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Volume 37 No.11
Mar. 15 - Mar. 28, 2002 [ ARCHIVE ] [ FEEDBACK ] [ HELP ] |
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| VANtastic!! The story of a summer project | ||||||
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The dirt yard was loaded to the gills with vehicles that had all seen much better days. The poor cars lined up and crammed together with their hoods open reminded me of naked slaves about to be put on the block. Perspective owners poked and prodded under the hoods, looking for the one that would live the longest, and work the hardest. The crowds gathered and the bidding began. This is how I spent my Saturdays all summer long, waking up early to go play with cars. About mid-July I had the system figured out. I would go with my friend Josh and my dad to the Lincoln Towing abandoned vehicles auction and try to find a diamond in the rough. We would check the oil, scope out the engine and assess the body. Nothing ever really jumped out at me. Then one day I saw it. Over the fence and in with the cars that may be here next weekend I caught a glimpse of the camper top to a Volkswagen van. I remember telling myself at that moment, "I am going to buy that van." It was calling to me, like that one puppy at the pound that you just feel a connection with. I could hardly wait to go to bed early the next Friday night. When the time came I was up early. My dad and I had already discussed the probability of my buying the van, and my chances looked pretty good. I had read the list of cars to be auctioned online, and discovered that the van was a 1973 Volkswagen Transporter. When we got to the yard I walked straight to the vehicle I spotted the weekend before. The hemp necklace hanging from the rearview mirror caught my eye, and prompted me to look inside. Peering through the dirty window, I could tell by the scattered possessions and layers of dirt, that someone had probably at one point called this home. The body had a bit of damage, there was some rust and it had been rear-ended. The deck lid (engine cover) on the back was missing, and the wiring in the engine looked like it was not quite solid. The fiberglass camping top had a dark coating of tree buildup, as though it had been parked under a rather large fir tree, for a rather long time. It looked sad to say the least. Someone had sloppily painted the front bumper blue, which only contributed to its sorry appearance of the vehicle. Despite my father's grimace, and the strange parent noises he was making (you know the one.... it's kinda half way between a hum and a growl) as he circled the van, I was convinced I would be looking at this same bus in my driveway by the end of the day. I wasn't displaying any sort of emotion as the first 80 or 90 cars met their new owners, but on the inside I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off screaming at the top of my lungs. Before I knew it, my van was the next vehicle to be sold. I crept up next to the auctioneer's perch just as the car before mine was closing. All of a sudden my head started to spin as bids flew back and forth between me and one other patron, with the help of Rodger the auctioneer. As quickly as it had set in, the spinning stopped, and Rodger shouted, "Sold for $110!" That's right: $110. I waited in line, paid my money and waited for them to cut me a key, while my dad went home to get the truck and some tools. My dad is a very hands-on type of person. He has always done all of the work on our family's vehicles...and I mean all the work. Not once in my life can I remember our car ever going to a mechanic. If something really went wrong with a car, that meant Dad had to go to the library. I always helped as much as I could, but it was only once I became a teen-ager that I was actually able to really help. So needless to say, this was no new drill for my dad and me. It was just another car that we needed to get started or tow home. Once he arrived, we tried and tried to start my new toy. The engine would turn over, but even with two fully charged batteries, it just sounded bogged down. My dad went into action, testing electrical leads with his Fluke meter, trying to find the loose wire. The whole time we had been working, a man had joined us. Probably in his late50s, he kept leaning over, giving commentary, and telling stories about when he "used to drive one of those ... back in my hippie days." I could feel the annoyance emerging from my father and bringing tension and frustration to the surrounding space. Then, as if out of nowhere, this mouthy hairy nosy man, spouted words of brilliance. "You'll probably have to tow it to a start." My dad stopped working, slowly turned his head, slightly smiled, and said, "Yeah, we should probably tow it to a start." I'm not sure how many people today are aware of it, but you can compression-start a manual transmission car by rolling it and forcing the engine to turn over by releasing the clutch (handy if your battery is dead). So the chain tightened, my van rolled and the engine fired. We pulled over and unhooked the chain, and I was on my way home. There was not much difficulty in this journey, until I had to go uphill. The brakes worked fine, and most of the trip home is downhill, but the clutch on the other hand was not fine; in fact, it was hardly there. The last hill before my house was a bit of a struggle, but into my driveway, my bus rolled. There it would stay. That day I worked from the time I got home until the sun went down that night. By the time I was done, there were two huge pleis: One was things I was keeping, and the other was things I was throwing away. The thing about this auction is that they sell cars that have been towed, and not claimed, for whatever reason. So, inside all of the vehicles are the people's belongings as they left them. In this case, all kinds of little things had been left behind. I went through and removed the leftover pieces of someone else's life, and scrubbed my mark into the history of this well traveled-vehicle. I tried to do the right thing and left a few stickers in their places so as not to strip the van of all its character. Over the next two months I worked on my new project from the time I got home from work until I could not see what I was doing anymore. It occupied the majority of my free time. I changed the brakes, removed the interior, put a new clutch in (this time my dad was helping ME), and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. After a couple months of hard work, and not more than $350 in parts, the van looked pretty good.
But then school started and the weather deteriorated. Since then I have only poked and prodded here and there. As the weather gets nicer I will probably start working a bit more, so if you see me -honk!
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| by Billy Hooper | ||||||
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