. And attempt again. The problem was I could only barely grasp it in one hand, and I had to yank it upwards at full stretch completely against the direction my arm wanted to work. Trying to pull from the top was no easier as I had to lean into the engine bay at an awkward angle. How could a leaky hose be so tight? I suppose 40 years of pampered existence is enough to render anything stubborn. I loosened the top hose where it met the thermostat, thinking maybe I could yank off the whole thing, and finally I had the prize free in my hands. Turns out the metal sleeves have a flange for better sealing, and the clamps need to be fully backed off to give enough clearance.
Now a smarter, or rather more experienced wrencher than me would have the replacement parts in hand ready to go. What actually happened is I was too smart for my own fucking good.
Glancing at the Superformance page for replacement hoses, well, you tell me which one I need. Rather than doing what a normal person would do which is call them, I stupidly thought I could just get a length of generic coolant hose from a local supplier, rather than wait a week for the proper part to be delivered. Old hose in hand, I went to a place in Coventry that supplies commodity odds and ends for classic cars, got them to cut me a length to measure, purchased new hose clamps (along with super-sized ones to replace the stupid split pin band things that held the rubber part of the intake ducting in place) and returned home to fit it.
Expecting another titanic struggle to wrestle a new firm hose into place, I was surprised to find it fell onto the aluminum sleeve. The diameter was much too big and there was no way it would tighten down enough to be leakproof. Did I cave and call Superformance to order the correct hose? Of course not. I proceeded to lose an afternoon driving around all the local car parts places hoping one of them would be able to find something that would fit. Trouble is these days, if the kid behind the counter can’t look something up on a computer you’re fucked.
I wasn’t channeling my inner David and trying to be cheap – it was more a matter of convenience. Every day the Ferrari was immobile was a day and night it was parked on the street outside my house. I live in a pretty decent area, but still, it doesn’t pay to advertise too much. Defeated, I did what I should have done in the first place and ordered the proper hose – and it arrived the next day for £21.42 ($26.19) delivered. Fuck my life.
The following day dawned grey and rainy, but I had no choice but to grin and bear it and get the new hose on. But because life is never quite that easy, overnight the battery died.
This isn’t entirely unsurprising given how often I use the car but is surprising considering the battery is only a year old. The hood and trunk are both electrically released, so there’s a Hellraiser puzzle box sequence of manual releases for when there’s no power. The battery itself is under the front hood, buried deep behind the headlight, where it’s a nightmare to get the cables on properly.
The new hose went on a little too easily, although not as tight as I would have expected. Do hoses shrink once they’ve got a few heat cycles through them? I decided to fit both new hose clamps facing the block, so if it did leak in the future I wouldn’t have to remove the ducting and the strakes from the bodywork again to tighten it up.
Knowing what I was doing, it went back together much quicker than it came apart, and I didn’t have any screws left over. I topped up the coolant and started it up, running it first without the cap on to give the air a chance to escape from the header tank.
The Mondial has two coolant circuit bleed nipples – one on the thermostat near where the top hose attaches to the block and one on the top of the radiator. Not wanting to risk driving it to warm it up I left it ticking over until the fans kicked in, and squeezed all the hoses checking for heat and firmness before opening up the bleed nipples to expel any air. The one on the radiator is a brass knob and it needs loosening off a long way. I undid it too far, dropped it into the bowels of the car and hot coolant immediately began jetting out of the top of the radiator. Luckily I had gloves on; I jabbed my thumb into the scalding hot stream covering the hole, while with my free left hand attempted to pick up the brass knob with two fingertips, before gingerly screwing back in. At least I knew the system was bled properly.
I was hoping to have done a proper test drive by the time I wrote this. Unfortunately, it’s still pissing with rain here and the roads are wet, so if it is leaking I wouldn’t be able to see a telltale puddle in the road. But it doesn’t look like it’s leaking, so I’ll take that for now.
I have a nice round blister on my thumb, several cuts on my hands and a metric fucktonne of dirt under my nails. I also have several aches from stretching and contorting myself at unnatural angles. So what have I learned from my first proper wrenching adventure in years, apart from the fact I’m not as bendy as I used to be?
Working on your own car, no matter how small the job is, takes away some of its mystery and helps you to understand your car better and how and why it works the way it does. Whether it’s a Ferrari or a Ford, if anything goes wrong in the future, you’re much better equipped to understand the nature of the problem, even if you can’t fix it yourself.
And if you want to try and repair it, just make sure you buy the right fucking parts first.
