We Fix a Car

We Fix A Car

My wife's car, an 86 Montero four wheel drive, developed an oil leak while she was driving it.  The oil was coming from somewhere on the head but because of the intake manifold, distributor, fuel pump, thermostat housing, manifold heater hoses, cragimeter, fagulator, and more switches, valves, wires, and hoses than would be necessary for the operation of a small nuclear plant, I was unable to see where the oil was coming from.  The car had been burning oil for some time and the previous owner had blown all of the shocks testing Newton's theory of gravity when he was driving off road.  The reason we were willing to own such a vehicle, knowing its history, was that by our standards, or lack thereof, it wasn't that bad of a car.  It looked better than most of the used cars we drove.  And the price was right.  Free.  I suspected a cracked head, or blown head gasket, either of which would render an already much abused engine unserviceable without a complete overhaul.

I still had the engine from my minivan that had provided me with many opportunities to learn patience the previous winter.  It had been retired to the barn when the transmission made a loud clunk and it refused to move on its own power.  This happened about two weeks after I had put the second engine in it.  At least this engine was free, but since it replaced an engine that cost $1000 installed but only lasted about a month, it did not seem like a bargain at the time.  It was the same make of 4 cylinder engine as the sieve residing under the hood of the Montero.  They looked very similar and I thought it worth a try to put the van engine which was still good in the SUV which was a better vehicle, or at least would be if it had an engine that ran and held oil long enough to get down our driveway. 

I was hesitant to take it to the shop that my van had visited so frequently the last winter.  I had completed more complicated automotive repairs in the past but had since become disabled and therefore unable to do the work myself, so I contracted two of my former foster kids to do the work.    Since they had relatively little mechanical experience they thought the job would be an easy day's work.  Since I had more experience, I had no excuse for what I was about to go through. 

I told them to take out the SUV engine first so that if they wrecked anything it would be on the junk engine.  They took out the van engine first and dropped it on the floor.  Once they got the van engine out and I had a chance to look at it, I discovered that the torque converter was not mounted on the flywheel where it was supposed to be.  The bolt holes in the flywheel were all torn up.  A look in the bell housing revealed an intact but disconnected torque converter with three bolts missing and one sheared off.  I deduced that the guy who had put in the last two engines had not properly tightened the bolts securing the torque converter and that the van was more repairable than I had thought.

We then started on the SUV.  Since we would have to use all the external parts associated with the engine; like the alternator, manifolds, carburetor, computer and sensors, clutch, etc in order to make the van engine fit, I instructed my optimistic mechanics to remove said ancillary appendages first.  When they had removed nearly all the mechanical clutter from one side of the engine, (a task more arduous than the removal of the entire van engine), we discovered the leak was coming from a small gasket between the head and the fuel pump, and not from a cracked head or blown head gasket as I had at first suspected.

Most cars manufactured prior to 1980 had a fuel pump secured by two bolts, with two hoses connected to it, powered by a lobe on the camshaft.  It was commonly mounted on the side of the engine block in an area that an amateur contortionist could easily get to.  Removal and replacement took about 15 minutes, got grease on both hands and at least one arm and usually would result in no more than one skinned knuckle.  Many cars manufactured after 1980, being fuel injected, had electric fuel pumps located inside the gas tank, accessible by removing a plate in the top of the tank.  This plate had several bolts, all rusty, two or three hoses and a wire harness.  Of course, to get to this plate one had to remove the gas tank, and to remove the gas tank you had to jack up the car, secure it on blocks, crawl underneath, remove the filler hose and the vapor hose,  remove two rusty bands holding the tank in place by removing two bolts that had been sprayed with everything you had ever driven through, while at the same time miraculously avoiding any contact with oil or any other substance that would have acted as an anti corrosive or lubricant.  Removal and replacement required an amateur masochist about an hour, resulted in two or more bloody knuckles, a dirty back and pants, and about a half a cubic yard of dirt in your eyes.

The engineers who had designed the Montero had apparently tried to return to simpler ways.  They had used an old style cam powered pump, simply mounted in an accessible place but in deference to modern design they then encompassed it below, above, and on both sides, with every manner of mechanical contrivance conceivable, both necessary and useless.  Removal and replacement required two men and a boy, one of whom would require subsequent psychiatric treatment, two days labor, one load of dirty clothes, and about as many mechanical operations as the refitting of the space shuttle.

