Never the Same IC#32 Guess What?

Kirk had been born with an uncanny endowment: Whatever quandary vexed him, he would always guess incorrectly in its resolution.

 

Despite partaking in his lifelong passion of stock car racing, Kirk felt relieved the past eventful weekend of racing was over. With the start of another new week, he could just show up at the dealership and work off his depressive thoughts about his minor crash on Saturday night and his subsequent breakdown on Sunday. At least he tried his darnedest to do his best at the race track with what he had to deal with in a substandard model stock car. With his quick survey of the failed axle bearing on Sunday, he guessed it would be an easy fix with a new bearing and a bit of welding.

Cue: “Ironside theme excerpt” https://youtu.be/cOy6hqzfsAs

On Monday, his work at the dealership went pretty much the same as usual with the new car preps and minor warranty repairs. His work was really beginning to get under his skin in a constant negative way, but it was a steady job producing a regular wage. Being trained in auto mechanics he should have loved working at the dealership, but he thought that his skills were being wasted in the tasks he had to complete. Once in awhile Kirk realized that perhaps he really didn’t possess the mental and hands on skills he thought he possessed and put too much credence in those school learned skills that maybe didn’t translate well to hands on. As we know, Kirk had missed out on the early in a life skill acquirement of a trustworthy hands/eye coordination. This fact in itself led to a lot of minor cuts, scrapes and bruises and loads of wasted time in getting a task done right. Besides his mind ruminated on other things.

After work, Kirk slid by the auto parts store to purchase said axle bearing for the stock car. He knew that the rear axle was a Ford but as to a specific make and model car it came out of which he had no clue. Heading to the store, he figured all the Ford axle bearings from the era HAD to be the same. As he drove, he envisioned how he’d replace the destroyed bearing.

He’d take a heavy ball peen hammer and a cold chisel and wallop the steel ring bearing retainer until it had a deep groove in it. Usually that was enough to release the grip the retainer had on the axle. After that he’d just slid the old bearing off and new one on. The retainer usually goes on slickly if you get it close to the bearing, and then heat it up cherry red with the torch. This makes the retainer swell just a little so you can just tap it in until it butts up against the bearing. Easy, peasy. Guess again, Kirk!

 Well, on arrival at the parts store, the rotund bearded parts guy behind the counter told Kirk that there were, in fact, three different bearings from the era Kirk thought the axle derived from. The guy, being unbusy, brought out the three bearings with their retainers. Kirk in the meantime grabbed four rolls of quarter inch masking tape he needed to purchase besides that would come in handy for his other project. When the big guy returned, they examined the three bearings and determined there were differences in axle diameter where the bearing fit the rear axle and the thickness of the bearing itself. Kirk not having examined said wrecked bearing at all, made an uninformed selection, in other words, he guessed at one.

Cue: Ironside theme excerpt” https://youtu.be/cOy6hqzfsAs

After a nondescript dinner with his parents and little sister, Kirk took off to the garage. He carried the bearing over to the stock car. Working outside, he dragged the floor jack out there, jacked up the left rear of the car and wrestled the tire, wheel, and axle out of the axle tube. He let the wheel flip down flat so the iron axle flipped straight up vertical almost smacking him in his head. Woo, that would’ve hurt! Staring him right there in the eye, Kirk groaned instantly seeing that he should’ve inspected the situation before taking any actions. There on the end of the axle where the splines slide into the center differential socket, he saw said splines were gnarled and gnashed down. Yeah, this revelation meant he needed a new axle meaning a used axle. Being too late to fetch an axle from Crazy Ed’s Auto Recycling Yard (Junkyard), he wondered if in fact he purchased the right bearing. Eyeing them side by side, no, he hadn’t. So, in preparation of tomorrow’s foray into the used auto parts paradise, he disassembled the wheel, brake drum and hub. Not making another mistake, he threw the axle in the Firebird’s trunk.

Another day, another dollar at the ole Dodge dealership the next day. As usual his personal dilemmas dominated his thoughts. Yeah, he focused on his usual tasks, but his mind would flick back to fixing his stock car’s axle. Would the repair now go better? Will the bearing hold up or fail again in the heat of battle?  Kirk mentally slapped himself, with an obvious reminder that lots of racers use that particular, very common rear axle set up so this wasn’t anything like his uncommon engine problem where only he and Mike dealt with them.

Then, once again in the past few seconds, his mind would flick over to spending time with little cute and sexy Sarah Elizabeth. Especially on his mind since Kirk found out she was an authentic Earth Girl seeing her birthday was on Earth Day. Like in the movie, Earth Girls are Easy, this knowledge allowed Kirk to desire Sarah almost constantly. Like the researchers who study this sort of thing say men’s thoughts return to the subject of sex every 12 seconds.

 Really? Really!

Then, in between lascivious notions of Sarah, he’d think about other major things in his life like painting the van. There it sat all masked off with those red and blue splotches on the upper panels waiting for Kirk to do some more painting�"or something on it.

