Never the Same IC#21 A Change of Mind

Well, the day of racing practice drew nearer and Kirk realized the die cast affecting him not of his doing. Mindsets and attitudes can change instantaneously as Kirk will find out.

 

Cue: “Things Can Only Get Better”  https://youtu.be/w2QX4JY1rsQ

 

Kirk’s brother-in-law Mike pushed open the garage door and flipped on the lights. Kirk couldn’t believe his eyes! There, in the garage sat the two stock cars with brand new shiny paint jobs. Kirk couldn’t believe his eyes because he wasn’t confident in what he felt about the cars’ paint jobs. Remember when Mike painted his Dodge Charger and Kirk thought it looked gaudy? The cars were the same, completely bright, eye-glaring, silver metalflake. They looked like a pair of Disco mirror balls in the shape of stock cars! If the paint wasn’t metalflake, you’d be able to see your face in the silver reflection. Kirk walked in the garage; he stepped in between the cars. Utterly speechless, he stood there and took them in.

Kirk always thought that the paint color for his car was going to be left up to him to decide and apply, so they never discussed colors. Maybe the silver flake was the color Mike always planned, so they would match his Charger, or maybe it was because Chuck Westchild their so-called sponsor, wanted some color bright and uniquely singular or plurality in this case. Then on the other hand, maybe Mike painted them with the most expensive paint he could find seeing Chuck paid for it. So, Kirk’s car, or at least the car he was supposedly racing, went from Robin’s egg blue to bright, shiny silver. Kirk felt a bit flabbergasted, but he didn’t comment on the paint for a couple minutes. He realized that the last couple weeks that he hadn’t been to the garage Mike must have been prepping the cars for paint, so, in reality, it was his own fault that he didn’t have input to the color or know what was in the works.

Finally, Kirk said, “The paint went on really smooth. Nice job, no orange peel, no runs and looks like you put on quite a few coats of clear over the top�"huh?” He didn’t dare touch it.

“Four coats of clear. That new paint goes on nice and flat.” Mike said, appearing quite proud of the cars. “So what do you think?”

“Surprised,” Kirk said, without thinking. “I thought that it was up to me to repaint the car.” He paused. “I thought about Panther Pink or Plum Crazy. But, but I guess the cars being the same is a good idea. I didn’t think about it that way.”

“Chuck wanted them silver metalflake as soon as he saw the Charger. Next week he’s sending the professional sign painter over to paint the numbers, names over the windows, and Chuck’s sponsorship on the hoods.”  

“So I called over to Ed’s and he has a low mileage engine hooked up to a three speed over there. For two hundred bucks.”

Kirk grasped that he was being manipulated into acting to override his procrastination on working on his car. “Sounds good, um, so, how can I pick it up?”

“Don will be up by four; he’ll probably drop on over. We’ll see if you two can go over in his pickup and get that engine this evening. In the meantime, you need to order some go-fast parts for that engine. We can’t have you going out there on the track with a stone-stock engine, can we?”

Don was a recent addition to the garage activities. Don worked the swing shift at the bagel factory, of all places, but he was a big racing fan even though didn’t have an automotive background. Don would volunteer to run after parts and do some of the grunt work that didn’t require much expertise. Don was a friendly, jovial guy to have around.

“No�"I suppose we can’t do that, Kirk responded to the comment of not running a stock engine. “Do you still have the Summit Racing catalog out here?”

“Yeah, top drawer, bottom cabinet,” Mike said, waving toward his tall tool box in the corner. Heading to the corner, Kirk resisted running his hand along the shiny silver surface of the stock car. Kirk was always impressed that Mike had a complete full set of good tools at the dealership and yet another set in his garage though the tools there weren’t quite as complete and pristine.

Kirk pulled the dog-eared catalog out that he was very familiar with. The shiny speed and custom parts were enough to get any young gearhead’s heart beating faster. Paging through the catalog, Kirk realized again that he had been forced to press on forward in this, his latest, endeavor of racing that he still wasn’t 100 percent sure about.