The decision was made to fix both vehicles rather than to try to fit the van engine in the SUV, thereby retaining both the considerable opportunities for the acquisition of patience afforded by driving (when it was inclined to run) the minivan and the ability to fog insects and keep several Saudi sheiks busy pumping oil every time we drove the Montero.  Reinstalling the fuel pump on the SUV also allowed my former foster kids to be exposed to a frustration level similar to that which I was exposed to when they were adolescents in my home.  It was decided to wait until the temperature had dropped to around 0 degrees Fahrenheit (That's about -14mm for you metric fans) to begin the reassembly, since the furnace was disconnected in my shop.  The furnace would not have been any help anyway because the door blew off the summer before.  We hadn't bothered fixing the door because we didn't have the furnace hooked up.  The reason we had not hooked up the furnace was because the door had blown away.  Besides, we didn't need door or furnace in the summer and in the winter it was just to cold to work on either of them.  (Though I suspected there was a problem somewhere in this line of reasoning, we ignored it because it works so well when you want to avoid work.)

Work proceeded without too much difficulty or frost bite until we began hooking up hoses and wires.  Figuring where they went should have been easy.  Just keep adding them until you can't see the engine.  The vacuum hoses were not too bad. Half of them are superfluous anyway so you just plug them in wherever they fit.  The fuel hoses should have been easy.  How hard can it be?  One line from the tank to the pump and another line from the pump to the carburetor.  Of course, the pump had three places on it to connect lines.  The boys were a bit befuddled but I figured that a little deductive reasoning would prevail.  Why would a fuel pump have three fuel lines connected to it?  I ruled out the possibility that one was for a spigot to put gas in another vehicle just in case you ran into someone on the road that had run out of gas.  The devious minds that designed something so infernally hard to work on would never have included a feature so helpful to others.  It must have been a return line for excess pressure when the pump was pumping more than the carburetor required.

We had two short hoses that had come off of the pump.  We had one hose which we were able to determine came from the gas tank.  (No, I'm not telling how we knew.  Some things are just better left unsaid.)  It was a simple matter of finding a connection  that fit and was within reach.  At this point one of the kids produced what appeared to be a spare part.  Being an experienced mechanic, having encountered this problem before, I knew that the safest procedure was to quickly drop it under the car and hope that nobody noticed until the car was running.  I wasn't fast enough though and it was decided that it must be something important.  The only place where we could get the bolt holes to line up was on top of the fuel pump.  This made sense for two reasons.  First of all it would cover up essential parts that might need servicing.  Secondly, it would require taking something off that we had already put on.  It had two places to attach hoses the same size as the fuel lines.

We had one hose that fit nicely from the pump to the carburetor, another that fit nicely from the gas tank to the pump,  and one, which came with the extra part, which fit nicely from that third connection on the pump to the extra part if it was mounted where we assumed that it went.  I figured it had to be some kind of fuel pressure regulator which allowed excess pressure to go back to the gas tank.  The only connection remaining would be the one from this regulator (formerly known as the "excess part") to the gas tank.  We had a short piece of hose left over that fit it nicely and would have disappeared into the as yet unexplored regions under the intake manifold if everything went as we figured it should.  I told the boys that a short distance under the manifold they would no doubt find a metal line that went back to the gas tank and fit snuggly and neatly into the only remaining unattached hose end.

I have been wrong before.  In fact, the more I work on cars the better I seem to get at being wrong.  After repeated searches and several versions of "I told you it didn't go there" from the boys, some of which were not printable without an "R" rating, we came to the conclusion that once again, somewhere in the far east, an engineer was having a good chuckle at our expense.  There was another place on the carburetor where the third hose from the fuel pump could fit.  It looked like a vacuum fitting.  I reasoned that if we hooked the over pressure hose from the fuel pump to the vacuum system that fuel consumption would go up drastically as the pump spewed raw gas by the gallons into the intake manifold.  It was cold enough that the excessive flooding might enable the engine to start but it wouldn't run for long.  About this time I asked the boys if maybe the fuel pressure regulator (formerly the extra part) could have come off the van engine, to which they gave an evasive and indetermanent reply.  Upon closer inspection of the carburetor, we discovered what appeared to be another fuel line that disappeared into the as yet untampered with maze of hoses and wires beneath the engine.  I surmised that a fuel pressure regulator was diabolically concealed within the incomprehensible minutia of the carburetor, and the excess part (until very recently the fuel regulator) was once again resigned to the superfluous pile.

