Car repairs

I was reminded on Saturday why I am not a mechanic.

Like most people of my generation, I grew up assisting my father with car repairs. By assisting, I am referring to holding the flashlight in what seemed to never be the exact spot my dad needed it to be.

That particular flashlight has a place of honor on my desk at work, mostly as a way to remind me of my dad and also as a reminder of why I work at a desk.

Like any family with eight children and a single income, money was always tight. This was reflected in keeping our vehicles running for as long as humanly possible, and then taking heroic actions to push them just a little bit further, even if it involved calling in favors and getting a new stub end welded onto the sheared off bolt in the engine block to get it removed.

The welding skills came from my Uncle Jimmy, an honorary title that stuck around long past the relatively brief relationship between his mother and my grandfather.

Car repairs were one of those things my dad would do after work, which often meant starting around 9 p.m. on a job his handy blue repair manual would assure him should only take an hour, maybe 90 minutes at most, and then not getting done until 2:30 a.m.

As the youngest son, it was my job to stand and hold the flashlight while slowly freezing solid. My older brothers would get to actually fetch tools or even help with bolting an alternator in place or replacing a water pump.

Regardless of the time of year, every time I picked up a flashlight to help with a car repair, I would swear it was 40 degrees with a cold wind seeming to chill me to the core.

Fast forward 40-some odd years and I have gotten over my family’s disdain that I don’t change my own oil or replace my own brake pads. I point out to them, that I live in a place where there is actual winter that stretches over six months or more of the year. Yes, theoretically, I could spend a week or more clearing decades of accumulated stuff out of my garage and work there, but at the same time, I am aware of my own shortcomings in skill and ability and where it is better to support our local economy by paying someone else to do it.

Earlier this winter, my son happened to be driving my car and commented that the brakes seems loose. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed. I have lived in Wisconsin winters long enough to never count on my brakes actually being able to stop my forward momentum in the winter time. It terrifies me how much faith people from bigger cities and warmer climates put in their brakes.

After checking them out myself, I agreed the brakes were looser than I was comfortable with, so I parked my car in my driveway with the plan that when the weather got warm enough I would check it out and do as my brother suggested and bleed the brake line, since I had brake work done last fall.

That was in February. Between then and now, we have been down a vehicle, much to the annoyance of my wife, since I have been driving her brand-new Ford Bronco, dropping her off at work in the morning and picking her up in the evening.

Last Saturday, the sun was shining and the winter parking limits were off the city streets, so I decided to draft my son and daughter into helping me remove the tire and attempt to bleed the brakes. After three hours and four separate trips to purchase and rent and then return tools, I decided it was time for a tactical retreat.

My daughter helpfully suggested I call my “car friends.” Because, you know, all dads have “car friends” who will drop what they are doing and spend hours helping to fix a car. I suspect that her respect for me diminished somewhat when I explained to her that my friends who actually know anything about cars repair them for a living and that my best option would be to get the vehicle into their shop.

My goal now, is to schedule getting my vehicle into a local shop where someone who is actually qualified and capable can determine what is wrong with it and make it right. Given the amount of hints my wife has dropped about missing being able to use her car or sighing over the miles I have put on it, I suspect I should do this sooner rather than later.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.