call me ishmael said...
Well, mr jgm2, you know I’m a modest man and I don’t
like to boast but my first, teenage, school-holiday job was painting the
steelwork at the Tessal Spot Garage, mid-way between Northfield and Longbridge,
on the right-hand side going South. I don’t know how much expertise that gives
me, how much insight into BMC, or BL or the Ostin, as the locals called it.
As for BL cars being worse than any others, you obviously never owned a 70’s Simca or Fiat, or any of the early Vivas and Victors. I don’t think the Ford Anglia was much good and I know the Mk 1 Cortina was shit from bumper to bumper, including the engine, the starter, the flywheel, the clutch and those amazing McPherson Strut shock absorbers which just rusted their way through the inner front wing/wheel arch.
As for BL cars being worse than any others, you obviously never owned a 70’s Simca or Fiat, or any of the early Vivas and Victors. I don’t think the Ford Anglia was much good and I know the Mk 1 Cortina was shit from bumper to bumper, including the engine, the starter, the flywheel, the clutch and those amazing McPherson Strut shock absorbers which just rusted their way through the inner front wing/wheel arch.
Way back then, early mornings were soundtracked by
the sound of Ford starter motors chattering as their Bendix Drives ground
themselves to bits.
Grateful as I was that much practice had taught me
to change a Ford starter motor in about four minutes, I was nevertheless
exasperated at this ubiquitous defect. Ah, Mr Ishmael, said an Asian Customer
Relations expert at Ford, Dagenham, it is the wrong procedure which you are
doing and finding so frustrating, Cor Blimey. What it is, you see, Mr Ishmael,
and I most certainly should not be telling you this and I will be eternally
grateful, stone the blooming crows, Mr Ishmael, for you not mentioning this
with no names and no pack drill, but you see the fucking thing is fucking fucked.
It is the fucking bell-housing, you see. You know those two fucking bolts, one
at the top and one at the bottom of the fucking starter motor, the ones which
go through the bell-fucking housing and secure the starter motor, allowing the
Bendix Drive of the starter to shoot, spinning, down the shaft and engage with
the fucking flywheel and turn-over the fucking engine? Well - and like I said,
this must be our secret - the threaded fucking holes which the fucking bolts go
into are just a few thou. out of fucking line, isn’t it. And this means that
instead of the teeth of the fucking Bendix Drive engaging with the
corresponding teeth in the fucking flywheel and turning the bastard engine over
like it’s fucking supposed to, they fucking well do not quite connect. And this
is why every fucking morning, up and down the fucking country we can all, Cor
Blimey, hear those Bendix teeth chattering away, gradually getting slower and
slower as the fucking shit battery fucking runs itself fucking down. What you
need to do, Mr Ishmael, and I would certainly find myself on the rock’n’roll if
it came out that I had told you this…what you must do is not go and buy another
fucking starter motor, much less an exchange starter motor because they are
fucking worse; what you must do is equip yourself with a small wedge of
hardwood, place it in the small gap between the starter motor body and the
crankacase and hit the fucking bastard with a big hammer until it is jammed in
there. This will distort the position of the fucking starter fucking motor just
enough to compensate for the rotten fucking engineering of the bell housing and
enable the teeth of the Bendix Drive to engage with the fucking flywheel and
start-up the fucking heap of shit which you have so sadly bought.
And do Fords know about this? I enquired.
Of course, stone the blooming crows and fuck me
gently, of course they fucking know about it, they make the fucking thing, don’t
they, Mr Ishmael, and just think how much money they make selling shit fucking
starter motors that are only going to work for a few months?
Well, I put the phone down, found a bit of wood and bashed it in as instructed. And of course it worked. And I never changed another Ford starter motor, although sadly I still bought Fords, up until my first Volvo three-litre 760 GLE estate, about twenty years ago, since when I have only owned flashy, foreign cars.
Well, I put the phone down, found a bit of wood and bashed it in as instructed. And of course it worked. And I never changed another Ford starter motor, although sadly I still bought Fords, up until my first Volvo three-litre 760 GLE estate, about twenty years ago, since when I have only owned flashy, foreign cars.
Thanks to editor mr verge for discovering and unearthing this from the comments
11 comments:
Ah, Ford Shitheaps; so innocent even when they were taking us for a ride. When simple capitalism still, sort of, let us know how the trick was done or did not trouble unduly to hide it.
I had loads of Ford Shitheaps. At least you could fix them in the drive. For the most part anyway. None of mine ever saw a garage mechanic. One Escort - a Mk1 even - and three or four Cortinas. By the time I got a Mk3 Escort, the fucking thing was a nightmare of mad shite under the bonnet. How we laughed when they botched a recall on all the carbs and we got done over by the after-market bastards. They'd be thick as thieves al over ebay now. That's if any millenial knew what a spanner was, let alone how to use one.
And don't forget the Simca Shitheap. Dear me.
Somehow, the pride and joy in the good making of things got lost, didn't it? If only we'd retained our crafts and sound manufacturing. I truly envy the physically and mathematically competent. I savoured the tales of Mr I when, as often, he talked about that type of excellence. There are those on here who have it. Perhaps this latest collapse will clear some room for its return. I profoundly hope so because so much balance and spiritual calm might then be generated.
Or is that wistful guff?