We considered that portion of the job done, not because we were sure we had it right, but because by that time we didn't care, and we moved on to the wiring.  Wiring can be a relatively simple process.  I had rewired an entire automobile before and within the last year had hooked up the wires on an ignition system which I had designed myself.  The only wires we had disconnected were those that went to the coil.  But it didn't look anything like the one I had worked on a short time ago.  Of course, that had been a  1948 dump truck,  but electrons didn't act any different in 1948 than they do now, and it should not have been that different.

A coil requires one wire supplying power, a ground wire that goes to the distributor or ignition module, and a high voltage wire (the one which demonstrates the true meaning of electricity to any novice foolish enough to touch it at the wrong time) that goes to the distributor.  Some systems, like the one I had built for the 1948 dump truck, required the use of an external voltage drop resister so that the coil could run on 8 volts instead of twelve.  (The designer of the 8 volt coil that is used on some 12 volt cars was no doubt the same person who decided that one car should contain both metric and standard fittings.)  The Montero was equipped with such a coil.  I was not intimidated by this because it simply meant that the supply wire went to the resistor first and from there to the positive side of the coil. Including both ends of this short jumper from the resistor to the coil, and not including the high voltage wire that provided spark to the distributor, it was four connections at most and two of these would be obvious since they were opposite ends of the same short wire.

The first sign of trouble came after I explained to my able mechanics how simple it was and they then explained to me that there were more wires than would be required for even the most complicated way of doing it.  There were in fact eight disconnected wires in the vicinity of the coil and voltage drop resistor and all of them disappeared into a wiring harness that looked like it could handle the phone service for a small city.

Some people may be wondering at about this point of the narrative why I had not bought a "shop manual" for this car.  These same people have probably never used a shop manual while doing anything major to a modern automobile.  In fact, not being one to learn from experience, and being the type of person from whom hope springs eternal that things will go differently "this" time,  I had purchased a shop manual for this car.  Shop manuals consist of a large section telling you how smart you were to buy that particular car and sections on maintenance and repair.  The maintenance section tells you when you should take it to your authorized service representative for maintenance and the repair section could be summed up by this oft occurring phrase,

"This part of the procedure is very complicated, requires special tools, and is best performed by your authorized service representative."

There were in fact several schematics of the wiring for the car with color coded notations.  None of them matched what was in the car.  There was also a photograph of the coil and resistor that looked almost like the one in the car.  You could even see the color coding lines on the wires.  You could in fact see them well enough to tell that the photo was black and white while the actual car was in color.

We stopped work for a mental health break while I repaired to the local all night mega-store to purchase a volt ohm meter.  I buy one of these devices about once a year because that is how often I have occasion to use one and they inevitably disappear before I need one the next time.  This is because any tool that is rarely used should be placed in a safe place where no one will stumble upon it by accident, take it out to play with, and not return it to the safe place.  By the time you need it again you have forgotten where the "safe place" was, so you buy a new tool.  The theory is that eventually enough duplicate tools exist in enough "safe places" so that you can simply turn over any object behind you and find whatever special tool you happen to need at that moment.  I have not yet achieved that level of tool possession.

After a one week break, and armed with a brand new voltage tester, we had recharged our self-esteem enough to once again be able to operate under the shade tree mechanic's dual illusion that,

1.  A modern automobile is, in the final analysis, no more than a collection of mechanical and electronic parts that can be understood, diagnosed, and repaired by any person of sufficient mental acumen and experience.

2.  We are in possession of both the acumen and experience to render the vehicle operational.

We first tested for the standard ignition power supply line by  turning on the ignition and seeing which wire registered 12 volts.  Only one wire tested at 12 volts with the ignition on, so we connected it to the bottom end of the voltage drop resistor.  We then tested the other wires by connecting each of them, one at a time, to the other side of the resistor and then checking all of the remaining wires to see which one had power.  None of them did.  My able mechanics reasoned that this was due to this particular car being "junk", a designation by which they meant the automotive equivalent of demon possession,  the only cure for which is to beat on it with large hammers, set it on fire, and then purchase another vehicle to replace it with.

