I finally got my car back, and damn does she look good. A nice coat of performance red paint that my buddy Baz has lovingly nicknamed “blood orange”. The car, however, was still in pieces.
Three months ago I decided to get the entire car painted. I had bought a new hood; a 2.5 inch Cobra R cowl hood. I bought a new fender to replace the one that was damaged by the original owner the day I bought the car (although that is a post for another day…maybe if I am bored at work tomorrow, I will type it up). I wanted her to look pristine, as if she had just left the showroom floor, but better. Paint is not cheap, neither is the body work and prep work required before one can even paint the damned thing. Fortunately for me, my garage is next door to another buddy that does paint work. We worked out a deal…he hooked me up with a hell of a deal on a paint job, contingent on me buying the paint, taking her apart, and being patient with the work.
So, I finally got my car back…and damn does she look good. I still had to put her back together. I wanted to be meticulous…careful in putting her back together. There was no way in hell I wanted to scratch the new coat of paint. A few hours later, with the hood on, the fender cut in, and the interior back together… I decided to call it a day.
How is any of that relevant? Fuck if I know, I just wanted to brag about having my car back.
The point is that later that day, I get a call from my roommate Doomsday asking me to help him put his car back together. Ironically, his car is also a mustang; a beautiful black widow fox body that at this point had no motor or trans.
Doomsday got his name from his ability to exaggerate any situation into the equivalent of the end of the world. It also helps that his first name begins with a ‘D’. I have never met anyone who could make such a big deal out of the smallest situation as Doomsday could. If a rock kicked up and hit the windshield of his daily driver Honda, Doomsday would pull over to the side of the road, grab his head and bitch/moan/complain that the car is ruined. Last week, at around 3am on the night before trash day, Doomsday comes out of his room as I’m playing some Xbox and asks if I can hear what is going on outside. Now…my room is the furthest from the street, and I’m playing video games, so obviously I can hear everything going on outside. I pause the game, and go downstairs to see what is going on. Outside, about 4 houses to the left of ours, is a small fire. Someone must have left flammable material in their trash, and it had spontaneously combusted (either that or some neighborhood kids decided to go fire crazy). The fire is contained to a bucket, with flames reaching 3 feet above the 2 foot tall bucket. There is a jeep parked right next to this bucket, which is feeling the wrath of the heat. Actually, a square foot patch of paint on the front bumper boiled a bit. Minutes later, with the fire department on site with a small fire extinguisher, the fire is out and everybody vacates the street. The following day at work, Doomsday is retelling this story. His version was a little more extreme. According to him, the flames were 20 feet in the air, and the jeep was burning to the ground. See what I mean?
His car was being a pain in the ass, as always. The first time we tried to put the trans in (this was in June or so), it took us a few hours because it is a dual clutch disk setup with a crazy pilot bearing. We were using a regular floor jack, and tried to work under a car that was barely a foot off the ground. Eventually, after painstakingly aligning the splines and with sheer force and determination; we got the damned thing in the car. A few days later, the motor blew.
This time around, we not only had to put a trans in, but the freshly rebuilt motor as well. To me, it would have made sense to attach the trans to the motor while it is outside the car, and just dropped everything in on an angle. No…Doomsday did not want to remove his hood…because that 10 minutes and 4 bolts would have been too much, and made too much sense. Instead, we drop the motor in the car; Dooms working the engine crane, and I was guiding the motor. We do not bolt down the engine mounts because Dooms wanted to attach the trans first so that everything is aligned. Makes sense, I guess.
Did I mention how much I hate working on his car? If not…allow me to repeat it: I…hate….working….on…..Doomsay’s ….. car. Its like crouching Mustang, hidden HAHA FUCK YOU! Seriously, everything that can possibly go wrong while working on a car…goes wrong while working on that car. After 4 hours, and still not being finished, both of us looked like we went to the Bronx and insulted the wrong guy. Cuts, bruises, aches, mental anguish…you name it, we had it. That car is dangerous. It looks for ways to hurt you, whether it be sharp edges, things falling, things leaking, jacks rolling, trans crushing your fingers or just the pain of the subzero concrete garage floor in the middle of December. On the bright side, at least the scratches I have along my arms from the sharp edges of the car form a pattern that I can attribute to rough sex. Trust me, I’d rather say I was with a kinky scratcher than say that I got all scratched up working on someone’s car. Its embarrassing, but that car has moods…its on permanent PMS; a vindictive little bitch out to squeeze the life out of you.
The motor is in the car, still not bolted down, but at least it is inside. The trans still is not in after 3 hours of trying every trick in the book. Let him fuck with it for now…I have my own car to finish. At least my car doesn’t hate me.
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