You Know the Drill

I hummed quietly as I leaned against the counter in Herkle’s Auto Parts. Even though the place was empty, I didn’t dare sing out loud. You never know when a talent scout is hiding around the corner to whisk you away to Hollywood. Or in my case, when some little old lady might jump out and whack you with an umbrella.

Like I said, the place was empty. Not even Herk was around. I thought he might have stepped out for a minute until I noticed faint sounds coming from the back room. “Hey, Herk! Are you back there? How about some service!” I pumped out a snappy tune on his bell in time to my humming.

There was a loud crash as Herk yanked open the stockroom door and grumbled his way to the counter. “Yeah, whadda ya need, Slim?”

“Oh, a little touchy today, aren’t we? What’s got you so worked up?”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m putting together a display shelf I got from one of my suppliers, but the whole thing is drilled wrong; none of the holes line up. They sure don’t make things like they used to.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “sort of like some of the auto parts we have to work with, eh?”

Herk ignored my brilliant comeback. “You here for that oil pump Beanie ordered?” I nodded. “Here,” he said, pushing it across the counter. “And you know the drill; prime it with petroleum jelly before you bolt it up to the block. I don’t want your comebacks blamed on my parts.”

He was having a bad day, so I held my peace and headed back to the shop. Besides, these things have a way of evening themselves out.

The external oil pump was for a 1979 Dodge 440 cu. in. motor that was buried deep inside a Class A motorhome body. The owner wanted it serviced before heading out on his summer holidays.

“It runs fine, Slim, but change the oil and check things over.” Ed was a cautious fellow and didn’t like breakdowns when he traveled. “And one other small thing; fix up that little oil leak on my engine.”

The “little oil leak” turned out to be a worn mounting gasket on the external oil pump. But upon removal, we found the pump rotor so badly scored that we decided to replace the pump at the same time. It should have been a simple job.

Beanie tightened up the last bolts, and then climbed in to start the engine. It fired right up, but quit abruptly. As he cranked the engine, loud pops and bangs came up through the carburetor. No matter what he did, it would not start again.

“What did you do?” I asked. “It ran great when it came in.”

“I don’t know,” Beanie protested. “I changed the oil, and put on that new pump you gave me. That’s all!”

Well, we obviously had spark, judging from the backfires. And a quick check in the carb showed lots of fuel. At 90,000 miles, we suspected a jumped timing chain. As we began to check that out, I noticed the distributor spun as far as it could go in one direction, with the vacuum advance hitting the valve cover. Even the plug wires looked stretched the same way.

“Look here, Bean. Something has made this distributor move.” We pulled the cap off and found that the rotor had chewed right into it. I also noticed that the vacuum advance lever had popped off the breaker plate. In fact, the breaker plate was bulged up and distorted.

“It looks like the shaft has been pushed up from below!” said Beanie. He was right. When we pulled the distributor out, the nylon spacer on the bottom of the shaft was completely missing.

“It’s like the oil pump shaft is sitting too high,” I said. “Did you have any trouble installing the oil pump?”

Beanie hesitated. “Well, the mounting bolts did seem a little tight the last quarter inch or so.” That was our clue.

Off came the oil pump and we compared it side by side with the old one. Everything looked identical, except when we dropped a used oil pump rod into the hexagon-shaped drive hole drilled into the pump rotor. “Hey, the oil pump rod goes further down into the old pump. The new pump isn’t drilled deep enough!”

Sure enough, the new pump had a shallow hole, and when it was bolted to the engine block, the oil pump drive rod pushed up against the bottom of the distributor. This broke the nylon spacer, and pushed the distributor shaft up to places it shouldn’t be. The timing advance weights took out the breaker plate and the rotor mangled the cap.

Herk was glum when I handed him a warranty list that included another oil pump, a new distributor, and some labor time. “That pump came from the same company that sent me the display shelf,” he grunted. “They must have the same drill jockey working both assembly lines.”

I shrugged and started humming. “It’s like you said, Herk. ‘They sure don’t make things like they used to’.”

(Thanks to John Cornett-Ching of Summerland Auto Tech in Summerland, BC, for this month’s technical solution. If you’ve got a good story to tell, e-mail Rick at r_cogbill@telus.net)

About The Writer

Rick Cogbill is a freelance writer living in the Okanagan valley of Southern British Columbia. A licensed technician with over 25 years in the automotive repair industry, including ten years as a shop owner, Cogbill creates his comic scenarios with Slim, Basil, Tooner, and The Bean out of actual case histories. “What you have just read is true,” drawls Slim Shambles. “Only the names have been changed to protect my hide!”