Setback Pseudo-Solution
05/07/10 09:57 PM | Projectile
A decision had to be made, even if it was potentially the wrong one. The Blue Frankenstein was out of commission for the foreseeable financial future. We were down to one vehicle, and I was car-pooling with Jenni until there was a change in the free-wheeling weather. Now mind you I don't mind car-pooling with the wife, in fact when schedules allow I thing it a prudent and fiscally responsible choice, but our schedules are usually not biorythmically tuned. Besides I live to drive, it is something that pleases me, and for a driver to be reduced to a rider is a demotion of the soul and spirit as well as a shock to the system.
Still, sometimes the system needs shocks. More accurately the Frankenstein needed shocks and strut-assembly repair.
I was driven into a funk of despair. I was driving myself crazy and that was the only driving I was doing. I thought of finances. I thought of the possible value of the Bimmer in its condition and the loss of selling it. I thought of the fact that there was no money for a replacement either. Unbelievably I was losing more sleep, which is hard for a guy who averages about 3 1/2 to 4 hours of sleep to do. Then one night as I turned more than I tossed I thought about the Bimmer itself, I had been driving it with the funky shock bounce and noise since the day I acquired it, it never got worse, and it never got better. I had been driving, and turning and bouncing and hitting pot-holes and railroad tracks for several years and cursing the fact that I didn't have the resources to fix it, or the time to be without the car. The deal was that when I decided to replace the shock and ordered the parts I was fixing a long stand problem. A problem that I had put thirty or forty thousand miles on, a problem I already knew. I decided to re-assemble the spring and broken shock which had already failed, and put them back into service.
I decided I would soon give my resource a call, a parts guy whom I've already used and who has barns full of old BMW parts and bits. In the meantime I decided it was better to dance with the demon that you know than to walk alone into the unknown dispirited.
On Thursday May 6th, after three hours of struggle, jacking and pivoting and cursing, I got the strut back in and the alignment confirmed and put the Frankenstein back on his own four feet. Twenty minutes later, after a hard grease removal scrubbing I was ready to drive into the mid-day sun.
I was ready to see if the car would collapse or carry me. I had my AAA card and phone in case I needed a tow to Black Forrest Motors some four and a half miles away. I took the shake-down cruise, with the same shake-ups I remembered from the right front when a bump was encountered, the same shimmy when breaking from higher speeds, the same grimacing I had always done when encountering a pot-hole. I was back. The Frankenstein was still a Frankenstein, a prometheus reborn, a patchwork of parts, but we could still get away from the villagers and their pitchforks and torches.
I drove the Frankenstein past the Black Forrest, I was a driver again and I slept the sleep of the redeemed.
Chuck Pace ©2010
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Still, sometimes the system needs shocks. More accurately the Frankenstein needed shocks and strut-assembly repair.
I was driven into a funk of despair. I was driving myself crazy and that was the only driving I was doing. I thought of finances. I thought of the possible value of the Bimmer in its condition and the loss of selling it. I thought of the fact that there was no money for a replacement either. Unbelievably I was losing more sleep, which is hard for a guy who averages about 3 1/2 to 4 hours of sleep to do. Then one night as I turned more than I tossed I thought about the Bimmer itself, I had been driving it with the funky shock bounce and noise since the day I acquired it, it never got worse, and it never got better. I had been driving, and turning and bouncing and hitting pot-holes and railroad tracks for several years and cursing the fact that I didn't have the resources to fix it, or the time to be without the car. The deal was that when I decided to replace the shock and ordered the parts I was fixing a long stand problem. A problem that I had put thirty or forty thousand miles on, a problem I already knew. I decided to re-assemble the spring and broken shock which had already failed, and put them back into service.
I decided I would soon give my resource a call, a parts guy whom I've already used and who has barns full of old BMW parts and bits. In the meantime I decided it was better to dance with the demon that you know than to walk alone into the unknown dispirited.
On Thursday May 6th, after three hours of struggle, jacking and pivoting and cursing, I got the strut back in and the alignment confirmed and put the Frankenstein back on his own four feet. Twenty minutes later, after a hard grease removal scrubbing I was ready to drive into the mid-day sun.
I was ready to see if the car would collapse or carry me. I had my AAA card and phone in case I needed a tow to Black Forrest Motors some four and a half miles away. I took the shake-down cruise, with the same shake-ups I remembered from the right front when a bump was encountered, the same shimmy when breaking from higher speeds, the same grimacing I had always done when encountering a pot-hole. I was back. The Frankenstein was still a Frankenstein, a prometheus reborn, a patchwork of parts, but we could still get away from the villagers and their pitchforks and torches.
I drove the Frankenstein past the Black Forrest, I was a driver again and I slept the sleep of the redeemed.
Chuck Pace ©2010
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