I was telling a friend about the 1964 Chevy Malibu station wagon that I drove from 11th grade until I was 20 or so. I said that I could not remember having any repairs on it, or even oil changes.
That suddenly triggered some memories. The blinker cancel stopped working. My father bought a steering wheel puller. Inside was a simple piece of plastic that locked the blinker control in place until the steering wheel returned to straight ahead. The plastic piece had broken. The part was cheap and a masterpiece of simple and clever engineering: something every car company tries to do. (You can get too clever. One of my neighbors in the late 1970s, Melanie Newkirk, had an Audi 100LS: The windshield washer was no longer spraying fluid. The container was full. I decided to track the pressure hose back to the pump and test the contacts on the motor. We eventually reach the trunk where the hose connected to the spare tire, which was now flat. For 30,000 miles this worked. Good thing she never had a flat.)
The other repair was simpler. Right turns made the engine die and after the turn was complete, it came back to life. The turn from Westwood Blvd. southbound to Wilshire Blvd. westbound was a bit scary one day. I looked under the hood; the batter clamp was loose; right turns pushed the battery terminal against the body shorting out the engine. Then gravity put back flat and the motor revived. A cheap and easy fix!
"The part was cheap and a masterpiece of simple and clever engineering: something every car company tries to do."
ReplyDeleteYeah, not anymore by a LONG shot.