Master Mechanic......
I received a call today from friend Jim Edwards at Chaparral Racing saying that they were stumped with a compression problem on one of their Pennzoil Indy cars and would I have a look. So out I went. First I had them strip the body covers and pull the engine. Then it was a simple matter of adjusting the boost level on the dweezle valve with a torque wrench. A piece of cake.
And if you belive that..... Actually I was out at Chaparral Racing for a visit and Jim was dismantling the car for some major maintenance. He asked me about how the work was going on the Bride's Yellow Bug [note: work? what work] and the discussion turned to how hard it is to work on one's own personal vehicle these days. Jim admited that he has to take his own vehicle in to the shop just to have the spark plugs changed. Here's a guy who can completely strip and rebuild an Indy car, but doesn't have the time nor patience to change his own plugs. Something's wrong with that picture. And that would be the amount of crapola that automotive engineers stick in ever smaller engine compartments. Remind me to tell you how they had to take the front end of my car apart just to change the battery. On second though, please don't, it brings back bad memories.
Saturday postscript: amazingly we were notified today that the Bride's Yellow Bug is fixed and ready to be picked up on Monday. I had said I believed that the problem was either a broken oil pump of clogged oil line. It was the later. So, the Bug had bypass surgery and hopefully all is well. At least until we get the bill.
I received a call today from friend Jim Edwards at Chaparral Racing saying that they were stumped with a compression problem on one of their Pennzoil Indy cars and would I have a look. So out I went. First I had them strip the body covers and pull the engine. Then it was a simple matter of adjusting the boost level on the dweezle valve with a torque wrench. A piece of cake.
And if you belive that..... Actually I was out at Chaparral Racing for a visit and Jim was dismantling the car for some major maintenance. He asked me about how the work was going on the Bride's Yellow Bug [note: work? what work] and the discussion turned to how hard it is to work on one's own personal vehicle these days. Jim admited that he has to take his own vehicle in to the shop just to have the spark plugs changed. Here's a guy who can completely strip and rebuild an Indy car, but doesn't have the time nor patience to change his own plugs. Something's wrong with that picture. And that would be the amount of crapola that automotive engineers stick in ever smaller engine compartments. Remind me to tell you how they had to take the front end of my car apart just to change the battery. On second though, please don't, it brings back bad memories.
Saturday postscript: amazingly we were notified today that the Bride's Yellow Bug is fixed and ready to be picked up on Monday. I had said I believed that the problem was either a broken oil pump of clogged oil line. It was the later. So, the Bug had bypass surgery and hopefully all is well. At least until we get the bill.