This car is in remarkably good shape for what it is. It’s cool to see that you’re willing to get your hands dirty to continue enjoying it. I’m also surprised that you didn’t pick one with a black paintjob.
It’s in really good shape – totally original and I’m the second owner. I would have preferred black, but I wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice. And they don’t call it resale red for nothing.
I had my eye on a black on black 348 convertible, but it was sadly over budget.
Ah, I chuckled at the “I didn’t have any screws left over”. I too feel somewhat accomplished when that has been settled.
As for getting the parts ahead of time, woe be those of use who have a vehicle with parts and assemblies that cross years. My ’91 F350 was made in December, and some stuff is from the ’92 model, some from the ’91 model. So, I still basically have to remove the part to figure out which year it comes from.
And even worse is a custom vehicle. It took years for me to figure out that the vacuum assist brake cylinder assembly in my ’64 F100 crewcab was from a Buick Electra as I wanted to upgrade to a dual cylinder for safety reasons. There is still a gizmo in there between the Buick parts and the firewall that pushes the brakes stuff at an angle away from the header to reduce heat and provide clearance for spark plugs. I have asked at car shows and no one has been able to identify the source.
I’m pretty sure Renaults in the seventies and eighties were built from whatever parts they had left lying around the factory. Even if you specify the exact model and year, it’s still a total dice roll whether you’ve got the right parts or not.
My local place used to say to me “a Renault? Sorry we’re closed” before laughing their heads off in my face.
Reminiscent of the anecdote about how some people ordering parts for their 1990 and 1994 F150s would run into the occasional problem because “Ninety Ford F150” and “Ninety-four F150” sounded so similar and of course they would get parts for the wrong year (there was a major redesign in between those years so many parts were not interchangeable.)
Thanks again Adrian, a truly educational and enlightening story
Off to get proper hose clamps, especially the big ones for my air intake hoses, glad to know I’m not alone in despising some factory original clamps, those spring ones that you need pliers for suck too,and not in a good way.
I must commend you on sharing the intimacy of the experience.
That actually seems pretty normal to work on despite the mystique of being a Ferrari.
Working on your own car makes you appreciate the times you trust someone to work on it for you. Often for me it comes down the value of blood and knuckles versus available green, coordinating financial fluidity and predicting automotive expenditures is still something I’m working on, not entirely successfully.
You know Adrian upon inspection of your picture I at least dont see you up there with the elites. Maybe the Autopian Scout because you look like the Native American on Ghost. Hey great show. But what you learn about working on a Ferrari is dont buy a Ferrari. You need receipts or car is losing value.
Absolutely. This was a minor repair that would take two minutes on a normal car instead of the two days it took here, but anything more involved yes I would get it done by a professional.
Mondials are such good value especially considering the classic car market at the moment it’s going to be pretty hard to lose money though.
It is extremely on-brand that the house designer for the Autopian drives an old slightly rusty Ferrari.
Famously the most disparaged Ferrari among Ferrari aficionados as well.
Well, at least it isn’t a Fiero Kit Ferrari with prancing horse stickers purchased on Ebay stuck all over it.
I’m not in the owners club partly for that reason, and partly because I suspect it’s full of tedious wankers. Also I’m not one for clubs and rules and all that shit. I will say, their loss.
I’ve not seen another Mondial out and about all last year, and it always gets loads of attention. The chap I was talking to with the Modena was at Caffeine and Machine (a wanky Instagram automotive lifestyle pub in Banbury). I was parked next to his 360 and everyone was taking pictures of the Mondial. At Redwood last year there was three Testarossas, and only one Mondial. Mine.
Ha! It’s in really good condition. One owner, just over 45k miles, totally original (it still has the dealer license plates and stickers in the windows). The specialist I use said it was one of the nicest they’ve seen.
Adrian,
The fuel distributor looked familiar, so I checked, and it is indeed cis-K. They tell you it’s a magic box and your twig&berries will fade into the even horizon if you even think about putting a wrench on it, but you can disassemble & clean that puppy to get back some of the horses that have fled over 40 years. Get a Robert Bosch manual, check online, and just do it. I did multiple ones back in the Usenet days-and I’m pretty much an idiot, so anyone can do it.
Mine only had 1/2 the outputs, and the warnings were dire. Still, I had no issues with the 5 or so I rejuvenated. Made good money/bartered rare parts.