Paging through right to the racing camshaft section, Kirk knew from past perusals that most of the camshafts were for big racing V-8’s tuned specifically for drag racing. Those cams wouldn’t do for him. A small section had oval track racing cams; he slid his finger over on the page to see if they had ones that would work in the Dodge engine he was going to use. Not a big selection, but they had them. He folded the page over and went to the racing exhaust headers. There, he found, that they only had one set of suitable headers. He assumed that they would fit the race car because the engine sat, or would sit in his case, in between the wide-open frame rails. Finally, Kirk went to the carburetion section where the myriad selection of carburetors of all types and sizes could make a guy’s mind boggle. He thought he knew what type he needed, but he decided to sit on all three pieces before making a definitive decision.

Kirk never jumped into doing anything quickly as we’ve seen him in action or mostly inaction before. Nervously waiting around for Don to show, Kirk couldn’t focus on any single thing because of the pressure that had suddenly built within his mind reminding him that he was totally committed now and he needed to get off his fanny and prepare his car and his mind for racing. Kirk turned around and leaned with his back against the workbench. Taking in the whole of his bright shiny silver car that needed so much work to ready it made Kirk’s stomach flip. Kirk could never take any kind of pressure like deadlines and heavy workloads, but there it at and so was he.

So, like clockwork right at four o’clock, Don pulled in the driveway and jumped out of his older Ford pickup. He stood tall and skinny wearing a brush cut haircut which contrasted with Kirk’s now shoulder length hair. Don seemed like a happy-go-lucky sort of guy who always looked at the bright side of situations. No dark clouds over him like those that hovered over Kirk most of the time.

“Hey, Don how’z it going?” Kirk greeted him halfway to the garage. Mike shouted a hello from the garage with a wave. Don returned the wave.

“Good, good. Had a breakdown at the plant last night and wrecked an hour’s worth of bagels. Want a few?”

Kirk chuckled. “Sure, always up for a morning bagel.”

“Bagels aren’t just for morning Kirk, they’re good any time of the day.” Don smiled.

“You doing commercials now?”

“No, but what do you think, should I be marketing instead of maintenance?”

“Oh yeah, you’d be a shoe in,” Kirk said with a smile. “Hey, want to go on a road trip to pick up some parts with your, er, pickup? See what I did there?”

“Yeah, you’re a real comedian, Kirk.  Where we heading, what we gettin’?”

“Crazy Ed’s. We’re getting an engine for my car. Mike called up Ed about it beforehand.”  

They both climbed into Don’s truck which Kirk thought seemed nearly immaculate inside despite being relatively old. They started down the road with Don going through the gears with the shifter which was a “three on the tree” meaning it was a three-speed transmission with the shifter sticking out of the steering column.

“I wondered if you had an engine lined up and ready to go for your car. Time’s getting short to get that car of yours up and running before practice day. By the way, it’s quite the shiny ride you have there.”

“Oh yeah�"real damn shiny,” Kirk said in a sarcastic tone while rolling his eyes.

“What? You don’t like the mirror ball look?” Don asked with a smirk.

“Not really.”

“I have to agree with you. It’s, ah, a little, ah, pretentious, you know?”

“Sorry, I don’t know what that means. I think it’s gaudy and overly flashy, not a traditional stock car look.”

Don glanced over at Kirk for a moment with a grin. “Yeah, you got the idea.”

“Hmm, hmm. I don’t think I wanted to be an obvious over-the-top eyesore with first car out on the track in front of people.”

“Understandably,” Don said. “Well, unless you paint over it, it’s what you got and I don’t think Mike or Chuck would be very happy if you took a paint roller and went over the silver with pink or purple…Am I right?”

“Yeah, I’m stuck with it.”

So, the two of them motored on down the road talking about past stock car seasons and interesting events and the outlook for the upcoming season. Don didn’t broach the subject about how Kirk felt about racing or how well he thought he might fare out there racing wheel to wheel, but it didn’t keep Kirk from dwelling on it in his conflicted mind.

They pulled into Crazy Ed’s fine emporium of used auto parts. Right there inside the gate Ed’s tow truck was backed up towards the shop with an engine and transmission hanging from the tow hook. Kirk noticed little wisps of steam drifting up from the engine and from the puddle on the ground. At first glance Kirk thought the engine looked like the one he needed. Did that mean he didn’t have to go out in the yard and pull the engine himself and well, Don.

