Tag: Citroen

Wheel of Fortune

I put the spare wheel from the pickup truck back in place last weekend. That was quite an accomplishment because it’s been sitting in the bed for almost two years now. There’s no way to secure it there, which meant any time we planned to park the truck in town, muggins here had to heave the thing into the cab. Then back again when we got home.

“Why didn’t you just put it away earlier?” I hear you ask. Well, mainly because it was such an ordeal getting the darn thing out in the first place and I had no enthusiasm for the process of trying to put it back. The good people at Ford who designed the spare wheel cradle for their truck line in the early 90’s obviously weren’t allowing for the fact that their customers might one day need to actually access it.

First you have to crawl way, way under the truck, so it’s best if you only get a flat on dry days when you’re wearing old clothes. Then you use an enormous spanner (not the one that came with the truck, but a different sized enormous spanner, which of course, you knew to carry with you) to unwind a long bolt which lowers a three-foot long metal bar on which the spare wheel sits.

If the aforementioned long bolt isn’t shiny and new, maybe if it’s been somewhere dirty and wet for perhaps ten or eleven years, like say, underneath a truck, it will be more or less impossible to undo. It might take you an hour or so of struggle before you come to this conclusion but come to it you will. This is why we have the American Automobile Association. However, lifesavers though they may be, they didn’t come back after the flat had been repaired to put the spare away for us.

I know it’s not a good idea to leave it there indefinitely and winter’s a-coming which would make crawling on the ground even less pleasant. So, last Saturday I spent a happy hour cursing and grunting as I tried to take the weight of a ¾ ton wheel with my left hand while screwing it into place with my right. Three days later, my back hardly hurt at all so as wheel changes go, this was far from being my worst.

One that comes to mind was the time when I decide to rotate the tires on Wilf, my first car, some (clears throat) years ago. As regular readers of The Gunsmoke Diaries will have gathered, I’m not exactly Mr. Fix-it and never have been, so why I chose to perform this task an hour before I was due to go out for the night is a mystery, even now. Citroen used an elaborate suspension system in those days, which they claimed would allow their cars to be driven on three wheels. I never put that to the test, but it did make jacking up the car something of a process because even when the chassis was a good three feet in the air, the wheel remained firmly on the ground.

However, the real fun started after I’d given up and jacked the thing back down again. The chassis remained where it was. I suspect this was less to do with Citroen’s elaborate suspension and everything to do with my car being a decrepit bucket of bolts but either way, Wilf remained listing stubbornly to starboard at an angle of some 45 degrees. My friends weren’t best pleased when I called them to say I couldn’t take my turn at driving that night, but the good news was; he gradually eased himself back into place over the next couple of days.

Even so, that still wasn’t the least pleasant wheel change I’ve ever performed. That singular event took place late one winter’s night, high on the moors of Yorkshire. It wasn’t even my car, but instead belonged to my girlfriend at the time. We’d had a pleasant enough evening in a snug and cosy country pub. Crackling log fire, lots of dark wood, just the thing for a cold December night. By the time we left, snow was beginning to fall in great swirling clouds, and I was hoping we’d be well on our way home before it really got started.

Naturally, that wasn’t to be. We were a good fifteen miles from anywhere when my beloved steered us over a large rock sitting in the roadway. It didn’t have an orange flashing light on it, but it would scarcely have been less obvious if it had. Still, over it we went and immediately I heard the dreaded thump, thump, thump that signals a flat. I prepared to do my knight-in-shining-armour bit.

“Where’s your jack?”  I asked before receiving the answer that strikes fear into any boyfriend’s heart.

“What’s a jack?”

With a sigh, I pulled on my thin jacket and headed towards the boot. The jack was there, in a well under the spare wheel. Rotten with rust but semi-functional so I hauled it out of its nest and began the backbreaking task of jacking up the car. Mother Nature was obviously waiting for this moment to unleash her full force and the wind picked up to a terrific rate, sending flurries of snow down my neck and robbing me of the little body heat I had left. Visions of sugar plums danced in my head as I heaved and pulled while the car inched painfully higher.

Just when I figured a few more turns of the crank would do the trick, the car gave a sickening crunch as the jack punched its way through the rusted floor.

“Be careful!” yelled my darling from comfort of her down coat and woolly hat, which would have been comforting had she been concerned about me, rather than her car. Gritting my teeth ever tighter, I searched around the verge until I found a flattish piece of wood and using that as a brace; began the task once more.

Finally, the old wheel was off, and I heaved the spare out of the trunk. You won’t be at all surprised to learn that it was flat. And of course, there was nowhere to fill it. Not on the Yorkshire moors after midnight, there wasn’t.

It was about that time, I decided my sweetheart wasn’t all that good-looking, there were plenty more fish in the sea, and there was no particular advantage in continuing to be polite. We had a full and frank exchange of views and agreed to go our separate ways.

But you know what?  I’m OK with that.

