Mayday, Mayday, when Butterflies Attack!

A blasted Facebook meme (of all things) inspired this post, as it reminded me of the butterfly effect. The concept that is, not the lame Ashton vehicle I steadfastly refused to see. Lame Hollywood dramas aside, If you're not familiar with the butterfly effect, it goes something like this:

- Somewhere over this spinning marble of ours, a fragile butterfly (pick your favorite!) flaps its wings vigorously in a futile battle against the natural elements that conspire against it...

...The air currents generated by this pounding of fragile wing, though negligible, still manage to displace various particulates and allergens in the air. These pollutants collide and expel strays which filter downward toward land, whereby they are duly sucked into the nasal cavities of all manner of flora and fauna...

...Assorted Little Pollen Bombs (band name!) waste no time giving massive fits to the seasonally allergic; as one of the afflicted you've cowtowed to the Man and submitted to Big Pharma's allergy shot fad. Your grudging regimen actually does some good! However it doesn't allay being tired and stupid at times, and time wasted in the doctors' lair plays further havoc with other routines. Like dinner. And chores. And writing pointless blogs (*ahem*). And spawncare (better known as "childcare" to the more genteel among you)...

...These distractions atop life's usual smorgasboard kidnap the full unwavering clarity of focus you'd normally prefer to apply to any task, however mundane or enthralling. And in one particularly crazed moment of "I finally have a block of time to myself to approach the current task at hand" (which happens to be picking up parts for the car you're working on) you forget to get a fuel filter to go along with the carburetor rebuild for the classic tank. A simple oversight, easily explained by the knowledge the current one is still relatively new...

...Of course, "relatively" new is just that - "relative". So when your rebuilt carb fails to perform as expected (is it because of the screws you also adjusted while in a mind-fog?) you begin second-guessing EVERYTHING. It's no fun having a land barge that suddenly can't get out of its own way, much less even fake the existence of speeds beyond 40 mph. Maybe that "relatively new" fuel filter did indeed fall prey to some sort of crud, but you can't get one in a timely fashion where you are; in the meantime the other symptoms seem non-exclusive to that diagnosis...

...So you really have no other sensible choice than to keep trying to tune the thing according to the following process:

1. Start the car, pop the hood


2. Make a calculated S.W.A.G. (Sophisticated, Wild-@$$ Guess) as to what the setting should be; make this adjustment while the car is running so as not to go obviously wrong


3. Shut the hood


4. Get back in and test drive for a suitable distance, note changes in behavior.


5. Curse, Wash, rinse, repeat...


6. Realize the hood release is actually REALLY stubborn and feels like it will break off in your hand one of these days, and how much borrowed time is left on this thing anyway? So modify Step 3 by leaving the hood in it's "popped-but-still-latched / emergency supplemental cooling" state. You've driven cars like this dozens of times as required. The hood stays secure in its popped state, even on a 15-mile test run at highway speeds once the tune gets dialed in but not perfected.


7. Curse wash rinse repeat a half-dozen more times...

...looking for that elusive balance, realizing you're no Jack Roush, wondering what you ever did to anger the car gods. Yet another adjustment, yet another close of the hood, yet another planting of the butt in the seat to drive away...

...and watch in full hollywood slow-mo horror as the car fully adopts its persona as a land yacht by raising the sail. Except the car doesn't have a sail. But a 4x8-foot 150-pound slab of metal that normally functions as a hood puts on a convincing act when it comes blasting open toward you at 30 mph!

You don't know what was more effective: the 34-year-old 4-wheel discs, or the hood-as-sail-as-airbrake. Either way you come to the fastest dead panic stop 5300 pounds ever accomplished; there might even have been skidmarks if not for the dirt in the road. Unfortunately you suspect there's a different kind of skidmark lurking somewhere else.

Oy vey.

It shuts, and the hood latch still works. But in hindsight view of your robotic frustration, are you absolutely certain it latched that last fateful time? Are you certain you shut it with proper conviction while expecting you'd only be raising it again for the 30th time a minute from then? Of course you aren't.

Not that it makes a difference: the damage is done; your ego and confidence are shattered when you look at the car.

And that, my friends, is how a butterfly can manage to bend the hood corners, ruin the trim, and scratch the fenders on a previously near-perfect original classic car.

You could beat them with a hammer (both the dents and butterflies), but at the going exchange rate, you'd only make things worse; You gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em. So you roll the car into the garage, too shamed to look at it again, and wonder just how you're going to explain this to its former and technically-still-current owner, and how to fix it. And so much for working on the Model A next time.

Cue the "Price Is Right Fail Sound": Fwoom-fwum fwum-fwum, beeeaaaaaoooow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And to think, that was just the cap on a truly miserable weekend of mechanical fail. Previous to the destruction, I'd set out to change the oil and fuel pump, and looked forward to doing so in the relative comfort of the pit in the shop. It had been dug out by hand and reinforced with concrete; a nice 3x6 by 6-foot-deep hole in the ground to make short work of underframe maintenance.

The only flaw in that plan was the Kentucky-only phrase "April showers bring May downpours". Epic ones. Water always seeks the path of least resistance...

Which happens to be the floor of the pit: the perfect escape path for groundwater with nowhere else to go. When I uncovered the pit, I found a foot-and-a-half deep swimming pool instead. Actually, a swimming pool would have been most pleasant! What I actually uncovered was a cesspool of sawdust, oil, grease, and 18 inches of mud-filtered cloud urine.

No biggie. My father in law rustled up a cinder block I could use as an island to balance on whilst scooping up water in 5-gallon buckets I passed up to my wife. We got it bailed out in an hour or so. A couple inches of fresh sawdust on the bottom, and it was comfortable again. We broke for an afternoon lunch, then I brought the car into position and climbed back down underneath, drained the oil, and removed the old fuel pump while the oil filter was out of the way.

Had I known what was about to happen, I'd've cued up some game show music. Or the end-game theme from Fight Club....

TO BE CONTINUED*

*if Windows clipboard doesn't eat it, when/if I bother to type it again. Apparently the butterflies have followed me home...