That
Friday afternoon, the supermarket parking lot was jammed. But Gus Wilson found
the Plymouth station wagon exactly where Mrs. Landers had said it would be.
She hadn't told him it was bouncing with
children. Five of them, from four to about 12 years old, were whooping it up
inside. Through closed windows came the beat of rock-and-roll music from the
radio. Gus rapped on a window. A golden-haired moppet of six rolled it down an
inch.
"I'm not allowed to talk to strangers,"
she announced firmly. "My mother says so!"
"Just tell me where to find your mother."
"In the library. She works there."
Gus tried again. "Where's Mrs. Landers?"s
"She went back in the store for something
she forgot. She said if you came to fix the car, go ahead. She'll be out."
"She's coming now!" bawled a boy, as a
harassed-looking matron came to the car.
"You were quick," she said. "I'm so glad.
My club is meeting at my house at seven and there are a million things to do and
this battery's gone dead again."
"Do you often leave the radio on while
you're shopping?" asked Gus.
"Of course. It helps keep the children
amused. They aren't all mine - I'm only minding three of them."
Gus refrained from comment on the risk of
leaving ignition keys in a car full of kids. "I'll check your battery," he said.
The starter responded with only a click. A
hydrometer showed the 12-volt battery almost completely discharged. The fan belt
was so loose it slipped in his fingers.
"I'm sure it's just the battery," said
Mrs. Landers, as Gus adjusted the belt tension. "The other times a man hooked on
another battery and it started fine."
"Until next time," returned Gus. "So far,
I find three reasons why your battery let you down, Mrs. Landers. Leaving the
radio on when you're parked is one of them."
"How can that matter?" asked Mrs. Landers
stiffly. "I don't even make long trips - just around town shopping and carrying
about the children.
Besides," she added triumphantly, "this
car has an alternator. That always keeps the battery charged."
"Your short stop-and-go trips are the
second reason," Gus continued. "In winter especially, when starter drain is
extra heavy and you have to turn on headlights earlier, your alternator doesn't
keep up."
"But they told me it would . . ."
"Alternators aren't magic, Mrs. Landers.
They'll charge even at idling, but not with the motor off. Besides, the belt was
slipping and not driving your alternator at full power. I've taken care of
that.
"I'll put in a charged battery I brought
along. We'll check and charge up yours and, when you come for it, I'll check the
alternator output and the regulator."
With the Model Garage battery installed,
the Plymouth started at once, its engine roar almost drowned out by cheers.
Gus stayed late that night, checking
bills. He was about to quit at about 6:30, when the phone rang.
"Mr. Wilson?" an agitated feminine voice
asked. "I'm in awful trouble."
"It's Mrs. Landers, isn't it?" asked Gus.
"That battery didn't let you down?"
"Oh no, it's fine. I mean it's awful, but
it isn't my car. It's that - that thing in our driveway. You must come and take
it away - I don't care what it costs."
Though Gus wasn't eager to make a late
service call, the woman sounded so upset that he hadn't the heart to refuse.
At the house, a long black vehicle loomed
up in the driveway. It was a hearse! Its hood was up, and bobbing busily about
it like acolytes were four black-garbed figures. Had he been called, Gus
wondered, to get a stalled funeral moving?
He had another shock as he walked up. The
four men, somberly dressed in black tuxedos, were all extremely young.
Mrs. Landers fluttered out of the house.
"My club people are due in 20 minutes!"
she wailed. "Please tow it away. It looks as if somebody died!"
One of the young men pushed forward, his
thin, handsome face showing concern as the woman went back inside.
"I'm Bob Landers. Can you just tow us off?
It's got my mother making like crazy."
Gus shook his head. "I didn't bring the
truck. What are you doing with this?"
"We've got a combo going for the weekend
dances; call ourselves The Mourners. It's a gas. We play with deadpan, sourpuss
faces. The gag goes over so big, we bought this crate to go to jobs in -
it's a real blast at the scene."
"It's a 1950 Caddie and it goes pretty
good," put in a tubby lad. "Only thing is, it starts up fine cold, but won't
when it's warm. When it quit here, while Bob was getting some music from the
house . . ."
"It didn't quit!" hissed a redhead
savagely. "You turned it off, Tubby!"
"So I forgot! It was missing anyway."
"Let's just move it before those old birds
of Mom's show up," put in Bob Landers hastily.
Gus leaned over the grimy engine. "Let's
hear you try it," he suggested. He pulled off a spark-plug wire and held it hear
the block.
Sluggishly the engine turned over,
hesitating periodically as if barely able to get past compression. But a good
hot spark jumped from the cable to the block. Gus signaled to cut the motor,
replaced the cable, and looked at the big six-volt battery.
"That's a 140-ampere-hour job," explained
Landers. "We put in last week."
