car-guy weekend (oops, long)

[Tessie McMillan <tessmc@domain.elided>]

We leave our superhero Zach sleeping peacefully in his bed -- dreaming of 
coilovers, cool carbon pads, and Alfetta paint codes -- and go just a few 
blocks away. Tess has risen early, too early, this Saturday morning and is 
peering grimly through the blinds at the rain falling in sheets outside 
her bedroom window. The weather is so glum, in fact, that she can hear 
nothing but the sound of the rain pounding the street and the roof. Huge 
foaming spouts of water are shooting off the eaves of the house 
(first-time homeowner, what can we say?). This was to be her car-guy 
weekend, and here it was, starting on such a bleakly un-illustrious note.

That pretty much says it. I got some bad P-car news on Friday and that
combined with having to do some stuff this week that I DON'T really want 
to do, I decided to take out some of the sting and pre-load on some fun 
at the same time by having a car-guy weekend.

My first car-guy stint was to spend all of Saturday with the local 356 
guys. I was really disappointed to see the rain, because it meant that 
fewer of them would be bringing their cars out. But in the end, the rain 
turned out to be a good thing, because I got the chance to drive a 356 (I 
have no idea what year, Scott, I just know it was a Super 90)! I also 
met with some guys I haven't seen since I edited the local Porsche 
club magazine. We ate breakfast and congratulated each other on letting 
our PCA memberships lapse. Did you know that you can hang the end out on a 
356? It's a little harder to do than in a 911 and you don't really scare 
yourself when you see your own behind, but it can be done. In comparing 
the driving feel to my Spider, well... my Spider feels kind of like those 
Caribbean women when you see them walking in the sand -- they're kind of 
hippy and there's a lot of fluid motion side to side but they manage to 
ambulate in a straight foward direction. Now the 356, you take those same 
women and slim them down, put the center of gravity higher, and stick 
them on stiletto heels (that's the 4.5 x 15" wheels)... forward motion 
requires a little more concentration, and the side to side motion is 
necessarily less but there's less feel through the road as well. Throttle 
is a split second less responsive than my Spider, and there's a ton of 
transmission noise (the car I was driving was stripped-down so it was kind 
of hard on the ears), but you *can* identify every noise and relate to it. 
What fun! Despite the fact that this car had a broken Buddha bone, or 
boogie rod, or whatever-it's-called (the thing that pre-loads the clutch), 
so I had a tricky time in reverse and getting into first gear and had to 
work on feathering the throttle.

Sunday a couple of VERY GOOD FRIENDS (if we were any closer I'd probably 
owe them sex and all my first-born sons for the rest of my life -- they've 
helped me out of so many scrapes) and I got Olive Oil back on the road 
with a new water pump. And BOY did the weather cooperate. It was clear, 
sunny, and pretty darn windy all day -- just perfect for driving a Spider. 
It took about 2 hours to get her over to my friend's house, though. She 
was so dead and cold and had so little fuel that the trickle charger 
couldn't bring her up sufficiently. Nor could running off my Audi-Dudi. 
And she was wedged into the back corner of my garage, so we had to take 
both my floor jacks (thank you, Thomas!) to rotate her 180 degrees. Then 
we pointed her out from a corner of the garage and with one friend pushing 
me out of the garage and down the driveway, I compression-started her 
going down the driveway. Woo hoo! I drove around the block a few times 
and woke everyone up honking the horn. The corner at the end of my street 
is great for sliding. The drive over to my friend's house in Finn Hill 
went along Juanita drive, which is a windy road along the lake. The 
drive was so beautiful (my friend had said to keep the heat on high 
and I told him "You're darn straight I will" -- it was only about 38 
degrees out) and the view of the lake through the trees was so refreshing, 
that I had recharged my own battery by the time I got to my friend's 
house. I did not see a single Alfa and certainly there were no 
convertibles out.

To make a long story short, the water pump job took from 12:30 p.m. to 
9:30 p.m. &:-) This with two friends who can work on cars with their hands 
tied behind their backs. There was a ton of swearing when Greg saw the 
inside of my engine (he has a series 4 and Olive is a series 3, and has 
air-conditioning). He did not want to see Russ's and Les's detailed 
instructions on removing the water pump, he just brought out the saws-all 
and started to work.... I actually did very little of the job -- just 
drained the radiator, and removed the radiator, shroud, and fan (small 
hands). My friends removed the hoses, the alternator and the water pump, 
did a lot of filing, smooshed any valves that were inside the old hoses 
into the new hoses, installed the pump, and buttoned it all back up. I 
then put the fan and the radiator back in and they reattached the hoses. 
Henrik you will be proud of me. While they were working on the water 
pump, one of my friends showed me how to replace the pads on my brakes, 
and I went through and replaced the pads on all four wheels and then put 
the wheels back on.

There is a lot to be said for working in a garage that has a central air 
compressor with outlets in all corners of the garage, forced heat, a 
refrigerator, a shop vac, high-output lighting, a cleaning tank,  and a 
high quality stereo pumping out Pink Floyd (don't ask). Although my friend 
doesn't have a lift, he has manufactured lifting bars that make jacking 
the car a very stable process. I got right underneath without  hesitation.

So it was about 10:30 p.m. by the time I headed home. The sky was still 
clear and it was freaking cold and I hadn't eaten anything all day except 
sparkling cider and "Swedish fish", but when I stomped on the brakes at 
50 mph on Juanita Drive and Olive literally clawed her feet into the 
pavement in a straight line, I was happy. The temp gauge floated right at 
175 and no higher, I had the heat on to toast my toes and I was totally 
light-headed. Whether from excitement or lack of food, or both, who 
knows? I've got my convertible back on the road!!!!

Tess

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