Broken down cars – The New American Digest

by SnakepitKansas via comments

Many, many years ago after my first divorce I had a well worn Datsun 210. I had the money in my pocket for NET worth only. I had driven from Wichita to Dayton to visit my folks, and was most of the way back to Wichita. This car as wrung out and I do not recall how many gobs of miles on it. I pulled into a gas station in Kansas City to fill up and afterward, the car would not start. Starter would not energize and spin. Nada, nucan wala, nothing. I’m 200 miles/four hours from home, it is late in the day and I am broke as a joke and my car will not start sitting in front of the gas pump.

Here comes some elderly man. He says “Owners of this gas station are not fond of broken down vehicles”. He asked the situation and I told him. He nodded then told me to pop the hood and turn the ignition. He pulled a heavy wrench out of his pocket and tapped on the starter while I had the ignition switch. Starter engaged and the car fired up just fine. I had the car in park so I stepped out to thank this man but he was gone. Nowhere in sight. Poof.

OK, the starter was worn out but so was my wallet. I was working full time, living with an uncle and going to WSU one or two classes a semester when I had cash to pay up front. I had recently gotten a second job at a liquor store to help make some savings for school and a newer car. I do not do loans on a car but had no credit score, so that was not an option either. When you have to make it, you have to look inward and decide what you have to do.

TO DO: I drilled a hole in the firewall of the Datsun. Through that I ran a clothes line. One end of the rope attached to a ballpeen hammer that swung on a pully close to the starter. The other end of the rope reached inside the car. I could turn the ignition with my right hand and yank on the rope with my left hand to make the hammer swing to tap the starter. Car started every time. I did this for six months until I had enough cash to buy a used 1988 Mustang GT. What a car that was and certainly is a different story.

I eventually put in a rebuilt starter then sold the car for $200, but not before I shot it twice with a Colt Gubmint Model 45. True story and I would swear on that with upon a stack of Bibles.

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ghostsniper

3 hours ago

In 1980 I had a friend with a 210 and in it he had an Audiovox stereo that was worth more than the car! Bold, bumble bee yellow.

The solenoid (Bendix) on the starter was sticking, an easy fix back then.
Buy one off the shelf for about $8 to $11.
The hard part was finding the metric wrenches to do the work.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s it was less expensive, and doable, to fix stuff than buy new stuff. Sitting on the concrete driveway I’ve rebuilt starters, generators, alternators, radiators, brake systems, clutches, rear ends, just about everything. There weren’t a lot of places to fix things and the ones that were, were very expensive. So we learned how to fix em ourselves. It was the diff between ridin’ and walkin’. I was fortunate to have a dad that was a fixer and from an early age made me be right there with him when he was fixin stuff. In kindergarten I was the kid with durty fingernails…..