I've had 2 cars I really regret ever parting with: a morris minor 1000 grey with red leather interior, and little yellow arms for turn left/right. Taught my wife (18 years old) to drive this on happy afternoons around the Derbyshire countryside. Only problem I had - actually 2 problems - was windscreen wiper motors failed. Opened up and found no coil but a pile of copper dust. Fixed for one pound at a scrapyard. Second problem was a pool of water in rear area after heavy rain. Likely leaking window seals, but fixed by drilling 2 holes in the rear floor. Lovely car to drive. The second car was a Citroen 2cv. Amazing suspension. Easy to fix anything for a few bob. You could lift the engine out with two hands. And reliable. Didn't like starting in the cold or rain, but you could push start it with you shoulder and jump in the front seat, put in into second and bump start it. Now its Jap cars that never go wrong, but not as good for the sole.
Mrs mongoose is a great destroyer of motor cars. It doesn't matter how good or bad they are, how new or how old. The most interesting property of any car to her is the height and the squishiness of the front rim of the driver's seat. Her latest - a Toyota Aygo the-kids-are-gone-runabout she likes a lot - the driver's seat is lovely. But in the mini tyre-well at the back however there always used to sit a wee puddle of water sloshing about and getting rusty drip marks on her swimming kit. That the water comes from the kit and all its teaching clutter thrown in still dripping countless times every week is not the point.
Mr Mike will know how a proper engineer - even a phantom - solved that. it is the age-old answer to leaks in cars. Did the Moggie's indicators flap up and down reliably, Mr Mike? I do hope so. They were a mad but charmingly British answer to the wrong question.
Can I join in the car talk? My dad's first car - upgraded from a Lambretta - was a sit-up-and-beg black Ford Popular. It had a stately, old world feel to it, but didn't like to start of a morning, especially in the cold. It came with a starting handle, which had to be very laboriously cranked when the starter motor and battery failed. Then we had a mini, in a gorgeous turquoise: they had some fabulous colours, those Sixties minis - buttercup yellow, blackcurrant purple and our turquoise. Great little car and didn't need a starting handle. Just as well, as my dad's heart couldn't stand much more of trying to get the Ford Pop to start. Then he got an Anglia - just like the one in the Blog picture, with that weird steep rake on the back window. My dad wasn't much of an on-your-own-drive mechanic, though, not like you chaps.
When mr ishmael and I got together, I was driving an Opel Kadett. He soon put paid to that.
An Opel is not very far off being a Vauxhall, mrs I. For shame, madam.
One day when I was miniscule, I fell over in the garden and smshed my face into the concrete.
Nothing awful but blood flew everywhere - apparently, though I couldn;t see all that.. Eyebrow and nose split open on my seven year old face. Everyone was out but Mr Stapleton next door leapt over the wall and scooped me up. I bled all over the front seat of his Ford Anglia on the way to Casualty. I think it was the narrowest car I ever sat in. I imagine to this day that they were leather seats but I think it was just the claret on whatever they made the seats out of. He was very kind and decent chap actually, and his daughter Marie was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. Though she must have been damn near 12 or 13.
On the way home, I caught a sideways glance as he looked at his ruined seats. I don't think I've felt guiltier since. It's not as bad as owning an Opel though.
Was it a bench seat in an Anglia? I am sure it was a bench seat.
How was I to know? I was a mere girl and the dealer was persuasive, mr mongoose. mr ishmael was in charge of the cars thereafter. That's some story about Hero Stapleton, even though he didn't have the nous to get a towel for you. You didn't do anything wrong, all the grownups failed you. Seven years old? They are really young, seven year olds, and, even in Scotland (lowest age of criminal responsibility in Europe, until raised from 8 to 12 in the 2019 Act), incapable, legally, of doing anything wrong.
I can't remember the seats, I don't think I was paying much attention at the time, being young and female.
Nobody let me down, mrs i. In those days, seven- or eight-year-olds took other people's five- and six-year-olds to school. One such was I. And when I had got home and had delivered my charges, and if mum was still away fetching my older brothers from secondary school across the city, I was supposed to let myself in using my key. Keys not being high on the list of such a lad's things-to-remember, I would usually shin up the conservatory side wall and dangle head-first from the skylight to reach the latch. Unless some spoilsport had shut the skylight, that is. Unable to get inside on occasion, I would get up to all sorts of illegal mischief. Much of it would involve ladders and roofs, and especially the strange galvanised water-tank that caught the water to supply the outside loo and scullery-type shed. My very own private roof-top pool.
Occasionally these adventures would lead to a mishap. In these strange days, we would probably blame the government for failing to adequately fund after-school care.
Anglias didn't have bench seats, it seems. So it cannot have been an Anglia. I am sure that it was though. Time passes and the memory dims.
We have become so much more cautious about kids now, mr mongoose. I grew up in the country and attended a village primary school. My dad would drop me off at school in the morning on his Lambretta, on his way to work, often unfeasibly early as he had a bit of a commute, so I would hang around the deserted playground, giving myself pep talks, along the lines of, no, really it is a school day, not the weekend, kids will turn up eventually - ever after I've had a deep-seated aversion to being early for things. But we had to make our own way home, roaming over the countryside, running away from the boys, taking short cuts that were, of course, long cuts, encountering the local flasher - god, that chap covered a lot of miles (or Halifax was particularly well-endowed with gentlemen who liked to take their tackle on al fresco outings)- he'd be there on our way home from school, or outside the swimming baths or in the pictures. And that was just the way things were. Kids now are ferried everywhere, all their out-of-school minutes filled with improving or sporty activity, flasher-free zones - well that last bit is a definite improvement.
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