COAL 9: Out of One Box and Into Another (also: Friends in High Places)

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– Posted on August 18, 2023

The five-year lease of the ‘85 Volvo 745 was about to expire. Its fuel pump was leaking at the seal and was replaced under warranty, but the new one was metered such that the car was way down on power; that was good incentive for me to wash my hands of the car.

Thomas Bryant photo (link is to his Volvo diesel fuel pump sorcery resource)


 

I wasn’t going to buy it; the dealer wanted almost the entire price of a new car for it, even after I had already almost paid that same amount over the five years! So I was happy to turn it in. It was so clean, it looked as good as new, and the Volvo dealer sold it in a few days. Then, just a week after the new buyer had taken delivery, the transmission failed! The owner of Ventura Volvo was angry with me, saying I knew the transmission was about to fail and that was why I didn’t keep it. He told me it cost them $4,000 to replace the transmission, because they didn’t have a technician in the shop who could repair a ZF transmission (or was authorized to do so).

I was accused of foretelling the death of a ZF-22 four-speed automatic like the one.


 

Now, my first K-car came about as a customer had brought in an ‘81 Dodge Aries for repair. The body was in fairly good shape, but the feedback-carbureted 2.2 engine was tired, and so was most everything else under the hood. I don’t recall the particulars other than the owner did not want to spend the money it would take to repair the car, and just gave it to me in exchange for any accrued labor charges. It was a yellow 2-door, a very early-built unit assembled in September 1980.

So out of one box and into another: I decided to fix up the Aries to drive. I installed a computer-controlled, throttle body injected 1989 2.2L engine and automatic transaxle with lockup torque converter. This car turned out to be my № 1 driver for many years to come.

It also turned into my ‘test lab’ for several engine projects, including the 2.5L turbo engine that inspired Daniel Stern in a subsequent long adventure. That engine came when a friend back at Harbor Chrysler had replaced a 2.5L short engine in a car that had been in a collision which had busted off a casting support that retains the right axle shaft support bearing assembly. I addressed that by installing unequal-length drive axles (long right side) in the Aries. It really didn’t have any torque steer, even so. In other words, I didn’t do anything about the broken casting. If you can’t fix it correctly, fix it right!

· · ·

I have had many great customers pass through my shop in the 24 years that I was in business as Hemi’s Independent Chrysler Repair. One of them was John Schneider, whom you may know better as ‘Bo Duke’. I first met John one year at the Silver State Challenge in Ely, Nevada; I casually gave him my business card and told him, “If you ever need any work done on the General, give me a call”. I really didn’t give it much chance of happening.

But one day I got a phone call directly from John. He had a 1956 DeSoto and he needed it finished; it was in another shop, likely in Los Angeles or nearby, but the people there were dragging their feet on finishing a whole-car rewiring job. John asked if I would be interested in finishing it. Yes, why not! (after all, who knows where this may lead). So he and his crew dropped off the ’56 DeSoto at my shop with a new replica wiring harness partially installed in this car. It was a dirty job, but somebody hadda do it.

When I got it finished, John arrived in his 1970 Dodge Polara convertible for me to work on. It needed brakes, badly; it had 4-wheel drum brakes and they were cooked.

Well, I finished that car, too, and when they came to pick it up, John was driving Bo’s General Lee, his ’69 Dodge Charger with a 511-inch HEMI engine. This time I get to work on the good stuff!

John wanted it readied for another trip to Ely, Nevada, and that 90-mile ‘drive’ down Highway 318. The request was basically for a tune-up; valve adjustment; transmission service, and a good look at everything under the car. He also wanted longer wheel retaining studs installed on the rear axles, because at the last Challenge, the inspection guys had told him his extra-deep lug nuts were protruding out over the ends of the factory axle studs. So I had my work cut out for myself.

