The "Unknown Drug Addict"

If you're old enough, you might remember a comedian back in the late 70's/early 80's who called himself the "Unknown Comic", ran around the stage telling jokes and doing magic tricks.......the guy had a paper bag over his head. One night on the old Johnny Carson Show, he vowed to take the bag off and let everyone see who he really was. When the time came, he pulled the bag off, but there was just a DIFFERENT bag under it! Don't know whatever happened to him.

Well......somewhere in Detroit, there's a guy running around loose from car factory to car factory, that I'VE been calling the "Unknown Drug Addict" for YEARS now, and he just struck AGAIN yesterday in my driveway!

As many of you know, most of the "chariots" at our house are 50's & 60's. We DO have something as new as 1995, though, it's a Dodge RAM diesel pickup that Donna already had we we first met. There is a water separator fuel filter that has to be changed every great now and then. It is mounted near the rear of the engine on the driver's side.

It is NOT the easiest thing to change either. First of all, because the truck sits "just high enough" off the ground, you can't stand "flat-footed" on the concrete, like you can with everything ELSE around here. You have to stand on the front bumper cut-outs, place a couple of cushions over the radiator brace-wall and lean forward to reach things at the firewall.

I won't go into detail here, because you probably wouldn't believe it! Anyway, there's an electrical hookup that has to be dealt with, you need to "squirm" a filter wrench down into that cavity, and "feed" the electrical bundle through the hoop, as you get your filter wrench onto the filter body. There is only room enough to turn the filter about an inch at a time, until you get it loose enough to turn it by hand......and you HAVE to do this all 1-handed because there isn't enough room to use BOTH! I generally leave a little blood on the closely positioned brackets and linkage. Yesterday was no exception.

This whole time.....your body is in an awkward position, bent over on the cushions, SUPPORTING your forward weight with the left hand and trying to do all the rest of this crap with the right.

After you finally get the filter unscrewed from what seems like an endless threaded fitting, and get it "snaked" out, you need the install the new one, and this is REALLY tricky! The NEW filter has to be pre-filled with diesel fuel, and you have to carefully balance it as you "snake" it UPWARD toward yourself (STILL using one hand)!

By THIS time, I'm getting sore all over from being in an awkward position, slightly frustrated and once AGAIN mumbling to myself as I have OFTEN, through my "mechinical lifetime"....."WHAT DRUG ADDICT DESIGNED THIS??"

Finally got it started up the threads, got it hand-tight, then "squirmed" the filter wrench back on it------and here we go the OTHER way, an inch at a time.

This was the THIRD one I've replaced on this truck, and I vowed THIS time it would be the LAST one. The NEXT time it needs to be changed, it'll go into Cummins (Boise) or one of our local mechanics who get PAID to beat themselves up!

And then......yesterday.....I KNEW this would be the last one. Moving BACKWARDS out of the engine cavity, I missed one of the bumper insteps with my left foot, and dropped to the ground with my RIGHT foot slightly hung up on the other side. I twisted my right leg and definitely pulled some muscles. I can barely walk this morning. Donna put a heat pad on it last night, and I've taken a few pain pills for it. Every now & then I get up from the table and try to walk around a little on it to "loosen it up." There's a little pain in my lower back right now as well.

It'll heal, but I'll be in some definite pain for a couple of days, and true to my word, I will NOT change another filter on this truck. Not THAT one, anyway!

Over the years, I have laid under different cars, and leaned under a lot of hoods, thinking "What idiot designed THIS.....or THAT?" In some cases, the factory had 2 or 3 FEET of clear firewall or inner fender liner to work with......yet STILL chose to "bury" components deep down in-between OTHER components.

Designers are obviously NOT mechanics, and I've seen some really stupid crap over the years. Our oldest daughter has a 2000 Plymouth Breeze. To change the BATTERY, you've got to pull the left fromt wheel and INNER FENDER LINER to get to it! Is that INSANE or WHAT?

On many of these newer pickups and SUV's, the fuep pump is mounted INSIDE the gas tank, so if your pump stops working, guess what? The whole gas tank has to come out! (by contrast, the fuel pump in my old 64 Fairlane has 2 half-inch bolts, a pair of clamps and 2 fuel lines..............about 20 minutes and you're back on the road!

Both of Donna's old Mustangs have the little inline 6's in 'em. You can almost stand up in there WITH 'em and change whatever you need to change. My old Fairlane is "classic design", all there is under that hood a simple, efficient, carbureted small block V-8...........

8 sparkplug wires, 1 coil wire, 2 radiator hoses and a fanbelt. That's IT! If I have a problem on the road, I can most likely scrape the ignition points, wire something together, "or "jerry-rig" something together and GET HOME with it.

Ever look under the hood of one of these "computerized" new ones? You don't know where to start, or even WHAT you're looking at.

I've often thought that they INTENTIONALLY make 'em more complicated with each passing year, just so you HAVE to bring it in to be worked on (at $95.00 an hour nowadays). They would LOVE for the old "shade tree mechanic" to disappear.

My buddy Lamont told me about his 76 "Caddy" that HE fixed along the road with a PAPERCLIP, and got home with it. Had that been a NEW Cadillac, he might still be out there! I am soundly convinced that's ANOTHER reason they want all these older cars off the road, and nobody'll ever convince me otherwise.

We actually saw "traces" of things to come back in the 60's. The old "big block Fords" had a small water hose about 5/8" wide and 2" in length, that was nestled between the water pump and the intake manifold. It was called a "bypass" hose.......and you've not had an "adventure" until you've had to change one out on an interstate somewhere.

"What drug addict designed THIS??"

Even as easy as most of OUR cars are to work on (compared with everything else), there ARE times I've thought about getting rid of all of my classic cars, (even my treasured 56 Olds), and just go out and find an old 61 to 65 Ford Falcon, faded paint, 6-cylinder w/3-on-the-tree and just call it good.

(faded paint, because the birds never seem to "crap" on the old "beater cars!") Nobody ever rolls a shopping cart into one, either............but if you have something NICE?..........the seagulls and Wally-World carts seem to go OUT OF THEIR WAY to find you.....don't they?

I'd keep at least a couple of my BUGS around too.....I've never YET looked at one of THEM thinking "What drug addict designed THIS?" Ferdinand Porsche knew exactly what he was doing when he designed "Der Peeple's Kar." 70 years later, there are MILLIONS of these little old "slug bugs" still running around. They are actually a lot better car than most people think they are.

But as I said, as I HOBBLE around for the next couple of days........the NEXT time this particular filter needs to be replaced, some OTHER "hardhead" is gonna do it, and I'll just fork over a few WORTHWHILE dollars and listen to somebody ELSE wipe blood off HIS knuckles and ask......"WHAT drug addict designed THIS??"