Taking tools from his kit, Gus loosened
the distributor lock nut. After scratching a position mark on the casing, he
turned it to retard the spark about 10 degrees, and signaled the boy behind the
wheel.
The engine spun briefly at fair speed, and
caught at once. Gus turned the distributor back to the mark and locked it.
"Gosh, that was wonderful," breathed the
Landers boy. "How'd you do it?"
"Never mind that now," returned Gus,
seeing Mrs. Landers twitching in the doorway. "Get this thing out of here. If
you still want to know, see me tomorrow."
The four piled into the hearse more like
firemen than undertakers, and the unwieldy vehicle backed out. A still-grim Mrs.
Landers pressed a bill on Gus.
Before noon next day, Stan Hicks, Gus's
helper, opened the shop door in response to an imperious horn toot. In swept the
hearse.
Stan's respectful mien underwent a
startled change as the four young men tumbled out, dressed formally as before.
"We couldn't stand not knowing," said Bob
Landers to Gus, "even though we're on the way to our next stand."
"A grade-school afternoon dance," put in
the redhead. "So we can pay you, if you'll tell us how you got it to start - and
at double forte, too."
"I made a far-out guess," Gus began. "But
first, what have you done besides putting in that hot new battery?"
A chorus answered. Distinguishable in it
were a few words "new points," "coil," "spark plugs," "starter," "tune-up."
Gus held up a hand. "I guessed you'd tried
all those, and that the ignition was okay. It isn't the first time I've run
across an old engine with lots of mileage, and probably thick carbon deposits,
which the starter can barely swing over when warm.
"It acts as if the battery's low, but
that's not the trouble. When the engine is cold, raw gas coming into the
cylinders takes a few milliseconds to fire up and explode. But when those carbon
deposits are hot - and remember they boost compression, too - incoming fuel
flashes into hot vapor that fires mighty fast. So fast, it happens before the
top of the compression stroke. The explosions try to turn the engine backward,
bucking the starter.
"Last night, I simply retarded the spark
more than the automatic advance allowed. You heard the engine turn over faster
before it started up. That was what did it."
There was a brief silence.
"How about leaving the spark like that so
it'll always start up hot?" asked the tubby lad eagerly.
Gus shook his head. "You couldn't get out
of your own way with it retarded."
The questioner's face dropped. "Thought if
we knew the reason we could lick it."
"Well, you can - two ways. One is a pretty
expensive engine overhaul - "
"Okay," chuckled Gus. "It's only a make-do
fix, but easy and practical."
In the stock room, Gus picked up a hose
clamp and a length of 3/16" steel rod. He bent the hose clamp around the neck of
the vacuum-advance unit on the distributor and secured it. He then drilled a ¼"
hole in the firewall in line with the clamp.
Having made a short L bend at one end of
the long rod, he passed it through the hole and hooked the bent end into the
hose clamp. Under the dash, he made a larger L bend at the other end of the rod.
Then he loosened the distributor lock nut until a 10-pound pull on the rod would
rotate the distributor casing. But he set the rod at the original advance mark
on the casing.
"Start her up," said Gus.
Bob Landers turned the key. The starter
churned as slowly as before.
Reaching for the rod, Gus slowly pushed it
in. The starter picked up speed. He moved the rod farther. Abruptly the engine
fired up. As it idled, Gus detected a slight skip in its beat.
He got out to file a nick in the rod at
the firewall. Then he connected a timing light, pushing on the rod to advance
the spark until the timing mark lined up. Then he filed a second notch in the
rod.
"You'll feel those nicks drop into the
hole," he explained as he disconnected the light. "Push the rod forward to
start, pull it back to the other nick for running. But don't forget that, or the
engine will have no pep, and will overheat besides. Now, what have you done
about that miss?"
"Nothing," responded the redhead. "We just
put in new plugs so it must be a warped or stuck valve."
"Did you gap the new plugs first?"
"Fellow we bought 'em from did."
Gus got his oscilloscope plug checker and
hooked it up. At once seven normal traces slid up the screen. The eighth fell
far short.
"Which of you dropped number-five plug?"
asked Gus with a grin.
"How'd . . . Did that gadget tell you
that?"
Gus nodded, shutoff the engine, removed
the damaged plug, and held it out.
"See where it landed on the electrode?
That closed the gap. There was no spark."
Gus reset the gap with a gauge, then
screwed the plug back in. Restarted, the engine ran smoothly.
"You're okay, Mr. Wilson," said Landers.
"Okay? He's great," declared the redhead.
"How much is this bill?"
"Mrs. Landers paid me enough last night to
cover this," Gus said. "But there is one thing you can do for me - "
"Just name it!" said the tubby one.
"Move it out," begged Gus, "before
somebody comes in - and takes the Model Garage for the morgue."
END