As I was about to drain the torque converter while servicing the transmission, I found that a previous “mechanic” must have left one of the four torque converter retaining bolts loose when doing a transmission installation. This bolt had backed out and struck the engine as it was rotating, until it was ripped out of its mounting hole. John gave me permission to repair this as well. So the transmission had to come out in order to have the converter repaired. All the repairs were completed and the General was picked up.

Here’s the car at speed, 120+ MPH. I know because I was a course worker there on the race route and took this photo as the General passed my checkpoint.


 

Over the years I worked on the General several times again and rather than deliver the car to me, John would call and ask me to pick up the car at his home. This, John’s home, is also where a Hallmark Christmas Movie called “Mary Christmas” was largely filmed, starring Cynthia Gibb; John Schneider; Jenna Boyd, and Tom Bosley. The reason that John was anxious to have the wiring in the DeSoto completed became clear: that car was a significant component of the story with a lady TV reporter driving it to and from John’s home in several scenes.

This photo was the last I took of the General shortly before it was auctioned off at the Barrett Jackson Auto Auction. You may notice that the car had been repainted and all the decals were gone except the 01:

· · ·

For a time I also had this 1964 Plymouth Belvedere, given to me by a retiring Priest:

It was in several movies while I owned it: “Inevitable Grace”, filmed in August 1992, and one with Danny DeVito, “Jack the Bear” in 1993. Along the way, I replaced the old 318 with a later one from an ‘85 or newer police car (better heads and a Rochester Quadrajet 4-barrel; they ran better than the wheezing, surging 2-barrel civilian cars described in Chapter 8). Eventually I sold it to a Slant-6 Club member to replace his ’64 Dart as his tow vehicle.

· · ·

In February 1995, my auto mechanic neighbor Lee at ABC Auto Care informed me that a friend at a car dealer he was dealing with had taken in a Red 1989 Chrysler TC by Maserati as a trade-in, and they were wholesaling it that afternoon at 5 PM to the highest bidder, along with a number of other vehicles. Lee was dealing in used cars, and was licensed to buy and sell. He asked me if I was interested in the car. I took some time off from work and drove to the dealership to look over the car. My initial impression was not the kind that makes you say “I gotta have this car!”

It was a well-used 5- or 6-year old car, red with a ginger interior. I could not see the convertible top, which was either tan or black.The interior was well worn—cigar ashes on the floor and ash tray, with a cigar box on the passenger side floor partially filled with old cigar buts. The only really appealing thing I saw was this rolled-up item lying around; It was the Pledge Of Allegiance as it had been recited by Red Skelton on his TV show on January 14, 1969. To an immigrant boy, that was the most impressive part of this car and a good omen:

· · ·

I’ll finish this chapter by closing out 1995: Eva received ‘Chris’ the Dodge Omni that Christmastime: a 1984 with a 1989 TBI 2.2 engine. The car had started out with that French engine they had as the new base motive power starting in ’83: a 62-horsepower Simca unit, available only with a manual transmission and only without air conditioning. Or…you know, I may just be wrong about that car having that engine; I’ve done so many transplants. Maybe it started out with a carbureted 2.2.

Away with the old and in with the new!


 
After Eva got the Omni, she gave the Nova to my older daughter Christine, who quickly sold it; we know not to whom.

I’m not done telling about Chrysler TCs by Maserati, and here’s a preview of stories yet to come. You may notice this car in the last picture here is red with a ginger interior, and you might be able to read the license plate. Stay tuned!

Previous chapters:

  1. First Transport – Coming to ‘Amerika’
  2. Being American and Picking a Car Company
  3. Motoring Into the Working World
  4. The 1960s – Serving, Saluting, and Swapping
  5. The 1970s, Part I – Backing and Forthing
  6. The 1970s, Part II – Barking and Forthing
  7. The 1980s, Part I – The Barracuda Goes Into Dry Dock and the Wagon’s a Tractor
  8. The 1980s, Part II – Much Too Many Cars and One Dealership Too Much