We were just about done at the recent Castlemaine swap meet in Central Victoria. My mate’s freshly bought oil-filter adaptor kit guaranteed that no filter would ever again frustrate his attempts to grip it and unscrew it.
I had my doubts, though, whether any of the quite bulky die-cast adaptors in the kit would fit in the ridiculously tight space under the virtually inaccessible filter can on my old diesel Discovery. Damn those Land Rover engineers!
At this event I had pretty much stuck to spending my time sussing out what was selling, and for how much, as part of my plan to move some of the ‘treasures’ in my overcrowded shed to new homes over the coming months.
But I have to say that I can never wander through a swap meet without checking out tools and in particular keeping my eye open for a decent sized copper hammer; it’s one of the few handy tools I’ve lusted after over the decades, so far always borrowing but never buying.
And I don’t want a new one, all factory fresh and virginal that would look totally out of place in my kit – I want the mushroomed-head look as witness to many impacts of copper on steel, the look of a well-used tool compatible with the rest of my well-used gear, a perfect fit with the well-used me.
With none popping up this time, again, I limited my spend to a burger and coffee and a set of JIS screwdrivers.
Then we bumped into another mate who was too cashed out to procure the must-have period motorbike helmet that would cap off his ‘Distinguished Gentleman’ riding outfit for the upcoming charity ride. Some spare cash from our pockets had him sorted in no time. He left, helmeted, looking ridiculously distinguished.
It was an item on one of the last stalls near the exit gate that caught my eye, a top-loader gearbox with the lid removed. I wasn’t interested in buying it – there’s nothing going on in my shed currently that’s crying out for a gearbox – it’s just that suddenly seeing all those exposed gears prompted a vivid recollection of a significant gearbox moment long ago.
During my hot-rod period as a young fella there were several occasions when I bought a complete car (pre-WWII Fords were cheap then) to cannibalise for particular parts needed to advance my project.
Having stripped the needed bits from the donor vehicle I advertised what was left in Melbourne’s Saturday Age classifieds. Much to the chagrin of my long-suffering parents, I became in effect a backyard car-wrecker.
It was a profitable enterprise – the proceeds of the sales of the remaining components helped fund the project as well as my student lifestyle.
It was a 1940 Ford V8 bought for its hydraulic brakes to replace the mechanical anchors on the 1934 Ford coupe, that yielded the gearbox in question.
It was in lovely nick, having been reconditioned shortly before the car was retired due to engine issues.
In today’s money I was probably asking around $1000 for it. With decent money on the line my interested buyer, a mechanic, was after more than my personal assurances about its condition. He asked me to pull the cover off to allow him to inspect the gears. “No trouble at all.”
I pulled the lid off to reveal first-class gears and mating cluster before tipping it sideways to drain the oil into a catch tray to ensure we could do a thorough visual check on all the components.
Then a stray gear-tooth splashed into the tray …
Using all my persuasive powers to keep the buyer from shooting through, I explained that I was as bowled over as he was and that I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
Together we inspected all of the teeth on an individual gear, as I slowly rotated the gear train. Then we focussed on the next gear and repeated. And the next. We did the same for each gear on the cluster. Then we did them all again. All gear teeth were present and accounted for. Twice!
Apparently the stray tooth had lodged itself in a tight crevice somewhere in the gearbox case prior to the strip-down and reco process, before dramatically emerging from hiding that day. Stranger than fiction, but that was our best guess. And the deal went through. Hallelujah!
