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A Vega Story:
A warm summer evening in 1979, me a scrawny 19 y.o., looking to grab a nice big In-N-Out burger and fries at the local stand. Go to turn into the driveway and what comes along and swings around from the left, darts/pushes in front of me and totally cuts me off like I'm a complete f'-ing fool worth nothing? Bright shiny newish Jensen-Healy sports car, top down, big groomed a-hole-looking dude driving and hot young chick on the passenger side. F*ck.
Now ahead of me, he slides into the short left lane (there was two-lane service, one to either side of the building). I alone in my couple-hundred-dollar p.o.s. Chevy Vega crap can with dying engine file into the right where there are more cars, and stop. It's looking like a wait, so I shut off the motor. Yeah, this is how you get treated sometimes.
We do wait, and yes it'll be a bit. A-hole and his bitch are over there yakking, yakking, all animated and excited and out to impress each other. I listen to the radio. But deep within my Vega's towering cracked OHC head and decrepit original cast-aluminum block there is a slow, silent killer: With each passing moment an insidious hot monster creeps inside the worn, be-stilled four-hole, a process that happens each time the motor has been running awhile and is turned off. Dirty oil, under the valve retainers, down the shafts, past the abused and failing oil seals. Off the valve lips and into the coolant-scored cylinders, each one, drip drip. Soon there is probably a good little wad of hot muck on top of each resting piston, just sitting there. We wait. The oil waits.
And then, my line finally moves. I reach for the key and crank over the wheezy 2.3 until it kicks, coughs and eventually starts.
A.H. and B-word are still yakking.
As it does each time the motor hot-starts, the oil that had just leaked down the valve seals now lights and burns, and pours straight out the exhaust as smoke. Oh no, I hadn't thought about that. A full-on cloud appears out the left side of the car where the exhaust exit is. It builds larger and larger as the engine struggles then hangs there in the warm still air. The engine eventually smooths out, cleans up as much as it ever will, and there is no further smoke.
But the excruciating, fat dark cloud remains hanging in the air off my rear flank. Then...a slight breeze happens along. Just a little bit.
Levitated still, the cloud began to waft away from me. Past my lane, over the center median, then across the trimmed green grass in slow motion like a giant rolling black turd. And then, as if pushed by angels, either God's or the devil's...straight toward the...no, you gotta be kidding...the Jensen Healy in the other lane. Crap! It's going to hit them! They'll know it's me, and I'll really look like an idiot!
Crap again! No they won't! My car has cleaned up and isn't making smoke any more! Like the guy who farted, nobody unless they saw it will have any idea who did it at all!
The couple in the Jensen yak and yak and then...are enveloped. The talking slows, they look around, and soon he is pissed, WTF. She's turning her head to the left, right, and behind, wondering where the hell all this filthy sh*t came from that they have now hopelessly sucked into each of their lungs. Pretty face not so pretty anymore.
I, too, am dying but for a much different reason, in fact I can barely sit in my chair. They were just stuck there in the middle of all that airborne doo-doo, so pissed!. I had to look ahead and play it straight, all of this is seen out the peripheral vision now. That smoke barely moved. A.H. put the J.H. in gear and rolled forward as much as he could to get back out into breathable oxygen, then the cloud passed and continued on out into the street.
KROQ, what a bitchin' L.A. radio station we had back in that day. I focused on it now, don't know if I took a moment to look at the Jensen-Healy again 'cause by gawd if I did I'd laugh so hard and give myself up and then they'd really figure out who to blame. Maybe I should have, anyhow. I will never know if anyone behind me caught all that.
A warm summer evening in 1979, me a scrawny 19 y.o., looking to grab a nice big In-N-Out burger and fries at the local stand. Go to turn into the driveway and what comes along and swings around from the left, darts/pushes in front of me and totally cuts me off like I'm a complete f'-ing fool worth nothing? Bright shiny newish Jensen-Healy sports car, top down, big groomed a-hole-looking dude driving and hot young chick on the passenger side. F*ck.
Now ahead of me, he slides into the short left lane (there was two-lane service, one to either side of the building). I alone in my couple-hundred-dollar p.o.s. Chevy Vega crap can with dying engine file into the right where there are more cars, and stop. It's looking like a wait, so I shut off the motor. Yeah, this is how you get treated sometimes.
We do wait, and yes it'll be a bit. A-hole and his bitch are over there yakking, yakking, all animated and excited and out to impress each other. I listen to the radio. But deep within my Vega's towering cracked OHC head and decrepit original cast-aluminum block there is a slow, silent killer: With each passing moment an insidious hot monster creeps inside the worn, be-stilled four-hole, a process that happens each time the motor has been running awhile and is turned off. Dirty oil, under the valve retainers, down the shafts, past the abused and failing oil seals. Off the valve lips and into the coolant-scored cylinders, each one, drip drip. Soon there is probably a good little wad of hot muck on top of each resting piston, just sitting there. We wait. The oil waits.
And then, my line finally moves. I reach for the key and crank over the wheezy 2.3 until it kicks, coughs and eventually starts.
A.H. and B-word are still yakking.
As it does each time the motor hot-starts, the oil that had just leaked down the valve seals now lights and burns, and pours straight out the exhaust as smoke. Oh no, I hadn't thought about that. A full-on cloud appears out the left side of the car where the exhaust exit is. It builds larger and larger as the engine struggles then hangs there in the warm still air. The engine eventually smooths out, cleans up as much as it ever will, and there is no further smoke.
But the excruciating, fat dark cloud remains hanging in the air off my rear flank. Then...a slight breeze happens along. Just a little bit.
Levitated still, the cloud began to waft away from me. Past my lane, over the center median, then across the trimmed green grass in slow motion like a giant rolling black turd. And then, as if pushed by angels, either God's or the devil's...straight toward the...no, you gotta be kidding...the Jensen Healy in the other lane. Crap! It's going to hit them! They'll know it's me, and I'll really look like an idiot!
Crap again! No they won't! My car has cleaned up and isn't making smoke any more! Like the guy who farted, nobody unless they saw it will have any idea who did it at all!
The couple in the Jensen yak and yak and then...are enveloped. The talking slows, they look around, and soon he is pissed, WTF. She's turning her head to the left, right, and behind, wondering where the hell all this filthy sh*t came from that they have now hopelessly sucked into each of their lungs. Pretty face not so pretty anymore.
I, too, am dying but for a much different reason, in fact I can barely sit in my chair. They were just stuck there in the middle of all that airborne doo-doo, so pissed!. I had to look ahead and play it straight, all of this is seen out the peripheral vision now. That smoke barely moved. A.H. put the J.H. in gear and rolled forward as much as he could to get back out into breathable oxygen, then the cloud passed and continued on out into the street.
KROQ, what a bitchin' L.A. radio station we had back in that day. I focused on it now, don't know if I took a moment to look at the Jensen-Healy again 'cause by gawd if I did I'd laugh so hard and give myself up and then they'd really figure out who to blame. Maybe I should have, anyhow. I will never know if anyone behind me caught all that.
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