Ed himself ducked his head out of the shop. He started heading out to the twosome who withdrew from the pickup truck. Ed was pretty much covered in grease. From the knees down he was soaking wet.

“You here for that engine Mike asked for?” Ed said plainly.

Don silently looked at Kirk. Kirk took it that he was doing the talking.

“Yeah, we are for Mike’s engine. Ah, is that it there?” Kirk asked pointing at the dangling engine.

Yep, just got done steam cleaning it.” Ed said, rather proud wearing a grimy smile.

“So, ah, how many miles were on the engine? Any problems with it that were ah, obvious?”

“There were 22 thousand, give or take, on the big car Chrysler it came out of. Car got T-boned, so it was running when it ended up here.” He scratched his head. “Motor looked pretty clean, maybe a little seepage around the valve cover�"you know typical stuff for these motors.”

“Sure. Sounds good. So. What do we owe you for it?
            Ed waved Kirk away. “Nothing�"now. I’ll settle up with Mike later on. Ya’know, he’s a good customer, and I know he’s good for it."

"Yeah, right. Okay. Thanks for cleaning ‘er up.”

“Sure. How ‘bout I pull the truck out and you can back underneath the motor. I’ll drop ‘er right in.”

“Sounds good,” Kirk said. He glanced at Don who nodded his agreement.

With some maneuvering, Don got his truck under the engine and Kirk grabbed the tail end of the transmission to guide it straight when Ed lowered the tow truck hoist. It landed square but when the cable went slack the engine flopped to one side with a huge, resounding clunk. Don’s eyes got big, but upon taking a look there wasn’t any damage to be seen.

Kirk and Don gave Crazy Ed their thanks. Upon getting into the truck, Kirk looked back at the engine and then to Ed who looked like he had just lost his best friend. Junkers! Every piece they acquired is like a baby to them. He gave Ed a quick wave, sat down and slammed the door shut.

Seriously, like going into intergalactic battle, Kirk waved a pointer fingerforward and commanded, “Engage!”

Don smiled but eased the truck out of the junk yard like they had a semi-precious load on board. The twosome took it easy heading back to the garage without incident. Don started backing up to the garage door that was now open. Mike raised his head to watch their arrival.

Mike had been busy on the car hauling truck and now he had been fabricating ramps for a car hauling trailer that he had just acquired from somewhere. Mike had those kinds of connections as witnessed at Ed’s. Kirk couldn’t expect much help from Mike with him working on those two huge cars hauling projects. Kirk didn’t know for sure how much work the truck and trailer needed other than the decks, ramps, and paintjobs, but that was undoubtedly enough. Kirk groaned to himself when he assumed Mike would probably paint the truck the silver metalflake. You can really over do certain things don’t you think? 

Hold back here,” said Kirk to Don as he got out of the pickup. “I’ll check with Mike, but I think we should push the car out of the way and pull the engine out with the inside hoist. Then, I can drop this motor right in the car afterwards.”

“Sounds like a doable plan,” said Don shutting the engine off.

After explaining to Mike, the three of them pushed Kirk’s car out with Kirk reaching in the window to steer. Because the driveway was slightly downhill, the car rolled effortlessly and slowly picked up speed. Kirk jumped up on the side nerf bar and rode the car backwards out into the side lawn and nearly into the weeds.

With Kirk guiding, Don backed the truck in under the hoist. Kirk pulled a couple bolts from the manifolds, found a short length of chain and bolted in the chain with the bolts back in. Hooking up the chain fall (hoist), Kirk vigorously pulled the chain to gradually tauten the chain. This is how the hoist got the name chain fall because when spun fast it looked like a water fall of chains. When the hook got tight, he pulled slower. The engine rolled back up right from its fallen over state and lifted slightly from the truck bed. The engine wasn’t perfectly balanced with the transmission end tilting down heavy. Kirk pressed on until he could pick up the transmission end by hand. He had Don pull his truck out. The three men then dug in with heels and backs into the car struggling to push the car back up the hill and into the garage. They lined up the car with the engine so it’d drop into place, but Kirk had work to do before that happened.  Don and Mike offered to help, but Kirk told them that he had a handle on things. For now, anyway, he thought.

Who was this guy who suddenly got motivated for hard evening garage work?