A closer look at the philosophical underpinnings of the concept of "junk" reveals that it is closely related to the concept of "lemon".  It is often referred to by the simile "crap", or piece thereof, accompanied by various adjectives that tend toward the profane.  The idea behind this concept is that some mechanical devices have been either so poorly engineered, or so carelessly built, or built with such inferior materials, that they cannot be rendered dependable, or be made to operate properly, without replacing or redoing every single part in the device.  (Think Yugo)  This is most easily accomplished by selling the "junk" vehicle to an unsuspecting and hopefully deserving person, and then replacing the defective parts en-mass by buying a different automobile.

There is another theory about  "junk" cars, that is more like the automotive equivalent of Voodoo, rather than the simple result of poorly applied physical laws.  Those who operate under this theory act as if the "junk" car is possessed or perhaps fated or even doomed, to never work right, and that as this becomes increasingly obvious, any further attempts to repair it are not only sure to fail, but also may involve some sort of bad juju rubbing off onto the mechanic.  Further work on such a vehicle must be avoided since there is no charm or talisman of sufficient power to overcome the curse of being "junk".  Being a foster parent, I had some experiences with the darker forces, and immediately ascertained that this was not the cause of our dilemma.  I explained to them that there had to be a logical explanation as to why none of the wires tested at 8 volts.

First I had them test the other end of the resistor to see if it was perhaps defective.  It was not; so I deduced that we had either missed testing one wire or perhaps not had a good enough connection when we tested, and we tested again.  Then, since we came up with the same results, we tested again.  After several vain attempts my mechanics argued that they had been right all along, that the car was simply junk, and that no one would ever be able to get it running.

This resulted in a long philosophical discussion, containing many words  not suitable for print,  during which I explained that there had to be a wire somewhere that simply went from the resistor to the coil.  I explained that it did not really even need to disappear into the wiring harness since the distance to be covered was only about three inches, but since we had no loose wire three inches long that it simply had to be one of the many wires we had.

They said, "What?"

I said,  "The missing wire does not have to even connect to the wiring harness since it only has to go three inches, but since we don't have such a wire, one of the ones disappearing into the wiring harness has to be the right one."

Then they told me that there was in fact such a short wire sitting on their tool chest, that they had taken off of the coil, complete with the appropriate terminal ends to fit both the coil and the resistor.  At this point I successfully suppressed several successive images involving non-standard use of automotive tools on various parts of my mechanics anatomy, and just told them to hook the wire between the resistor and the positive side of the coil.

We then tested the remaining disconnected wires to see if one of them was at 12 volts only when the starter was engaged.  Such a wire allowed voltage to bypass the voltage drop resistor during starting since the drain of the starter dropped the voltage of the whole system enough to produce a spark too weak to start a car equipped with a voltage drop resistor.  This time we quickly found such a wire and connected it to the positive side of the coil.  We next used the process of elimination on the remaining wires to see which one connected to the negative side of the coil by attaching each of the wires in turn and seeing if we had a spark between the high voltage coil wire and ground.  This was quickly found and we hooked it up and also hooked up the high voltage wire to the distributor, sprayed a little ether in the carburetor and tried to start the car

It sputtered to life for a few seconds then died while the boys were still cheering and congratulating themselves on something finally going right.  I told them that we had yet to set the timing and that since a timing light was a special tool, I likely owned more than one, but that since I had not yet reached that level of tool ownership sufficient to saturate the area with tools, I doubted that any could be found, and we would have to time the engine "by ear".

In order to understand how this works it is best to review a little of the history of the internal combustion engine.  Early on in its development it was discovered that a more advanced spark, (one which occurred earlier in the cycle of the piston) allowed the gas more time to burn and produced more power.  The optimum point for ignition was some time shortly before the piston got all the way up on the compression stroke.  At just the right point, the fuel burned slowly enough to not keep the piston from coming the rest of the way up, yet soon enough that it had time to burn more completely after the piston had reached the top of its stroke and begun its way down on the power stroke.

The problem was that at different engine speeds the time it took for the piston to complete this cycle varied, and thus the time allowed for the gas to burn varied as well.  This could be solved by simply setting the timing at the optimum point for power at operating speeds and ignoring the problems it caused at other speeds.

