Everyone always tells you not to apply excessive force to a tool unless
you have checked what lies on the other side of the tool. It's good
advice; I only wished I had followed it.
I was attempting to remove the steering column from my 'B to fix the
upper bearing. The bearing is loose, which allows a constant series of
blows to be delivered to your arms, not unlike a jack hammer.
The steering column has never been removed in the car's near-30 year
life, so there was some corrosion holding the shaft to the U-joint.
'Some' corrosion, in this case, means the two pieces were nearly welded
shut.
There I was, prying the U-Joint towards the front of the car with my
trusty Craftsman 1/2' drive wrench. What a prybar! It even doubles as
a handy 1'2" drive wrench.
Then it happened. It seems the copious amount of Liquid Wrench I
sprayed let the socket wrench slip, sending my fist hurtling towards the
fire wall.
My father would have been proud of the string of obscenities that came
out of my mouth. It reminded me of the time I was 12 years old and Dad
had bought me a remote-control airplane for Christmas. We were trying
to get the engine to start, when it did. With his finger in the way.
With the obvious, painful results.
It must be an unspoken Pokrefke family tradition to curse in the face of
pain. I do, dad does, grandpa does. I think Grandma does too. You
always know when a Pokrefke gets hurt.
Needless to say, after some ice treatment, I got the steering colum out.
Man 1, machine 0.
Interesting how my column looked absolutely nothing at all like the one
illustrated in the Haynes manual. I managed to disassemble, clean it,
and realize that even though the parts needed are NLA, I was able to
repair it with a few blows of Mjollner, my mighty ball-peen hammer.
I spent the rest of the day adding sound and heat insulation. I got a
little carried away, and added roughly 1.5" of insulation to the floors.
Stop laughing! It gets hot here in Mississippi.
I also fulfilled a long-standing wish of mine: black rubber sill mats.
Seems you can by vinyl floor runners for $2 a foot here. Don't ask me
why such a big deal over rubber sill mats - they just look cool. I went
ahead and covered the floors with the same material while I was at it.
I'll let you know if all my work makes any difference.
Time for some more ice now. My knuckle is starting to throb...
Thomas James Pokrefke, III (ouch)
1970 MGB (still on jackstands, someone couldn't operate the jack)
1999 Thor (wheel chock chaser extrodinaire!)
1989 Wheel Chock (how come girls like cats so much?)
pokrefke@netdoor.com
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