After work, Kirk took the short detour out of the way to drop by Crazy Ed’s. A word of note about Ed. He sponsored a couple stock cars, but he treated all other racers swell. If he didn’t have a part a racer needed, which was rare, he’d find it for them. Anyway, Kirk parked his Firebird out by the road not wanting to pull in through the gates where the driveway was littered with metal and glass bits of cars, oil and mud. No need to subject the Firebird’s tires to that! He grabbed out the axle from the trunk and strolled in. One of Ed’s young minions was cutting something out a car with a cutting torch. The shower of sparks shot out from the car like a garden hose sprinkling a lawn except here he was sprinkling the driveway with bits of molten metal. The guy stopped spraying sparks, looked up and pointed to the garage. Kirk swerved to the left.

Inside, Ed himself was in the midst of disassembling an engine. Middle-aged and well-worn with a shaggy haircut, Ed wore coveralls that were once dark blue, but the blue was predominantly covered with several layers of dirt, oil and grime. He stood up with a groan and glanced at the axle Kirk toted.

Before Kirk could get a word out. Ed spoke and pointed to the long line of shelving units.

“Ford axle for your stock car?”

Kirk nodded dumbly with Ed identifying his axle AND knowing that he was a racer.

“Yep.”

“Down the second row, about halfway down. Second shelf.”

“Ahhh,” Kirk paused with his doubts based on the current quick interaction and his limited knowledge. “The parts guy said there are three different types of Ford axles because I went for a replacement bearing.”

“Yeah, there are three types but only one like you’re looking for. You’ll see a couple like yours with good bearings. Says Ford on the hub.”

“Great!” Kirk headed down the aisle with his axle in hand and sure enough an axle was easy to spot. Putting his side by side the others, he found one perfect match with a good bearing. Carrying them both back, Kirk asked, “how much?”

“How’s a twenty sound?”

“Twenty sounds good,” said Kirk digging into his wallet and transferring a twenty to Ed’s dirty greasy hand. “You want the old axle?”

“Sure. A good exchange for scrap. Just leave it there.” He pointed to the garage floor.

Kirk could have kicked himself right then and there. Of course, Ed would scrap the old axle as that was a major part of the recycling of auto parts business.

“All right, Thanks. This’ll get me back on the track.”

“Yep! Good luck.”

Thanks,” Kirk said again over his shoulder as he walked out cradling the axle.

Kirk set the axle carefully in his trunk as if he didn’t want to damage the solid iron and steel component. After getting back to the garage it was still light out so he thought that he’d just slap the replacement axle in and be a step ahead. Mike looked and sounded busy under the hood of yet another car he fixed up for resale. Kirk had left the four mounting bolts right there on the axle tube, so all he had to do is fetch the correct socket, extension, and ratchet which size he remembered from the dismantling. He’d put axles in before and knew the task was relatively easy.

Starting the axle in the tube, he slid it in until it butted up against the differential. The hard part was to lift the heavy splined end of the axle high enough to slide and mesh into the splined socket. To do this, Kirk had to firmly grip and apply enough significant pressure on the outside hub to overcome the weight of that long axle inside the tube and lift it so he could slide it the final two inches into the splines. He muscled it up and gently pushed. It wouldn’t go and clunked down away from the splined socket to the bottom of the tube. Again, he forced it up and he thought it started, but no, it clunked down. Again and again, he tried but it wouldn’t go. He got frustrated and tried to over muscle it in. Suddenly, he gained a sour thought that maybe the internal splines got buggered up during the race and he’d have to pull the differential apart and replace that! That was not something he wanted to do. He imagined the joint axle and spline and how they probably came apart when the bearing failed. No, he convinced himself the internal splines are fine. He tried again, twisted down and shoved. The axle lid right in! He let out a breath and sat there on the damp ground for a couple moments. One at a time, he started the four super-hardened fine-threaded nuts on the retaining bolts. Just when he got the fourth started and reaching to grab the wrench, Mike moseyed over.

“Hey Kirk,” Mike said. “Did you remember to weld the retainer on that axle?”

Kirk let out a groan, “NOOOOOOO!” and flopped down flat on his back on the cool, damp grass.

By then it was getting dusky, but he undid the nuts with his already grimy fingers, putting them back in the same safe spot the axle tube as before. He yanked the axle out and carried it into the garage. Setting up the welder and donning his safety equipment, he welded two hefty spot welds on the bearing retainer. He knew it would be murder to get the welds broken if he ever had to replace the bearing, but as they say, “better safe than sorry.” It was dark by then, and he wasn’t about to wrestle with that axle again on that latish night. He gave it up until the next evening which went much better by the way.

Despite the Midseason Championships looming for next weekend, Kirk did wonder, for about fifteen seconds if he should work on his car that week to glean just a little more speed out of his car. He rationalized out his situation.

Nah, even with a little more speed I’d end up not qualifying for the feature. At least the way things have been going, I get more practice running both the heat and consolation races every single day of racing. I got better things to do than tinker! 

What Kirk meant by better things, he chomped at the bit to get back to work on his van. Kirk had his ideas straight in his head for a so-called custom paint job from his childhood love for custom car magazines.

With those four rolls of quarter inch tape, Kirk set to work…