These problems are best illustrated by early Harley Davidson motorcycles.  They were equipped with just two cylinders of rather excessive displacement and were started by the rapid depression of a foot pedal mechanically coupled to the crank shaft.  The mechanical advantage was such that a large person, putting all of his weight into it, could bring one of the pistons to the top on the compression stroke, but no further.  Once the piston achieved the top, and spark was applied, the resulting power stroke was sufficient to create enough momentum to bring the second piston to the top and thus repeat the process resulting in a running engine.

Of course, the force generated by this first power stroke was much greater than the original force applied via the kick starter to bring the piston to the top of the compression stroke.  If the optimum ignition point for operating speeds was the setting during kick starting, the spark would be applied too soon and the gas would begin burning and pushing on the piston while it was still going up.  If the force of the burning gas was strong enough and soon enough, it could reverse the upward direction of the piston and force it back down before it had completed compression, resulting in the kick start lever violently reversing its downward movement while the person starting the engine, with all of his weight applied to the lever, was still trying to push it down.  This resulted in launching the person starting the engine several feet into the air to the great amusement of any bystanders.

To counter this effect a manual advance was added.  When the left handgrip was twisted one direction the spark timing was retarded, or turned back, to a point close enough to top dead center so that the launching reaction or "kick back" would not occur.  Once the engine was running the handgrip was twisted the other direction, giving enough advance for optimum power at operating speed.  As development of the internal combustion engine progressed, this function was automated by use of a centrifugal or electronic advance.  The point required for starting remained the same, i.e. as far advanced as it could be without it "kicking back".

In order to time a modern engine "by ear" one assumes that if you get the starting point right the rest of the timing will be correct as well.  In order to do this you must start the engine and let it warm up to operating temperature and then advance the timing by turning the distributor far enough in the opposite direction of the rotation of its internal parts, until the engine runs smoothly, and then turn it a bit further.  Next you shut the engine off and attempt to start it.  If it starts easily, you advance it a bit more until it starts to hesitate or drag when you try to start it.  At that point you know that it is just a bit too far advanced because the "drag" or "hesitation", is caused by the spark plug firing too soon and trying to force the piston back down before it has come all the way up.  Once this point is reached you turn the distributor back the other direction just far enough to allow it to start without dragging or hesitating and assume that to be the proper place.

We were half way through this procedure when one of the boys found a timing light and it was decided to time it in the more orthodox way rather than by ear.  This being done, the engine still ran like crap and required ether to start.  I relieved one of the boys at his post at the carburetor where he was spraying ether to keep the motor running.  As I sprayed ether down the throat of the carburetor I noticed that there was no butterfly valve for the choke.  Throttle body fuel injectors do not use a choke butterfly valve but instead spray extra gas into the air flow to aid cold running so I assumed that this was a throttle body injector and not a carburetor.

Then I remembered that fuel injection requires an electric fuel pump (as mentioned in the preceding discussion on fuel pump removal) to achieve the higher and more consistent fuel pressure that a fuel injector requires, and that the fuel pump we had become so intimately acquainted with was a mechanical pump, the type that is only used with a carburetor and never with a fuel injector, (except in diesels, but that is an entirely different and even more frustrating story.)  I looked in the carburetor again and discovered a little bar going across the center of the opening exactly where the bar on which a choke butterfly valve would be mounted if there were one.  It had two screw holes in it exactly where the butterfly valve would want them to be so it could be attached.  My mechanics had not worked on the carburetor at all, so I assumed that the butterfly valve had either been removed or fallen off some time before and that it had not been sucked through the engine because if it had, the engine would have quit running within micro seconds of it being used as a superfluous part shredder, and consequently, consigned to the salvage yard immediately thereafter.

I simulated the effects of a butterfly valve by blocking part of the air flow where it entered the carburetor with my finger, and for the first time since we had owned the car, the engine ran smoothly.  (This test should never be tried at home unless you definitely know what you are doing because backfire from the carburetor could leave burning gasoline on the fingers that were blocking the air flow.  Once again, It is not necessary to relate how I came to this knowledge.)  I informed my able mechanics of my discovery but they were not impressed.  They had become even more convinced that the car was "junk" and therefore would never run right, no mater what repairs were made.

It was decided that the butterfly valve, if there ever had been one, could be replaced by someone spraying ether into the carburetor until the engine reached operating temperature, and an inaugural trip into town was planed.  As a precaution, we would take two vehicles.

