MAKING PROGRESS... of sorts (Part 172o)

MAKING PROGRESS… of sorts (Part 172o)

The previous evening with Elle’s parents and her ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ were never brought up when I arrived home. Elle pretty much knew from having taken the message from Cliffy about the new motor that I’d be off to the garage after supper. Being away over the weekend had put my ‘chores’ behind schedule so I hustled away from the table to try and get some of the lawn cut. A couple of warm days had brought forth a growth spurt and I didn’t want to let it get too far ahead of me. Being out in the yard reminded me that I needed to trim back the opening in the hedge between the two houses. Since Elle had told me of her positive interaction with the two women who’d be spending the Summer there I knew it would be well used. In doing the trimming I had to go through the hedge and when I did I took another look around. It was certainly different than when Elle and I’d first moved there. There were new plantings surrounding the new patio as well as fresh sod for most of the back yard. I remember thinking that Celia, the lady who owned the house when we moved in, wouldn’t recognize the place. I also notice something else… something very interesting, especially to me. Among some random clothes hanging on the wash line were two pair of panties… one noticeably larger than the other. The two women I’d seen the afternoon before weren’t big enough for the one pair but it only took me a few seconds to realize there was another woman living there that I had yet to meet. It was getting late and I did want to be at the shop by 7:30pm so didn’t dwell on the subject all that long but got me thinking about later in the Summer.

Showing up at the garage with $700 made me an instant hero with the rest of the crew. However, Cliffy had one piece of good/bad news. Over the week of trying to put the pieces together within our ‘budget’ he’d made a lot of phone calls all over the Northeast area and had stumbled onto some interesting news. Chevrolet had developed a new, high performance, camshaft for the 427ci big block engine. It would cost about $175 more than the standard one and he’d told the guy who’d told him about it that we wanted one. If we were to get it we needed cash and needed to go upstate to get it. He wouldn’t ship it unless he had cash, no checks or money orders, and he wanted the cash no later than Wednesday. Being a practical sort, I asked just how much difference this special cam would make. I wasn’t good on technical stuff but I was good on making common sense decisions. I listened to all the numbers of torque ratings etc. but it was when Cliffy brought out the fact the Chevrolet had developed it specifically for racing that I bought into the idea. It helped when he told us the guy had said Chevrolet had made a limited number of them and originally had to approve just who got them. Cliffy’s father walked up just about at that time. He’d avoided being involved in the race car right from the time we’d bought it from him, only offering an occasional comment. So, when he piped up with the suggestion that Cliffy go get the cam the next morning the decision was made for us.

Once that was decided we broke up into pairs to start assembling the bottom end of the motor. Even though the parts were new we still had to wash them with a special solvent. That was my job along with Buster, not my favorite crew member. (Thinking back on it now, it’s a wonder I’m still here as I had no protection for my hands or face and I was in the liquid halfway up to me elbows.) The engine block in itself weighed over 600 pounds and was too big to fit in the tub so we had to spread cardboard on the floor and brush the solvent over the whole thing. The stuff smelled and, having used it the previous year when Alan and I rebuilt the Ford motor before the championships in October, knew I wouldn’t be able to get rid of it with soap and water. I just hoped no one at the bank would comment on it the next day. Cliffy and Alan started fitting the wrist pins to the pistons and putting the rings on them. Dick went about making up the new motor mounts we’d need for the Chevy engine. I remember the shop being almost eerily quiet as we went about our assigned tasks.
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In part 172g I jumped a little ahead and wrote about how our part-time crew member, Robob, had a contact with Chevrolet and that he could get us a set of the newly developed aluminum heads. The Chevrolet plant was located just outside Buffalo, NY and that we’d have to have someone pick them up for us and mentioned that my friend "Big B" whose sales job took him up there would pick it up.
In writing about that I forgot about the camshaft and it also being located up in Buffalo. We still didn’t know about the aluminum heads when Cliffy took off to retrieve the camshaft. Sorry about the screw-up.
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Cliffy wanted to get away before daylight to get through the city before it got congested so took off around 10pm. The engine block was attached to a moveable stand and we moved it over by the air compressor to blow it dry. Alan had said he wanted to get the crankshaft in place and ‘buttoned down’ before leaving. The thinking behind that was it would be ready to have the pistons inserted and that Cliffy, during the day, might be able to ‘pop’ a few and saving time for other things. The rest of us left before midnight and were happy with the progress. I remember Alan, the eternal optimist, thinking that we could be racing on Saturday. I, silently, disagreed. It was one thing to put a motor that you had just taken apart back together but this one was new in every sense. I knew there would be some ‘bumps in the road’ to come.

By mid week Elle seemed to be doing OK and had most of her energy back. She’d made contact with Martha from next door and had spent most of the day with her daughter and Kaye getting to know each other. Elle had mentioned that the woman was a tennis player and wanted Elle to show her the courts. With school still in session they didn’t make an attempt to play but Elle agreed to “go hit a few” after supper. Not sure of how her pregnancy would come into play Elle told me she really hadn’t wanted to but, wearing a partial ’package’ and a pair of her loosest shorts they were headed up to the school as I was leaving for the garage. As I wrote about Martha when I met her on Sunday, she was worth a second look. Older than Elle and I by a few years, I was tempted to find a reason to delay leaving so I could see just what she was wearing. But when Elle told me she was going over to her house to pick both her and her daughter up I gave up on that idea… but it was ‘food for thought’ for the future.

Cliffy was back with the cam and wasn’t sure what to do with it. There were no papers with it but he did have some telephone numbers to follow up with. I was a little concerned and couldn’t help but wondering if we hadn’t made a mistake. I asked who the guy was that Cliffy had met with and he didn’t know his background but said he had a good reputation within the racing community. All I could do was hope… since it was pretty much my money that had bought it. By the time we left that night we had all the pistons in the engine block and were ready to bolt the oil pan on. It was beginning to look like a motor.

To be continued…