Flotsam

Fully compressed when it made its bid for freedom, the spring launched across the shop floor and landed with a “thwack” against a paper bag filled with shop rags.

And that’s the last anyone has seen…or heard…of it.

It is a tiny spring, just the type of piece you would expect Colin Chapman to use in one of his bantamweight cars.

This one holds the flimsy door open…or closed…on the metal box around the heater core of a Lotus Europa. Open the door to waft tepid air over your feet, close it to direct the same breeze in a casual stream across the windscreen. All this assumes the fan is operation, an optimistic bit of fantasy for a British car that hit 40 years old a while ago.

I began searching for the spring in the general direction of where I think I heard it hit.

I never did find it.

Instead, while doing a major cleaning of the shop, I discovered an archeological treasure trove of past automotive mishaps. A friend called it a testimony to much of my life on earth…casually chronicled in the contents of coffee cans.

Over the years I have been caretaker for more than 50 cars, ranging from an AC Aceca to a ’65 Chevy station wagon. And I’ve had to work on almost every one of them…some more than others.

Like most car junkies with a shop to call his own, I hardly ever throw anything away. It’s a guy thing.

The exception was the Austin Marina. When I towed that one to the wrecking yard I purified myself by tossing everything associated with it in the trunk. Then I “lost” the key so the wrecker was stuck with the entirety of that miserable bit of British engineering.

But I digress.

While searching for the spring, one of the first things I discovered was a full set of wheel bolts for a Fiat 850…coarse thread for the rear, fine for the front. No, I don’t know why. Or if I did, I forgot, given that I haven’t owned an 850 in more than 20 years.

That doesn’t mean I also don’t have a pair of water pumps for an 850 engine and a complete wiring harness for a roadster.

On one shop wall hangs a used X1/9 head gasket, with the area between cylinders two and three blown out.  I once had a collection of them.

I assume the quality of Fiat metallurgy is much improved by now, but back when I was racing them, the structural integrity of a fully warmed cylinder head was akin to the properties of room temperature taffy.

There was a time we considered putting the X1/9 race engines together with Velcro and wing nuts, just to save time.

Unlike the head casting, the craftsmanship on Italian hardware is exquisite. The head of almost every bolt on the car was cast with the distinctive FIAT logo, along with the hardness grade, all surrounded by a delicate raised edge. You can’t just toss something that well made in the recycling bin.

In the “exotic section” of the archives, I also found a set of aluminum sprockets for a chain-driven, motorcycle-powered D/Sports Racer that went to a new owner roughly a decade ago.

But I still have a full set of exhaust flanges for a Kawasaki ZX10 engine. I’ve thought about making them into a wind chime.

There is a never-used camber adjuster, a bolt that goes through an eccentric to offset the upper suspension on some car I once owned. I haven’t a clue which one. I’ve moved the piece from one shelf to another for 30 years.

And boxes and boxes of unsorted fasteners, each with their own story.

Some are long, thin metric bolts that hold motorcycle cases together. They are what remain from the “summer of grenaded engines.” OK. One of the “summers of grenaded engines.” I’ve had my share.

There is a string of broken pistons and bent connecting rods hanging over the workbench, reminders of nickel-rocket engines that made gobs of power…for a very short while.

I don’t make as much junk as I once did. I gave up racing a few years back and I work at a much slower pace today, thus extending the time between when a part is new and when it breaks.

But not everything I have is worn out or grease encrusted.

I’ve got a new tie rod end for a Dodge truck and a heater hose for a Volvo 142 wagon. And two oil filters for a Nissan Sentra we gave to my daughter during her freshman year at college. Today she has a Ph.D…and no Sentra.

Don’t get the impression I just toss everything in a bucket. No. There are lots of things I put away so I can retrieve them from the right box or proper bin when I need it.

Special pieces. Unique tools. Obsolete, NLA parts bought off the Internet from places like Cyprus.

If only I could remember where I put them.

My guess is they might be right next to that missing spring.

 

–  Jerry F Boone