Mickey Mouse Mechanics

If your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, it is late and no parts store is open, I'm the guy that can usually figure out how to get the car home. I drove so many beaters for so many years that I can usually figure out a way to Mickey Mouse things together.

An Example: I was driving a 1938 Graham Supercharger, and got caught in a snowstorm. This car had vacuum operated windshield wipers. When you are going up a hill or accelerating, they don't work very effectively. The snow kept building up on the wipers, so I kept having to stop and clear them.

Under the dash there was a little "ping", and the wipers stopped working. They would go over, but they wouldn't come back.

I pulled over and messed around with them, and found that if you bumped the wiper blades when they were all the way over they would come back.

Scrounging around the car I came up with a half a dozen rubber bands, which I daisy-chained together, attached them to the wiper blade, wound the other end around the wing window handle, started up the car, and drove the rest of the way home.

I performed an emergency repair so Mickey Mouse this weakend, that EVEN I was ashamed. But of course it worked.

Green Jean, the '73 Mercedes, decided to quit working last Thursday. It was over at R's apartment. I suspected the battery had been run dead, but wasn't sure.

Saturday, N. and I went down to grab the battery out and bring it home and charge it. When we got there, I asked N. to see if the car would start. To my surprise, it turned over, but it wouldn't start.

I had adjusted the points recently, so I popped of the distributor cap to see if they had slipped. No, the points were fine.

I happened to glance at the underside of the cap, and the little center button that made the electrical contact with the rotor was MISSING. Something I had never heard of happening before.

No contact, no spark.

There is a little spring up in the body of the cap that pushes the button forward.

I took that spring out, bent the last 1/8 inch 90%, put it back in the distributor cap, put the cap back on the car.

Not only did it start, but we drove it all the way home.

We went and tried to get a new distributor cap. but it was too late, everything was closed. The one place that was open didn't carry anything that old.

This was Saturday night, and I was tired, so I decided to sleep on it.

When I got up Sunday, I went to reconoiter the situation.

I have a parts car for my Z sitting in the driveway. I pulled the distributor cap off of it, and it looked like the little button would fit in the Mercedes.

I pulled on it and it came right out, so I went over and it went right in the Mercedes distributor cap. The car runs like a champ.

Well, they are both 280's.