With the engine hanging from the hoist and the heavy transmission end on a jack stand, Kirk wheeled the cutting torches closer. Mike reminded Kirk to be careful with the new paintjob before he returned to what he was doing on the trailer. Kirk fired off the torch with a resounding pop, he adjusted the flame with the oxygen knob to produce a nice cone-shaped blue flame, donned the tinted goggles, and went to work. With a spray of sparks, directed away from the new paint of course, Kirk lobbed off the old engine mounts at the frame rails with globs of dripping molten steel plopping to the floor with a scattering of sparks. Kneeling down, Kirk bent over under the firewall and floorboards to cut off the transmission mounts. A few fiery sizzling sparks flew under his kneecaps, burned through his pants, and excruciatingly seared his skin in spots. It wasn’t like he wasn’t personally familiar with the pleasurable pain of hot glowing sparks burning into his skin that produced plenty of small scars.

After that, Kirk shut off the acetylene then the oxygen that made the flame appear to suck up inside the torch tip. Pulling his goggles up, he inspected his work and as he suspected, the work looked messy with metallic slag globs remaining where the welds were before. He had thought about quitting for the night, but he didn’t want to leave it like a mess so hung up the torches and pulled out the grinder. Switching his goggles for a face shield, he ground heavily into the slag and the remains of the old mounts. In ten minutes, he was satisfied enough to leave it for the night. 

The next day, Kirk ordered his performance parts he needed for his engine and after work during the evening Kirk found himself there again working on the race car. First, he scrounged in the metal bin for angle iron that would work for the engine mounts. Eyeing up where he needed transmission mounts, he decided that channel iron would work with the stubs that remained from his torch work the night prior.

First, he positioned the engine perfectly with the engine/transmission joint lined up with the firewall. Then, using a good old yard stick, Kirk wiggled the engine back and forth between the frame rails until the engine was exactly centered. He stood back and eyeballed that the engine was level in the car. With the measurement from engine to frame rails he cut off the heavy angle iron. Remember the mention from before that no rubber motor mounts are used so the engine is directly mounted to the frame solidly. There can be no engine torque lost through rubber to make the car cushier. He cut short stubs of angle and welded them solidly to the other pieces already cut at a 90-degree angle. Holding these up against the engine he trimmed with a grinder until they fit. He drilled the three holes in the stub and bolted it to the engine. With a little assistance by a BFH (Big F- Hammer) he got the iron lined up right. He fired up the welder and spot welded the angle to the frame. Satisfied with the one side, Kirk thought he’d better have Mike finish weld the mounts later on. He repeated the process on the other side and that was an evening worth of stock car building. Over the course of two days, it never occurred to him that he was suddenly and totally emersed in the preparation of his car.

Surprised the following evening, Kirk found Mike welding up his engine mounts. While Mike welded, Kirk couldn’t work on anything else for the time being. Pacing back and forth taking the shiny car in he realized that he had a lot of work ahead him in the two weeks that remained before practice day. Glancing over at Mike’s car, Kirk derived that it was pretty much ready to go albeit without numbers and Chucks’s offending advertising. Kirk could only imagine what that might look like. Big lettering down the entire side of the car proclaiming Chuck Westchild’s wonderful car sales? In bigger lettering than the racing numbers? On the front sides and top? At least that’s the worst-case scenario Kirk as envisioned it. After Mike finished up the engine mount welding which Kirk thought looked quite perfect, he thought he’d confer with Mike on few items. 

The radiator had been removed when the old engine was sold, but the radiator remained outside. Kirk asked him about it. Mike told him the radiator would be fine to cool the new engine, but the old mounts would have to be repositioned because of the different length engines. Kirk realized that he’d have to take into consideration the different hood that Mike had installed before the paint job. The hood stood off to the side of the garage and Kirk noticed that it had no kind of fasteners, brackets, or holes to mount it on the car. By the looks of it, Kirk surmised that Mike had painted the hood separate from the car and it was now up to him to figure out how it would be mounted. Taking a deep breath, Kirk hoped that it would work without wrecking the glittery garish paint job.