We warmed the engine up while we were wiping grease, (or, as my mechanics now thought, bad juju,) off our hands, and noticed smoke begin to pour out from under the hood.  This we attributed to extra grease and oil spilled while working on the car, burning off of the by now warm engine.  It would stop in a few minutes after all the oil had burned off.  A few miles down the highway the cloud seemed to be getting larger rather than smaller.  I was following the newly repaired SUV in my pickup and noticed a mist on my window that only smeared when I turned on the wipers.  I knew this to be antifreeze from the way it looked on my windshield.  (How I knew what antifreeze looked like on a windshield is another long and sad story which, besides being embarrassing, is not really germane to this narrative.)  My able mechanic had noticed the temperature gauge climbing into the range that causes car owners to fear and automotive repair shops to rejoice at thoughts of soon to be ringing cash registers, so he pulled over.

After checking the radiator, which should never be done while the engine is hot since hot antifreeze or steam could rush out and burn your hand, (ibed. See  preceding paragraph,)  we discovered that the antifreeze was missing.  I procured some bottled water at a nearby convenience store, the boys poured it in and we once again started down the road.

I told my mechanics that they should run the heater on high.  As long as it blew out hot air they could continue driving.  In the likely event that it quit blowing hot air and started blowing cold air they were to shut off the engine and pull over immediately.  The heater for the interior of a car gets its heat by circulating antifreeze from the engine to the heater core.  It uses the same waste heat that the radiator is designed to get rid of.  If an engine overheats to the point that the antifreeze boils away, then there is no fluid to transfer excess heat to the heater and it will blow cold air.  In this way a heater can give you quicker feedback about sudden coolant loss than a temperature gauge.

After a few miles they pulled over because the heater began blowing out cold air.  This time there was still enough fluid left to ascertain where the leak was.  It was coming from a disconnected hose of small diameter that my mechanics thought was from the heater but I thought must be for the manifold since the amount we were losing from it would not be sufficient for a heater.  We plugged it onto a likely looking pipe, refilled the radiator and made it home before the heater quit again.  Once we got to our shop the boys reconnected and clamped the hose, and since the excessive smoking and coolant loss was stopped, what exactly the hose went to became a moot point.  The first law of auto mechanics was applied.

"If it works, don't fix it."

My mechanics decided to try another test run and I stayed home.  About ten minutes later they returned.  Walking.  Since the car had only made it about a quarter of a mile this time we just towed it home.  It was discovered that the fuel pump had come unbolted from the head where it was mounted.  When we had bought a new fuel pump gasket a week before, the parts guy at the store suggested that we also buy some "Lock Tight".  This chemical forms a plastic film between the bolt threads and whatever it is threaded into which is supposed to prevent a bolt from vibrating lose while still allowing it to be removed with a wrench.  We bought the "Lock Tight" but it had apparently not worked.  As I questioned my able mechanics, who by now were saying they would never work on that particular car again, the reason for the failure of the locking fluid came out.  It had not been used.  The unopened bottle, seal intact, was sitting on the tool chest.  The makers of "Lock Tight" make no warranty against failure caused by non-use.

At this point I had figured that we nearly had the project done because there could not be too many more things that we could have missed.  The boys figured that we had the job completely done because the car was obviously junk, would never run, and they refused to further implicate themselves in a project destined to such infamy.  It took me a week to convince one of them to give it another shot.

Courageously working alone, he reinstalled the fuel pump, using a copious amount of the locking chemical.  I drove it to church  because everyone else was by now afraid to drive it.  I made it there and back without incident except for bumping a parking gate as I was trying to keep the engine from stalling.  No one else dared drive it and I did not drive it further because operating a clutch with partially paralyzed legs and an engine that stalls frequently because it lacks a choke was just too much for me.

After a few more days, their fears being somewhat calmed by news of my relatively successful foray, and further encouraged to drive the SUV by the break down of his own car, one of my faithful mechanics asked to borrow it.  This I agreed to if he would install a choke butterfly valve while he had it.  I instructed him to go to a salvage yard and find one that fits and put it on.

The valve consists of a small semicircle of metal with two holes in it.  In an American factory it would cost about 10 cents to make.  In the third world country where it was probably manufactured it would cost half that much to make.  The one I was getting was used.  The salvage dealer had probably paid about $20 for the entire car that it came off of.  Some people would think that being used, and being from a $20 car rather than a $20,000 car, having a new value of less than ten cents that it would cost at most a few cents.  These people have never been to a junk yard. I gave one of the boys $20 and told him to get the part.

