The Brake-job

In 1971, at the beginning of my Junior year in high school, my first car (a 1963 Volkswagen bus) died. Note: No Volkswagen built in those days was designed to withstand the rigors of a teen driver. Consequently, my dad co-signed a loan for me to purchase a 1968 Mustang convertible. The car was lightweight, with a large V-8 engine, and less-than-adequate brakes. In short, my continued existence is proof that God watches over dim-wits and teenagers with fast cars (although those might be the same thing).

As an all-American teen driver, I had a heavy foot, both on the gas pedal and the brake pedal. If I accelerated from a standing stop without the sound and smell of burning rubber, I was either not feeling well or pulling away from a date’s home while her father looked on warily. Conversely, any stop that did not include at least some chirping of the tires on the pavement was a stop that had been prematurely initiated.

As you gathered from the title above, I was Hell on the brakes. I also went through three automatic transmissions in the two years I tortured that poor automobile. When the brake shoes began squeaking against the brake drums (disk brakes were not yet a thing), I gave in to the notion that I might need a brake-job.

Luckily, my best friend’s dad owned a local Gulf gas station with two service bays so I figured I could get a sweetheart deal on the brakes. No dice! He wanted sixty-five dollars (mind you, those were 1972 dollars). With a little research — as in, a walk across the street to the auto parts store — I discovered that the parts were less than thirty bucks. I also knew, firsthand, that the service station mechanic was a drunk with enough dead brain cells to fill an adult coffin, so I assumed I could easily accomplish anything he could.

Knowing that I was a broke teenager, my friend’s dad took pity on me and allowed me to use one of his service bays (with hydraulic car lift) on two conditions: One, I could not raise the car above three feet in the air, and two, I could not bother his mechanic with ANY questions. I kept my promise on the first condition.

On a Saturday afternoon, I set to work on what I expected to be a 45-minute job. After all, I had state-of-the art tools and since there was no Internet or YouTube instructional videos back then, I’d watched two previous brake-jobs that mister red-nose accomplished in half an hour each. I’d even written down a few notes.

All went incredibly well. I finished in sixty minutes flat and fired up the car to pull it out of the garage. You know how you have to put your foot on the brake to get the car out of Park? When I did that, the pedal went all the way to the floorboard and there were NO brakes. That’s when I broke condition number two and offered mister red-nose a six-pack of Budweiser if he’d come figure out what went wrong.

He pointed out that I had air in my brake lines, which meant I had to bleed the line to each wheel, one at a time. That was a tedious task but after three hours of work, I had the system working to the point that I only had to pump the brakes twice to make them work. As a teenager, I figured that “almost good” was good enough. After all, a C-minus was still a passing grade, so I called it a success and headed out.

That night, I went out with a girl from the little town of Forney, about thirty-five miles East of Dallas. One thing led to another, and we had a great Saturday night until I headed back home around 2:00AM. Did I mention there used to be a truck stop between Forney and Dallas? Being the only car on I-20 that time of night, I was headed home at a little over a hundred miles an hour when some nincompoop in an 18-wheeler pulled onto the freeway a half mile ahead of me, and all the way into the fast lane.

After pumping the brakes furiously, swearing enough to make a sailor blush, and possibly soiling my pants slightly, I got the car down below sixty, which was slow enough to maintain control when I passed him with my right tires on the shoulder and my left tire in the the grass median. I was even too shaken up to give that trucker the international salute of displeasure. Needless to say, on Sunday, while my friend’s dad was not at the service station, I promised mister red-nose a quart of Jack Daniels on top of the Budweiser if he’d fix my brakes.

He accomplished the task in 15 minutes. I felt cheated. However, I learned one invaluable lesson that day — no matter how good we are at whatever we’re good at, even a drunk with a minimal IQ can be better at his chosen profession than we will ever be. If John DeLorean had learned a little humility and practiced that lesson forty years ago, his Irish auto factory might still be in business today, making more than props for Hollywood movies.

Bottom line: By thinking I could do someone else’s job as well as they could, I almost killed myself and had to chunk a good pair of jeans.

A meeting of great minds who think alike