When I was about 6 years old, I began to display a further interest in my father, Jim Sr. – the only male in our household who was older than me – and was curious as to the more mechanical side of his home maintenance responsibilities.
Sure, my younger brother, Jason, and I got to “help” clean the gutters every Spring, but that merely required that we hold the slop bucket still so our dad could drop heaping handfuls of the stinky, slimy, blackened mess of decomposing leaves and colored shingle granules into it. The problem was, only being a year apart in age, Jason and I were pretty competitive with one another, which usually led to brotherly squabbles and minor skirmishes – that invariably turned into all-out war. (On the cool, it also taught us how to work together, but that’s not the point to this story.)
I, being the older brother, was bigger, stronger, faster, and always right (so I thought!) but that never deterred my brother from initiating a losing battle of Push-N-Pull. Although I have no solid proof to back up my suspicions, I believe our dad took advantage of our bucket-tugging conflicts to plop a specific amount of the ancient, behavior-inducing muck down onto our heads – under the dubious claim that we “weren’t holding the bucket still.”
If you’ve never had the pleasure of scraping a gutter clean by hand, let me explain now that, when you’re finished, the gloves you’ve used must then be discarded, as they cannot be effectively laundered afterwards. So, imagine our mother’s displeasure when her precious baby boys came in after a hard day’swork, smelling like they’d had their heads shoved up the Swamp Creature’s© ass. Eww.
We also got to “help” drag away downed tree branches after a storm, bring the empty trash cans in from the curb (they were too heavy for us full!), and sweep the garage floor when our dad performed a comprehensive, 100 point inspection of every tool, fishing rod, and half-empty paint can within its walls every month. Which oddly seemed to coincide with the vicious bickering going on inside the house, between our mom and four older sisters, that happened each month like clockwork.
It was while in our hallowed garage that I first witnessed my dad using some of the coolest hand tools ever created: Vernier calipers; a bench grinder; Vise Grips©; and the Holiest of the Holies: pneumatic power tools.
One Spring evening – after escaping the clutches of two angry sisters – I found my dad wiping down an odd looking white thing with the elixir of modern machinery: WD-40©. Upon further inquiry (which in seven-year-old terms consists of a bunch of why’s, how come’s, and what for’s), he explained in detail what he was doing, and why.
The strange device he held in his hand was called a Spark Plug. This, he admonished me, should never be confused with a drain plug, ear plugs, or a butt plug (which I assumed was the same thing as a drain plug), and it was largely responsible for keeping our push-from-behind lawn mower running smoothly. (I was far too young at the time to understand the nuances of the complex air-and-fuel mixture function achieved by the carburetor – let alone such advanced words like complex and nuance.)
His goal was to scrape away last season’s burnt-carbon deposits from the electrode, and re-gap it. This, he continued to explain, would help it maintain a clean, and healthy spark.
The WD-40, it seemed, was every man’s go-to lubricant for all-things-mechanical, and could even be used to clean grease and gunk from one’s hands so’s not to get one’s Big Mac© dirty when eating it while performing a tune-up. But I find myself digressing once again.
When dear-old-dad was finished, he showed me the tiny lightning bolts that it produced when he yanked on the pull-starter. Soo cool! Until he had me hold the spark plug in my hand as he did it.
I don’t know what exactly happened; what went through my mind; what went through my body. But I do know that I peed a little, cried a little more than I peed, and ran inside to tell my Mommy that the evil lawn mower stung the mess out of me!
Did dad get in trouble for his dirty trick? Noooo! Did I get in trouble for snitching on him? Of course! But, like everything else in life, time healed my (emotional) wounds, and I forgot all about the wicked ways of the ignition system. Until I reached the ripe old age of 9, that is.
Our parents bought me and my brother the most awesomest used minibike ever! It was dark blue with black pinstripes, a leather seat, knobby tires, and it. Was. LOUD! That bad little motor-scooter ran (and ran into things!) all Summer long, and part of the way through Fall, until we were forced to put it up for the Winter. (And for safety reasons; both ours as well as our neighbors’ car doors!) But when the Spring Thaw arrived, our newest and coolest toy on Earth was added to the tune-up to-do list, right beside the evil lawn mower. However, more responsibility ensued as well.
