I'd been scheming on a road trip in a Crosley almost since the moment I'd owned one. That my one running Crosley was barely in any kind of shape for a trip across town, let alone across the state, did not deter me; I was sure that with a little fine tuning I could get it dialed in. How hard could it be?
I come from a mechanical family. My dad could fix anything, and I marveled at his ability to take a worn out piece of junk and make it functional and 'nice' again. I however, did not inherit this ability at all. My dad had been an auto mechanic most of his life and wanted me to do anything - anything - other than that type of work. I don't think I ever even opened the hood of a car until I was 20 years old - and even then my dad discouraged me from doing it. Eventually I stopped mentioning my auto projects to him - it just made him frustrated.
The first really big mechanical project I ever undertook and actually finished was pulling and reinstalling the transmission of my 1964 Mercury Marauder. The tranny was slipping because the seals had dried out, and it needed to be rebuilt. The shop quoted $350 for the rebuild, and about the same for pulling and reinstalling.
This was 1994, and in 1994 $350 was a lot of money to me. I really wanted to undertake the pull and install, but I was also terrified - I'd never actually pulled something apart and had it work when I put it back together. I mentioned my conundrum to my buddy Al, a guy who played in a great band called The Ne'Er Do Wells that my band often shared bills with. "We'll do it! No sweat! I'll be up Saturday."
Al lived in San Francisco, but hopped on the train to Sacto that weekend with his work clothes and a few tools. The first thing he made me do was run out and grab a pack of zip lock bags.
"Every time you take the bolts off something, put them in a bag and label it with a Sharpie. You're never gonna remember where all this shit goes when you're putting it all back together."
We got the tranny out in a few hours. The project was easier, and went more smoothly than I'd ever thought possible. Al was methodical, knew his way around the toolbox, and livened the proceedings with endless stories of fixing tour vans in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.
For the first time in my life, working on a car was actually fun.
The transmission shop finished the rebuild and then it was time to put the thing back in the car. I called Al.
"Sorry man, I can't get up there this weekend." When I was clearly worried, he was having none of it.
"You can do this. It's easy - just do everything we did to take it out, but in reverse!"
It wasn't as easy as pulling it out, but I managed to get the transmission back in the car and got the car running again. This was a total first for me: I actually fixed something.
Five years later, when I started planning my road trip to the West Coast Crosley Club meet in Morro Bay, Al immediately claimed the co-pilot slot. In retrospect, he was probably the only sane person who would have risked life and limb climbing into that ramshackle and ill-prepared car for a four-day drive through the middle of nowhere.
No top. No side windows. No padding in the seats. Gas tank out of a boat unsecured behind the seat. Oh, and barely any brakes.
I've gone into detail on that trip before, so I won't here, but suffice it to say that it was a life-changing adventure that - thankfully - turned out great. Al was an excellent co-pilot; I think his worst moment was realizing that I was completely serious about staying at the $25-a-night Laura Lodge in Coalinga. Ah youth.
He shot four or five hours of video footage on the trip, and at the meet, but it is all on some arcane format that is hard to transfer, so I have never seen it. Al assures me he's still got it. Somewhere. Hard to believe that all that was 20 years ago.
Happy Birthday, Al - hope when all this COVID business is done we can celebrate in person.
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