Lovely car and a ripping yarn- what what?! (twists mustaches vigorously)
I got to help my son replace the starter on his wife’s Honda CRV a couple days ago. Surprisingly, that motor replacement is a two-person job – one underneath the car to hold the awkwardly located motor and one on the side to loosen and tighten the mounting bolts. I leveraged my senior position to be the guy on the side 🙂 I really enjoy working on cars from time to time, but I’m not enjoying the smashed nail (that I’ll probably lose) that resulted from a mounting bolt letting loose unexpectedly. Yeah, maybe being the guy underneath would have been the better choice. Oh well, it was great quality father/son time and that’s what’s important.
My relationship with my step-father is too traumatic to go into here, but some of the only quality time we had was working on the family shit boxes (he was a cheap bastard and we were poor) together.
“the interns have made me a fresh espresso and spread out a line of
expensive design magazines on my desk
for me to sniff at”
They had us in the fist half, not gonna l… wait what is that? Oh. OH. Never mind *wink wink*
‘….up to the shoulder in a cow.’
Watched All Creatures Great and Small as a lad, did we?
Or the second season of Clarkson’s Farm. Poor Pepper.
Yes, but I assumed that was what they taught you on day two of farmers school.
Good tools for old rubber hoses is a set of variously angled picks, especially one that includes some picks where the point faces the handle. Invaluable when I used to work on saltwater boats. It can also help to spray some penetrant in once you’ve gotten the pick underneath, which helps to work it around the hose and, even if you can’t break the seal all around, it can help loosen the hose if you can get a gorilla grip on it and twist. Get the ones with the metal molded into the handle and I prefer the square handles since they help to keep track of how the pick is oriented if you’re working somewhat blind (like trying to get under a hose that faces away from you, under some other parts you can’t or will not remove, in a dark alley inhabited by ill-tempered cryptids).
This is good advice.
If I may add to it, get a set of good picks. Cheap picks are more likely to break under strain, and you don’t want the pick tip to end up somewhere you don’t want it – like in the cooling system. (There’s a “just the tip” joke in there somewhere.)
I was working on an old motorcycle last year and needed to replace an external oil seal. The super-excellent, designed-for-the-task seal puller would not fit into the environs so I used a hook pick for removal. The Harbor Freight pick did not break, thank the universe, but I realized later that if it had the fragment would have gone into the crankcase and I would have been proper[ly] hosed.
This is especially important when pulling hoses off plastics!
I was taught years ago to use the pick method-and it’s very, very important when working on an older car where the part may be NLA or stupid expensive.
I once broke a one-year-only vacuum switch which ended up junking the car. A pick, penetrant, an VERY gentle twisting with a light grip on pliers has served me very well aside from that incident
(Remembering the early days when trepidation about wrenching was high)
If new to a repair and worried about screwing it up, seriously consider hitting your local pick&save and trying it there first. Never done a water pump? Go try it on an already junked car to learn just how fragile those 14 odd bolts can be.
Level 4 cut-gloves are your friends
Thanks for the reminder and tips one and all, Adrian especially with his tool bag !
I have to do a thermostat/heater hose plasticy bit vw repair tomorrow. And this really helps me be in the right space to do it.
“To a car, they were reasonably shagged,”
My exposure to British slang is primarily limited to what I’ve picked up from Top Gear and Doctor Who, so forgive my ignorance… does this mean that in your car’s opinion, they had sex adequately?
I’m thinking in this case it translates to “fairly F’d”
Yeah, I figured that out about 2 seconds after I hit “post”. My kingdom for an edit button!
The solution for figuring out the right Ferrari part is easy; look it up on Ricambi/Scuderiaparts to find the correct part number. They have great parts diagrams, although Ricambi now makes you sign in to access them. once you figure out what part you need…. THEN you scoot over to Superperformance to order the part.
Funny how these things can be similar across the car spectrum. I do the same thing looking for parts for my Renault 4. There’s this site that has all the info like parts numbers, VIN compatibly, yearly variations, all neatly arranged and very much idiot-proof… but parts are extraordinarily expensive there, so I just use it as a database to distinguish parts in other online store, or tell my local parts shop exactly what to look for.
The thought of somebody owning a 4L on purpose in 2023 boggles the mind.
You need to track down the late Russell Bulgin piece on the Renault 4. An amazing ode by the greatest motoring writer who ever lived. It’s possibly archived on the Car magazine website.
Yes!