After a couple of hours they returned saying that the vehicle was running fine, but that they had not installed the choke valve because they didn't have enough money.  Jaded as I was about the experience of buying car parts, I found this hard to believe until they related their story.  The first salvage yard they had tried did not have the part so they went to a dealer to price one.  Their price was of course over $300 but the valve came with a complete carburetor attached.  They would not sell it any other way.  On the way to the second junk yard the no longer optimistic boys, noticed that the fuel gauge was dropping rapidly.  They pulled over and lifted the hood to find the hoses on the fuel pump leaking because the clamps had slid back too far.  This they repaired by sliding the clamps back to where they were supposed to be.  They then went to a gas station and spent most of the $20 on gas.  After this they went to the second salvage yard where they found a valve that would work.  It was $20, but it came with a complete and "well experienced" carburetor that would almost bolt right on.  Not having enough money left they returned home without the valve.

After finding out why they had no choke butterfly valve I inquired about the type of hose clamp used in the repair of the fuel hoses.  On small automotive hoses of this type there are two basic types of clamps used.  The typical replacement type of clamp is "worm drive" type made of stainless steel and available in any hardware store for about 25 cents.  They are dependable, reusable and stronger than they need to be.  Automobile manufacturers, getting only 20 or 30 thousand dollars per car can not afford this type of clamp.  They use a "spring" clamp consisting of a small circle of steel that most respectable hardware stores would be embarrassed to have on their shelves.  These clamps work fine on a new car fresh from the factory with new supple hoses and no dirt or grease but once you take them off, their holding power, which was never more than the bare minimum required, may be decreased.  The Montero was of course equipped with the latter. One of my intrepid mechanics said it was fixed "good enough".  The other mechanic, who was more likely to end up riding in it the next time it broke down, agreed with me that worm drive clamps should be installed.  This took a few minutes to accomplish and with my credit card in hand they proceeded to the salvage yard for my $20 part.

When they got home they took the butterfly valve off the junk carburetor and after modifying it a bit (about 50% of the parts obtained in this manor will not be "exactly" like the part they are to replace but they are often "close enough" for the innovative mechanic.)  began installing it.  Installation should have been very easy.  You simply place the valve on the bar that it mounts to and secure it with two screws.  In this case there were no wires, hoses or pollution control parts of unknown function in the way.  The valve was mounted flat on the top of the carburetor which was uppermost in the engine compartment.  It was also located above the venturi of the carburetor which is designed like a funnel so that air might more easily enter the engine and more efficaciously mix with the gasoline.  This design also acts as a funnel for any tiny screws or parts that you happen to drop, so that they also might more easily enter the engine. One of the screws promptly made use of that design feature.

Though a screw can easily fall into the venturi, it cannot be easily taken out without turning the car upside down and shaking it.  Fortunately, my backhoe was not running at the time because by then I was in a state of mind where I would have tried to use it to do just that.  The venturi narrowed down to a small neck in which a mechanism for spraying gas into the air steam was located, leaving about a quarter off an inch between it and the side of the venturi.  About two inches below this sat the throttle valve, which looks very much like the choke butterfly valve.  On top of this valve sat the prodigal screw, in plain sight, but totally out of reach.  A magnetic screwdriver was tried to no avail.  A bit of flypaper was tried but the screw refused to stick to it.  Several methods were discussed employing everything from vacuum cleaners to chewing gum but none appealed to my stymied mechanics.  At last, the one who had dropped the screw, as if to redeem himself, came up with a plan suitable to all.  He positioned his head directly over the carburetor and with a soda straw in his mouth sucked the screw out of its hiding place.  He was exuberant.  Whether his enthusiasm was caused by the success of his idea or perhaps just a side effect of the gasoline he ended up inhaling, I was not sure.

For the next attempt it was decided that the combined foes of gravity and gaping venturi could be defeated with expeditious use of a modicum of epoxy.  We glued the screws to a screwdriver.  After the valve was securely fastened by the screws the screwdriver was broken off and at last we came to the end of our job.  The car started promptly and smoothly without stalling and my able mechanics reveled in a job, at last, well done.

A friend once suggested that even if I could afford to drive a new car, I would not, because I enjoy working on old cars so much.  As might be guessed, this friend had never worked on a car.