First published: 13 September, 2005

Car Talk

First Published: 1 March, 2005

Angus isn’t feeling well today. Angus is my car and has been a member of the family for almost three years now. He came into the household not too long after we moved into the mountains when it became apparent that my little Nissan, despite having provided many miles of semi-trouble-free service wasn’t going to be able to handle my commute for very long. It’s around fifty miles each way and includes a vertical climb of over half a mile and that starting from one mile above sea level. I’d already spent many a happy evening standing by the side of the road while his radiator cooled down and this was only summer – a Colorado winter with a two-wheel drive didn’t hold much appeal.

So, the Nissan was sold to a high-school student who lives in the city and thinks it’s a Rolls Royce, the “Cars for Sale” ads were scoured and before long, we’d adopted a 1992 Toyota 4Runner and christened him Angus. I’m no fan of the SUV culture but Angus is small by today’s standards, gets a reasonable gas mileage and yet comes equipped with four-wheel drive, chunky tires and enough oomph to handle the Rocky Mountain foothills even in a winter blizzard. Like all old cars he has his foibles, but over the years I’ve come to know and love them. However, he’s racked up almost a quarter of a million miles in his lifetime (that’s 10 times round the world) and is of an age where he needs a little TLC every now and then.

If you’ve been reading the Gunsmoke Diaries for any length of time you’ll know that fixing things isn’t my strong point. My contribution to the business of car maintenance extends to putting the petrol in and cleaning them every once in a while. When they refuse to start, I empty the gum wrappers out of the ashtrays, remove the assorted debris from the floor and wipe the rear-view mirrors. If that doesn’t do the trick, I’m pretty much stuck. Several years ago, we invested in AAA membership and have never had cause to regret it. Tow the car to the shop. Have it fixed by someone who knows what they’re doing. Worry no more.

Two downsides to this system are a) the inordinate amounts of cash that has to change hands before I can have my car back and b) the hours of stomach clenching fear while waiting for the phone to ring. Just what’s wrong with it this time? It’s mid-afternoon as I write this, and I still haven’t heard. Having been the proud owner of a series of old cars, I’ve been going through this my entire adult life.

My very first motor was a Citroen Dyane, in multiple shades of red who went by the name of Wilf. The Dyane was a cousin of Citroen’s better known, but equally ugly 2CV. In case you’re wondering, 2CV comes from Deux Cheveaux as in two horsepower. Yes, you heard – two. And they must have been pretty tired old nags at that. The darn thing was so under powered that unless I got a decent run up, many hills defeated it completely. One rather steep ascent out of town could only be tackled in reverse. A tongue in cheek ad at the time claimed the Dyane was faster than a Ferrari. As indeed it was. Provided the Ferrari driver chose not to go above 68 mph.

However, for a seventeen-year-old it was a delightfully quirky car with all manner of bits and bobs one doesn’t see on modern automobiles. The gearshift was on the dash and rather than the H format with which we’re all familiar, had a more elaborate arrangement based on the number 4. The high beam switch was floor mounted and was operated by foot. Each seat, including the driver’s could easily be removed for impromptu picnics. And it came equipped with cruise control in the form of a coat hanger-like wire extending through the floor by which means the throttle could be locked open. Sadly, unlike today’s cruise control, a tap of the brakes did NOT release it – the wire had to be manually pushed back in. A fact I discovered milliseconds before rear-ending a truck.

Wilf had a canvas roof, which could be unclipped and rolled back just like a regular convertible. It was recommended the car not be in motion when unclipping the roof and with good reason as I discovered when casually releasing the clamp for the first time as I cruised down the motorway. In an instant the roof was hanging down the back of the car, completely obscuring the rear window which, as I had no side mirrors, was the only way of seeing what was behind me. Quite a thrill for someone only a couple of months beyond his driving test.

Britain has an abominable law called the Ministry of Transport Test or M.O.T., which in theory, is an annual road worthiness test to be performed by government approved repair shops on all cars over three years old. In practice it’s a license for unscrupulous grease monkeys to extort money from mechanically disadvantaged teenage boys. When I bought the car, it had already failed its M.O.T. once. “Here’s the three things it failed for.” said the seller. “I can either fix them or sell it to you as is for £50 less.” I chose the latter option and reviewing the faults, found that one was easy enough to fix, one was way too expensive to consider while as for the third – I never did find what the mechanic was complaining about. Neither did the shop that handled the retest. They didn’t mention item two either. But they did fail it for three completely different reasons that had inexplicably escaped the attention of the first guy.

Wilf finally died on the side of the road when his engine block literally split apart. Despite my annual insurance premiums being almost the same as I paid for the car, my coverage didn’t extend to damage to my own vehicle, just those of other people. Still, the scrap merchant gave me enough for a darn good wake in Wilf’s honour.

There have been many other cars over the years and for some, I have fonder memories than others. But I’ve loved them all in their ways. Cared for them, named them and polished them ’till I could see my face in the rust. But for now, Angus is my baby and like any concerned parent, I worry about him when he’s not well. Still, the good news is – at least I’m not trying to fix him myself.