Russell Bulgin is always a great read. Highly recommended for a leisurely read after brunch. Particularly enjoyable if you’re semi-intoxicated. I got my old boss to spurt Bloody Mary out his nose on the veranda of a fancy hotel years back by handing him a reprinted article years back. A moment I cherish
Last year I paid £300 for the book of his work that was published after his death, after lending my original copy to someone years ago. I regret nothing.
To be fair when I rang Superformance they were great – both myself and the guy on the phone had the parts diagram open and he found it straightaway.
Wow your really turned the limey from blimey up to 11 there old mate, sure as the zombie queens second son is a pedo.
The thought of Adrian Clarke working at McDonalds amuses me oh, so much…
I, too have tried to make do and get something to fit on a car “while I wait for the right part to come in/because it costs 40% less.” It almost never works.
Would it have been possible to cut the hose out so that you didn’t have to go in from the side? Or would that have been “trying to work smarter and end up working harder” things (with which I am all…too…familiar)?
I did six years at McDonald’s, initially part time while I failed at engineering college, then full time. Ended up assistant store manager. Seriously some of the most fun I’ve ever had at work. If you’ve never worked a late shift at an inner city fast food restaurant you haven’t lived.
I do not miss my old job washing dishes at a restaurant. Closing out at night always sucked.
I had a similar experience, worked at our local one in town for four years while at sixth form and college, before Wetherspoons came to town and a group of us decamped there.
I also worked up to asst store manager, used to love doing closes (late shifts) then head straight out into town after.
As a 16-20 year old, it was a ducking great place to work, made lifetime friends, brought me out of my shell (I gained the nickname Chucky that still follows me around after one unfortunate event ) and met a whole variety of people, had the best laughs and learnt all kinds of life skills.
McDonald’s management training was so good, at one point in the early to mid-nineties you could leave and walk into any retail management position on the high street.
Fingers crossed that there are no leaks, and welcome back to the wrenching club. 🙂
Top tip: you’ll generally get better results with a T-bolt type of hose clamp. The ones that you used are serviceable (most of the time) but really basic (all of the time), and the wormgear can easily strip/deform the slots in the band. The T-bolt type has a solid band and a more robust closure mechanism. They cost a bit more but IMO are completely worth every penny.
Speaking of cost, the price of the correct part + overnight delivery doesn’t seem bad at all.
I thought so too. Probably not directly from Italy.
Wait: other side of pond: maybe from Italy
Superformance is in north London. There’s also a specialist exotic car breaker in the UK where I got the lock from. I’ve not had any problems getting parts. Yet.
Adrian wrenching = AWESOME
Adrian Wrenching, sounds like a new Autopian feature. He could have all his tools powder coated in black…
They would be nice to look at sitting idle in the tool chest drawer.
Stanley sell a set of black tools. I had a set years back when I worked on mate’s cars at mum’s farm, that way I knew they were my tools as chrome sockets and spanners all look the same after a late-night swapping engines in an XR6
So was there period-appropriate music going on while cursing, er, wrenching? Even though the Mondail is an ’83 in ’84 there was a lot of good stuff. Perhaps The Cult’s Dreamtime? Hyena? It was a year earlier, but the Damned’s Strawberries?
Yeah yeah yeah, the Ferrari’s a pain to work on but you didn’t go full Tracy and get some obscure disease while (whilst?) doing the stuff so I need more details.
I’m envisioning Joy Division/New Order.
Definitely Joy Division.
“Then love. Love will tear us apart again.”
Sisters of Mercy is what I was thinking. Titles such as “Temple of Love”, “Adrenochrome”, “The Body Electric”, among their other early works.
Sadly no, I was working on the street. I need some sort of battered portable stereo covered in mystery garage fluids so the neighbours can enjoy First and Last and Always.
For some bizarre reason, this makes me want a Mondial even more.
They’re great cars with a bad rap, which they really don’t deserve.
so what you are saying is you had to crawl into the engine by to actually work on the car much like the Americans you say have it easy. HMM, I would say you need an 83 F-Body with a manual trans and crossfire injection to work on for comparison, then tell us who has it easier. I think perhaps the Heater hoses are easier on the F-Body, but much of the other stuff is buried under a rats nest of hoses and sensor wires in an engine bay that seems to be molded around the engine.
You’re not wrong. I did quite a bit of work on the engine in my Dad’s Z-28 after he declared that he was too old to learn about this fuel injection bullshit and told me that it was my job to learn how EFI and such works. That thing was a packaging nightmare. First you wrestle a greasy octopus made of rubber hoses. And it’s from Detroit so it’s not in great shape and has a bad attitude. It just gets worse from there. And his had the 700r4. Are the manuals even worse?
