Well, Beanie, what did you bring us today?” I tucked a leftover Christmas napkin under my chin in anticipation. “And hurry it up…I’m hungry.”
Basil nodded in agreement as he added a touch of honey to his tea. “After last week’s disaster…” – he glanced significantly in Tooner’s direction – “…I’m looking forward to today’s offering. Hopefully, it’s not a burnt one.”
“Hey, watch it,” growled Tooner. “Keep this up and you’ll get nothing from me but store-bought junk.”
Not a bad idea, I thought. Last week, Tooner had tried to bake cookies in our microwave using a metal cookie tray, and almost burnt the shop down in the process. As a result, we now refer to his day as Ashes Monday.
The crew at Slim Shambles Tire & Auto Repair had made a New Year’s Resolution – instead of buying greasy donuts once a week, we’d take turns bringing goodies for coffee break. This week it was Snacks À la Chef Bean.
Beanie colored slightly as he opened up a large paper bag. “I apologize, guys, but I was too busy to cook this weekend. So I just grabbed something out of the freezer.” He plunked a frozen pizza on the table and stared at it. “My mother gave it to me two months ago. I guess I should have given it a few minutes in the microwave, huh?”
Basil sighed and reached for his lunch kit. “It’s those late nights again, isn’t it, Beanie? When are you going to start keeping sensible hours?”
Tooner snorted. “Sensible? These rowdy young upstarts don’t know the meanin’ of the word. I’m tellin’ ya, Bean, quit partyin’ yer life away or you’ll end up a loser!” He waggled an arthritic finger in Beanie’s direction. “An’ I speak from experience.”
“Hey,” protested Beanie. “I wasn’t partying. Samantha dragged me to a bowling marathon with all her friends. I was throwing gutter balls until 4 a.m.!”
The pizza wasn’t getting any warmer, so I removed the napkin and changed the subject. “How’s that intake job coming Beanie? Surely you must have it running by now.”
A 2002 Chevy Impala with a 3.8L V6 had been hibernating in Beanie’s bay for the past two days, suffering from a bad case of upper plenum replacement. The EGR port had melted, allowing engine coolant to leak into the combustion chambers. It was a common complaint with this motor. At first, our apprentice had welcomed the challenge, but now he wasn’t so sure.
Beanie sank back in his chair. “I’ve got it back together, but it has a misfire at idle on cylinder No. 2.” He frowned. “The funny part is, once I raise it off idle, it smooths out.”
Tooner chewed on a piece of beef jerky, the only treat he could find in his brown paper lunch bag. “Have ya checked for fouled spark plugs, or tried swappin’ the injectors around?”
Beanie nodded. “Done all that. Checked the whole ignition system, as well.” He sighed. “Got any other suggestions?”
We put together a list of things to check that included cleaning the MAF sensor, flushing the injectors, checking the O2 sensor action, and even pulling off the valve covers to check for broken springs. As he shuffled off to continue his testing, I threw his frozen pizza in the toaster oven – I wasn’t taking any chances with the microwave. With any luck it’d be thawed out by noon.
A little later, Re-man Riley stopped by for a late coffee, a good indication things were slow over at Block Busters, the rebuild shop where he worked. “What’s cooking today, Slim?”
“Not much,” I replied, poking at the pizza with a fork. “Care for some soggy pizza?”
“Naw, I’ll pass.” Riley topped up his travel mug and carried it over to the office door. He peeked into the bays. “Hey, is that a 3.8 in the car Beanie’s working on?”
I nodded. “We replaced the upper intake plenum – leaking coolant into the cylinders.”
Riley chuckled. “Another connecting rod bites the dust.”
I snapped my head around, almost dropping my fork. “What do you mean by that?”
He shrugged. “Just that almost every 3.8 I ever saw in our rebuild shop came in with a bent con rod caused by a leaky plenum. You know – hydro-locking and all that.” He slurped some coffee and grimaced. “Sheesh, got anything to neutralize this wicked brew?”
“We used to,” I said dejectedly, “but donuts are off the menu right now. Care for some Parmesan cheese?”
After Riley left, I went to find Basil. “Is it possible for a bent rod to cause a miss at idle, but not at higher speed?”
Basil tugged his left earlobe thoughtfully. “It’s possible. I wouldn’t bet the farm on this, but the theory is that because the bent connecting rod shortens the stroke, the piston has already gone past TDC by the time the spark fires.
Therefore, the ECM sees this as a misfire. But when the timing advance kicks in at higher rpm, the cylinder begins to contribute enough to smooth things out.”
We had Beanie check the compression, and sure enough, No. 2 cylinder was slightly lower than all the rest. With a borescope we also could see that the piston wasn’t coming up as high as it used to. “I don’t think our customer is going to be happy about this,” said Beanie.
Basil rubbed his chin. “In the future, it might be a good idea to do a compression test on these leaky plenum jobs before we go any further.”
All of a sudden, the smoke alarm went off as smoke poured into the shop. Tooner burst through lunchroom door, a tray of flaming pizza in his gloved hands. “Fire in the hole!” he hollered as he crashed through the outside door and into a snow bank. Apparently, he’d snuck in and turned up the temperature setting on the toaster oven when I wasn’t looking, and then forgot about it.
“Sheesh,” said Beanie in surprise. “Ashes Monday again, and it’s not even Tooner’s turn.”
Rick Cogbill, a freelance writer and former shop owner in Summerland, B.C., has written The Car Side for a variety of trade magazines for the past 14 years. “A Fine Day for a Drive,” his first book based on the characters from this column, is now available for order at thecarside.com.