Kirk took a look inside the cockpit and remembered that he had to lower the seat an inch or so, and because of that, the steering would have to be lowered as well. The two switches to run the stock car were there in place, but they only reminded Kirk that the engine had to wired up. That led to him recall that the gauges needed hooking up along with the fuel system as well. He thought that if he had to leave the painting of the nerf bars and wheels until after practice day, he could overlook that job�"for now. It seemed the more he thought about the car, the more he saw jobs that needing work. He had another weekend to work before they hauled the cars to the track for practice. At least Kirk didn’t have to worry about how he’d get his car to the truck anymore with Mike prepping that presently. Without a trailer or truck, so-called flat towing a stock car on the road was no fun at all not to mention the wear and tear on the drive train and tires on the race car.

A note here is to mention that stock cars’ rear differentials are welded solidly so making sharp turns towing a stock car is nearly impossible. Hooked behind the towing vehicle, the stock car always wants to go straight ahead and the hazard of jackknifing between the two vehicles was a real and present danger.       

After taking a mental inventory of things he needed to do on the car to get ready, Kirk felt he had to shift into overdrive on the project. What bothered him the most was that he knew that there were many more, an untold number of items needing his attention that didn’t even occur to him�"yet.

With a mental effort to focus on the job at hand, Kirk reminded himself that the transmission mount needing completion. At that thought, a hot rush of realization and adrenaline flowed through him�"the car required a shifter and clutch linkage which only reminded Kirk of throttle linkage! It was like a snowball rolling downhill…

Grabbing the floor jack, he started jacking up the front of the car, but as he lifted the car the transmission stayed where it was. This put too much stress on the fresh motor mounts and possibly break something like the engine block! He put a couple jack stands under the frontend. He eyed the transmission hanging down sitting on that one jackstand. How to fix this so he could work under the car to fabricate the transmission mount? A come along? If he had another floor jack, but he didn’t. Looking around the shop wall areas he saw nothing that could help him. Come on Kirk! Think!

He took a deep breath and leaning over the engine gazing at the transmission sitting there he suspended himself on the engine hoist chain hanging from the ceiling. It didn’t dawn on him for those couple minutes until he mentally slapped himself aside the head. The hoist! Taking the short chain, he had used on the engine he wrapped one end under the transmission and grabbed the two ends together and set them on the hoist’s hook. Genius! Or would have been more genius if you had comprehended that right away!

Lifting the engine, the needed few inches, he rolled the floor jack to the car’s rear, jacked it up and put a couple stands under there. Lifting the front again, then the hoist followed by the back until he got the car high enough to get underneath with a creeper, he finally accomplished his original objective.

After the longer than usual evening working on the car, Kirk made it home for a shower and to hit the bed. He was just plain tired. Intercepting him right away upon entering the door, his sister informed him that she had a chat with Farrah that evening. Apparently, Farrah thought something was wrong between him and her because he hadn’t gone to see her or called her in over a week. Farrah was not a demanding girl by any means but Kirk didn’t need this relationship pressure on top of what he already felt. He was running out of time with the stock car, the van wasn’t anywhere near completion, but it could wait and the fun things like motorcycle riding or high-speed Firebird driving were all put on hold. Farrah also fit into the category of being put on hold, but that meant Kirk would definitely fell guilty.

Kirk’s father waited up for Kirk as well. Kirk knew, more or less, sooner or later that this announcement from his father was coming. Now that his father worked full time at the gypsum plant, he planned farming activities for the weekends.

“I knocked down (mowed) the 15-acre hay field, today,” Kirk’s father announced. “We can bale it all on Saturday.”

Kirk’s head spun, seemingly stuffed with fluff, and his fuse was short. “I can’t bale on Saturday. It’s the last weekend before we take the cars to the track, and I have a lot of things to do on the car.”

“Mike raced that car before, there can’t be THAT much to do on it, you can finish it during the week.”

Kirk felt like blurting out something he’d regret seeing he still lived in the parental household. He took a deep breath.

“I just changed out the engine and trans, so I have to hook that up. I got to remount the seat and there are so�"so many things to do on the car.”

The ultimate slap came with. “That car’s not all that important to you. You didn’t work on it all winter and you said that you weren’t all that excited about racing.  You said it before, so now you can help me bale this weekend or you can find another place to live.”

Kirk gritted his teeth. So that’s the card he pulls now.

“Yeah, I guess,” Kirk mumbled. He went to wash up and got to bed, but he knew sleep wouldn’t come easy.