I have worked on an F Body! My best friend had one years ago, ‘82 I think. It was carbs and a three speed auto, so the nest of snakes wasn’t too bad.
“A mid-engined Ferrari is not like some old American boat where there’s enough room for you and your buddies to sit in the engine bay debating the next move over a cold beer.”
I take exception to such generalization. Sometimes my buddies and I sit in the engine bay of my Oldsmobile debate the next move over a Cabernet.
And I’d show you the positioning of my coolant hoses but at this point you’d probably just want to slap me.
Should have gone I got my coolany hoses right here for you Adrian
Oldsmobiles? Cabernet? Lah-dee-fucking-dah your majesty.
“underpaid interns”
“What’s all this nonsense about paying interns?”
-Fancy Kristen
This is a much more accurate description of my typical wrenching than anything on YouTube or DT’s epic journeys into a hell of rust: a straightforward job complicated by the manufacturer’s strange decisions and a touch of understandable hubris, eventually completed with minor injury.
I think the inaccessibility is just the nature of a mid-engined car.
I will give a shoutout to the MR2 Spyder in this regard, it’s actually pretty accessible for most things.
*cough cough* Timing Belt *cough cough cough*
Except for the infamous “hose from hell”
Not true! My mid-engined exotic European targa-topped two-seater provides excellent access to its entire powertrain, such as it is:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52768949478_5c5f7616f3_c.jpg
My father bought a 1986 MR2 in 1989 for my mother. He had always changed the oil in our family vehicles, but decided $19.95 was a small price to pay not to deal with the confines of the Toyota engine compartment.
Cracking tale, as you’d say (if you were 30 years older and this were the 1960s I guess)!
Your final observation is exactly what got me into car repair in the first place – the idea that increasing one’s knowledge of one’s object of affection makes the experience all the more complete and meaningful. Works with girls too I’ve found.
I do feel your pain in a small way – I changed the oil on my new/old 911 the other month, and you have to unbolt a not insignificant amount of underbody paneling and HVAC piping to even access one of the drain plugs. And even the sainted Bentley Manual had some things wrong (?!), but at that point, I was closer to the other shore vs turning back.
“I have a nice round blister on my thumb, several cuts on my hands and a metric fucktonne of dirt under my nails. I also have several aches from stretching and contorting myself at unnatural angles.”
Glad to know that busted knuckles and mysterious cuts from nowhere are universal, whether you’re working on a Ferrari like Adrian, or you’re just trying to get the temperature knob reattached to your ZX2’s dash kit like me.
You own a ZX2?
Huge fan here…I love that they’re the final, shadow, iteration of the EXP and Ford’s last “we’re here for fun” sport coupe entry.
We just started shopping for my step-son’s first car. I just looked at a white Escort ZX2 with 345,000 miles on it! It was quite rough and leaking fluids from multiple places… but it started up after a jump. Part of me wanted to ‘save’ it just to see if it could be pushed to the half a million mark.
Mine is a silver ’03 with ~180k on the odometer. I bought it from my next door neighbor for $400 and it is my winter commuter. It is a great little car, even if the HVAC temperature control cable is 3″ shorter than you’d like it to be.
…Seriously Ford, why did you make it so short?
“…Seriously Ford, why did you make it so short?”
Ha-ha! I had an -89 SHO with a stereo wiring harness that was so short, by clipping it to the wall at the factory, it stretched the wires out of the plug. The stereo would get quiet when I went over the wrong bump, and would return if I hit the ‘correct’ bump. I’m not sure what 2″ of wiring saved Ford on their cars.
This must have been a Ford “feature” they applied to all vehicles. There was an issue with some mid-late 90’s explorers where the fuse box harness was so short/tight that it would pull wiring out of the fuse box or break them entirely.
Love how Ford would always put less than zero thought in to “what if someone needs to replace that part” and the work associated with it.
345,000 miles? JFC there’s Apollo capsules with less.
I find if I haven’t come out bleeding or burned after working on a car, I probably haven’t accomplished anything of note.
Hail Venturi, god of auto maintenance!
may he be pleased by this blood sacrifice.
Or blood suddenly appearing on stuff. “Wait, is that blood?! Dammit, where the hell did I cut myself this time? I don’t have time for this bullshit, where’s the electrical tape and a paper towel. Stupid body. Intelligent design, my ass! I swear I could build something better out of the broken spare parts in this garage!”
“I AIN’T got time to bleed” ????