Prepare To Get Lost

I don’t mean the title in a mean way.  I mean you are about to get lost.  This is not an accessible rant to any of my readers, I don’t think. I promise to discuss other loves later, but today, it’s all about heartaches and grease.  And the one of you that got the Ray Wylie Hubbard reference is probably the one who will have the least idea what I’m talking about.

See, the Accel Super Stock coil is a slightly higher voltage, epoxy sealed unit.  Damn, I see I lost two of you already.

You know how spark plugs fire a little spark that lights the magical gasoline afire?  That spark is between 25 and 50K volts that are condensed inside a giant capacitor.  The coil.  Those things break, especially if they get wet or vibrate at all.  So you can upgrade to an epoxy sealed unit that is water proof and awesome.  Unfortunately, I have removed the Accel SuperStock coil from the Anthologies of Awesome.  It is a piece of smoking dog shit.  One failed right out of the box and the exchanged unit failed a few months later.  They only warranty these things for 90 days, anymore.  It is disappointing.  I used to buy their stuff religiously and it was good for an extra four miles to the gallon or so on a 75 Scout running a 196.  Moment of silence, please.  Love you. Peace, homie. (Two fingers to the chest, tapped twice, kissed and thrust heavenward)

So, I replaced the Accel (not so) Super with a Mileage Plus from NAPA.  In so doing, I broke an old and brittle coil control wire and had to replace it.  But not until I had replaced the cap, rotor, points, and resistor (I’m not going to bother explaining any of that) trying to fix the problem.  So, I got it all running like a GOTdamn sewing machine (it IS, after all, an International) and drove it in, out, and about town for a few days.  Then something weird happened.  The engine straight died while I was driving.  This is not something that happens to older vehicles.  Since all the systems are analog, they fail slowly and let you know when disaster approaches.  I pulled over, raised yon hood, and had a friend crank the starter while I took the cap off and watched the points for spark.  They did not spark.  Because the rotor did not turn. 

Fuck. You with the drool, shake it off and wake up! Ok, this is how the points work:

The distributor is run off of a simple cam and gear system running off the spinning of the engine.  If you did not know that parts inside your engine spin, skip to the end of this post.  Then die. So, on the extreme upper end of this distributor shaft (the spinny part), there is an octagonal (on V8’s, hexagonal on v6’s, etc.) shaped piece of metal or plastic whose edges push two spring loaded contacts (the points), screwed to the top part of the distributor and held stationary, apart. When that happens, the voltage passed through them tells the coil to fire all those capacitatedvolts into the coil wire.

Ok, so this is where you may get confused.  The very top of the distributor shaft is capped by a spinning contact called the rotor.  It takes that spark (voltage from the coil wire) and connects it to one contact in the cap that sends the spark into a spark plug wire.  Thus, the cap sits on top of the whole assembly with sparkplug wires coming out of its outer ring and the coil wire running into the central contact in its middle.  So, for every rotation of the engine, and thus the distributor shaft, the points open and close, the coil receives the signal and fires 25-50K volts into the top of the cap, and the rotor (sitting on top of the distributor shaft) bridges the center contact of the rotor to the appropriate sparkplug wire on the outside of the cap to send that spark to the sparkplug.  Well, it does that eight times every revolution of the motor.  

So, when you see the needle on your tachometer hit “3″, (assuming you have a V8), then this process is occurring 24,ooo times a minute.  400 times a second, if you need an easier interval to grasp.  

Ok, so now we get to my failure.  I replaced the entire system, save the actual rotating stock of the engine.  I did it in the cold, often with hardly any light.  But I did it.  Like a badass.  Then one day I got looking at my points and noticed a small nut was missing off of the points.  I thought not too much of it.  Then I had an OCD attack.  I try not to make this part of me too well known, but I have OCD in certain areas of my life like a motherfucker.  If I have not changed my oil within the last month, I can’t sleep at night.  If I have a loose doorknob, I can’t use that door.  Knowing I left tools out will make me break out in cold sweats.  Or hot sweats. I guess that would depend more on the weather.

Anyway.  I decided to turn over a new leaf and not flip out about one missing nut.  I decided I was not going to spend an entire day digging for something that may well be anywhere in my garage, laying in some nook or cranny of the engine, etc.  

That nut wedged into the rotating stock of the distributor.  And destroyed my vacuum advance timing system.  Now I have to pull the whole system out and I may have destroyed my camshaft ($350), my distributor ($125), definitely cost me a new set of points ($10), and a good three days of work.  

I will avoid most of that cost by simply replacing the engine.  I have a 345 sitting on a stand waiting to go in.  But it will be a shitty couple of days of work.  It will also require me to fabricate a few parts, like a transmission mount for the 727 (a.k.a. Torqueflight 8) that will replace the Borg Warner Model Nine (a.k.a. Torqueflight 7) and maybe a driveline or two.  I will be covered in grease and hatefulness for at least a week if it goes down like that.  

And the biggest part of it all is the guilt.  I let the Scout down.  I have always been an overly emotional person in limited respects.  That old girl has been nothing but good to me and I let her down.  My fuck up destroyed the distributor, maybe more.  Not any failure on the part of the manufacturer.  Not any failure of the parts I bought.  I failed the Scout.  And I hate it.  I can’t even look at it.  

One time, I was married.  Like most crazy people, she was unreliable, and the deployments were long.  Things went predictably.  And in that cast iron twilight between us being over and her being gone, when the truth was out but the future arrangements not made, she would cower and writhe every time I brushed her skin or any time I laid a hand on her crying shoulder.  I never understood and took it for hate.  As I loaded her into a Pinto I had bought and got running for her, I asked her about it.  She told me through the hangover:

It burns.  It burns whenever you touch me and it hurts.  It’s the guilt.  It’s like fire on me.  I can’t take it.

So it wasn’t hate, or simple avoidance.  It was survival.  And now I look at the door to the garage and my failure and my shortcomings are there, under the hood of one cared about and cared for, inadequately it turns out.  And when I go in there, it burns.  I flush and hate it and I want to die a little.  

But I won’t be like that girl.  I won’t fail again because the guilt drives me to continuing faults.  I’m taking the 727 to the shop today.  I’m ordering the distributor.  I’m reserving the engine hoist.  And it hurts to think about touching the Scout.  It hurts to even think of getting under it and removing any more parts, after I failed at so simple a task before.  

But I will.  

Women come and go. Scouts are forever.