My brother was not what you would consider mechanically inclined. Therefore, his duties were relegated to adding the Sta-Bil© (a gasoline additive used when storing gasoline dependent engines during their off-seasons); draining the gas at the opening of the following season; checking and adjusting the tire pressure; and wiping down the entire machine with WD-40 – leather seat, tires, and all!
I, on the other hand, got the much cooler (See: manly) side of the job like cleaning out the carburetor with Gum Out©; adjusting the throttle cable; and making sure the points, magneto, and spark plug were clean, properly gapped, and firing right.
Who knew that a little old 50 cc engine could produce, what felt like to me a hundred-thousand volts, when a grown man of about 165 pounds jumped down on the kick-starter? Yep, more tears; more peeing; but this time around a whole new sensation was added to this horrible experience: my arms went numb from the elbows down. Odd, that.
While my brother was traumatized by this event, I was more disappointed in myself for letting my dad trick me. Again. Needless to say, mom was told, I was scolded, and another awesome season of terrorizing our neighborhood on two wheels commenced!
By the time my eleventh birthday arrived, I was assisting my father around the house at the highest of levels: helping to clean the thermocouples on the furnace – with WD-40, obviously – before firing it up for the Winter; then doing the same at the season’s end; blowing out the window-mounted air conditioner units with the air hose, then checking the Freon© lines for any leaks; changing over – and back again – the snow-tires on our Dodge van and Plymouth Fury; and helping him with the tune-ups on both vehicles.
Here is where I discovered the truly devastating power of the Hemi© engine, and found a whole new level of respect for the electronic ignition system, electricity herself, and my father’s less-than-ideal approach at teaching me to respect said entity.
It all began with the replacement of the cap and rotor; the spark plug wires; the plugs themselves (all eight of ’em!); and finally performing what is called a timing test, which is done by pointing some futuristic ray-gun looking contraption at the engine block, and watching the light blips it shot at it. (Dude. I was only eleven-years-old. Cut me some slack here!)
All did not go well with the first test, however. The laser beam thingy wasn’t pulsing along with whatever it was supposed to be pulsing along with. My dad then determined that the timing was off by 180°. To keep the technical explanation brief, my dad simply lifted up the cap, turned the rotor halfway around, and started the test over again.
We received better results the second time around, but he insisted that something was still slightly off. This was remedied by turning the cap itself a little bit. The light was now blipping when it was supposed to blip, but something was still just a tad bit off. (His words, not mine.)
Through some kind of supernatural powers of deduction, my dad arrived at the conclusion that the gap of plug #3 was wrong, and this was what was causing the odd vibration that only my father’s capable hands could detect through the car’s fender.
Jimmy to the rescue! I pulled the plug like a pro, re-gapped it to spec’s using his handy-dandy key-chain gap gauge, wiped it off with a WD-40 soaked shop rag, and …
… before I could re-install the plug back in the head, my dear-old-dad suggested we do a visual check, you know, to make sure we were going to get a good, clean spark. Yes! That’s a great idea! My eleven-year-old self enthusiastically agreed.
Ever seen the term: “850 Cold Cranking Amps” printed on the side of a car battery? Yeah. I don’t know what that means – exactly – but I know exactly what it feels like!
By the time he let up on turning the key, I looked like a mini version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, so buff was my upper body after that extreme dose of electric muscle stimulation. If it wasn’t for the tears streaming down my face – and the wetness spreading across the crotch of my pants – I’d have looked like a total bad ass! Well, as much as a four foot tall, 60 pound kid was capable of looking like one, that is.
Needless to say, but I will anyway, I refused to change even a single light bulb, if my dad was within fifty feet of the vicinity. Fool me once: shame on me. Fool me twice: shame on you. Fool me a third time: I’ll learn eventually …
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