Another full round of jinxes

I had become increasingly annoyed at the looseness of the gears. In neutral, the shifter flopped in a rectangle about 4x4 inches. I also ended up in the wrong gear sometimes, because the movement was so loose. Everything else was fine with the car, or so I thought, and I didn't want to jinx it, but I went to Phat Phoo's  anyway and asked what could be done. He said the bushings would need to be replaced. Ok, I thought, it would be great to get that taken care of after all these years.

When I picked up the car after the gear repair, Mr. Phoo said it shifts real nice now, but to me it didn't seem that much different. I wasn't totally sure - maybe the only improvement possible isn't that noticeable. A few weeks later I noticed that the second gear had trouble engaging. I had to double shift it, meaning put it in and out a few times until it stuck. This was extremely annoying because it meant that at an intersection, I had to start in first, try to get into second, and run in neutral a few moments until I could get the gear in, while the rest of traffic accelerated past me, or was stuck impatiently behind me. I learned a different method, which was to put the car in second while waiting at a stop. This required testing it with a slight gas push (since it didn't engage predictably), which required a certain minimum distance to the next car. I then started in second, which is of course not nearly as peppy as starting in first, and there's a higher risk of stalling, especially uphill.

I asked Mr. Phoo again what my options were. I forget exactly what he suggested, but it was expensive. Once again I thought maybe I had hit the reasonable limit of what is fixable on this old car. I decided to wait some more and ask around.

After the summer I returned to Gainesville and by then had decided to just fix this problem once and for all. I wasn't very happy that I had the gears fixed, couldn't notice a difference, and then the second gear malfunctioned. But, Mr. Phoo is the only shop that is nearby that has been willing and confident enough to work on the car. On the other side of town there are more options, which I had explored the years before, but the long distance really discouraged me. Also, Mr. Phoo had been very good so far, and lots of people recommended his shop. So I returned.

One day I was about to get in the pickup, which had been sitting in the hot and humid summer in a shady spot by my wooden shed (it will stay in the sun next time!). I opened the door, and it was very moist inside. To my horror, some kind of mildew had developed on the seats, both of which had been in pristine condition ever since the interior custom job. I was very upset. I looked into how to remove this stuff. Distilled vinegar was the non-toxic recommendation. I put on a mask, gloves, and sprayed vinegar everywhere. This is supposed to kill the organisms and then one can wipe them off with soap and water. I was able to get all of it off, but it has left some stains, which hopefully Wally can re-stain at some point later on. Some paint areas have chipped anyway, so the interior could use a touchup, anyway.  Again, I was in a quandary, because I had to decide whether I should just declare the pickup as my "dirty car" or whether I wanted to keep on going making it a beautiful "classic". I decided to put this off a little while and get the gears fixed first.

After about two days of letting the car fully dry out after the cleanup I brought it to a detailing place to let them shampoo the interior and give it a professional once-over. The car looked and smelled really nice now, except for the remaining stains. I check in on Mr. Phoo, who is nearby, but he wasn't in, which meant another day of waiting to get started the task which had started this round of problems.

The next day I got in the car and my son got into the other car so he could drive me home from the repair shop. Just outside our property gate I noticed that I couldn't feel the gas pedal. It had just disappeared. I couldn't tell if it had fallen through or disconnected from the piston. My first thought was "problem number three, here we go." My second thought was: "I didn't even know this was possible; what a traumatic idea - the gas pedal can just disappear like that? Glad it wasn't the breaks. Glad it wasn't on the road." I called AAA. The guy who came with the tow truck was very into the car, even asked about  buying it, but I wasn't ready for that. As usual, I felt I was just a one repair session away from a perfect car, so why sell it for less than all the money I put in? As he was loading the car up, he noticed that both front tires had been worn down on the outside edges, due to camber. He said the left one is about to blow. Ok, good, I thought. Problem number four. Maybe the jinx is turning around in that the need to get the gears fixed prevented me from driving the car on the road without a gas pedal and with tires about to explode. "Glück im Unglück" as they say in Germany, "Luck in bad luck" meaning "every cloud has a silver lining." The tow to the shop was certainly worth my time now. And my son didn't have to drive me back; I could just drive along with my other car. All tasks were no longer accumulating but contracting neatly. This is the moment which I call "reaching the top of the hill." I can see what's ahead and it's a smooth downhill roll from here. Or another analogy: "I've got all my stuff together and I can pack my bag."

The final bill was high, but it was a long list of fixes, which now, once again make me feel the car is complete, which means I feel complete —however pathetic that sounds. The camber was due to faulty tie rod ends and lower ball joints, the need for an alignment and other stuff, which I had been told about before. I also had them change the oil, which looked low and hadn't been changed in a few years. I am especially excited about the gears which feel like those on a new car now, very precise and tight. I asked about why this improvement on the gears couldn't have been done in the first place — this was what I had in mind originally, and Mr. Phoo's guys explained that initially they replaced some of the gear bushings, but this time around were able to locate a pristine, complete kit of bushings and didn't charge me the full price for the second attempt. I will accept that. The rabbit lives on.

Here's the final list of repairs:

Replace rack and pinion boots
Replace inner tie rod ends & lower ball joints and outer tie rod ends
Install shifter bushing kit
Replace gas pedal bushing
Replace 2 tires (Michelin)
Perform alignment
Change oil + oil filter