I'm a Maniac Maniac

That, is a really blurry picture of me arc welding. The fuzziness actually makes it more accurate if you imagine it as sweat running into your eyes. It's over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Texas and my welding class is in a big metal building with no A/C. Add long pants, long-sleeve shirts, leather boots and gloves, one of those welding hoods plus 10,000 BTU's of heat and you've got a real swampy mixture.

As I'm standing there, listening to the instructor caution us on the dangers of 125 Amps of electricity arcing to molten steel, all I could hear was "...She's a maniac, maniac on the floor!" I said, "Oh my god. I'm the chic in Flashdance." Which dissected the class into those older than 30 and younger than 30. The younguns were blank.

"I'm a maaaaniac-maaaaniac!" and I did the running dance. Still blank. I did the running dance again and mimed dumping water over my head. "Nothing? It's an 80's movie about a girl who's a welder, but she really just wants to dance. Look it up on Youtube."

The Z: My First

Everyone remembers their first car. Maybe not the one with which they learned to drive, but the first one that they picked out and paid for. Mine was a forest green Ford Ranger pick-up; 2-door, 4-cylinder. I will forever kick myself for not buying the powder blue 1978 Mercedes sitting right next to it, but at the time I was determined to be a responsible grown-up, ergo, I bought the Ford.

Later, I would want to kick myself again for choosing to rebuild the little truck one month after I bought it when I collided with a deer. I could have totaled the vehicle and collected the insurance money. The Universe gave me another shot at the Merc, but no. I wanted to keep the Ford. I don't even remember what I named it.

One car whose name I will remember well as I remember the name of my first kiss (age 9, Troy Brauer, in the closet, during our parent's Bible study) is Axel; the 1980 Datsun 280 ZX. He was the first car I ever worked on as a mechanical person.

It started with a starter. If you've ever had one go out on your car, you know that distinctive c-c-c-click--click... with no vroom-vroom. I found a new starter online and had to get an 18-inch breaker bar to jolt loose some bolts that had not been turned in thirty years, but the rest was easy like a Sunday morning.

I was so proud of myself. Something was not working. I diagnosed the problem, replaced a part and it worked. I fixed something. The glory was short-lived as I bragged about my accomplishment to the dudes at school.

"What, you found the two bolts that hold it and stuck a new starter on? Big effin' deal."

Okay, so replacing a starter ain't so hard. What about the ignition coil and condenser? Still basically a plug-and-play operation. Unhook old part, replace with new one. Just don't get the polarities reversed when reattaching the wires. I needed something more - a bigger victory. Lucky for me, the Z was happy to oblige with persistent mechanical problems.

I replaced all the vacuum hoses, the flexible fuel lines, fuel filter and air filter. I even fixed the windshield washer system - that's never worked during our ownership. I watched former A&P Mechanic and family friend, Alan, patch weld the rusted exhaust pipes (probably damaged in the Vehiculus fallout). All of this, and still the engine would cut out randomly.

On the brink of giving up, I found a Guru Z - a guy who works on nothing but Z's. He walked to Axel with nothing but a flat head screwdriver and looked under the hood for about 10 seconds.

"Nope. Don't even start it. Bad distributor."

"Are you sure? You didn't even hear it run." Guru Z raised an eyebrow.

"$65 for a used one" he said.

"I'll take it" I said. "And one of those air intake boots if ya got it."

Photos: (top) G4 and Axel at a Love's gas station on I-20 outside of Weatherford, TX. (middle) A boxer/junkyard dog at a Z parts yard in Burleson, TX. (bottom) The old distributor and air intake boot disassembled on the dining table with my BUST magazine as a place-mat.

Vehiculus is Displeased

There is a god of motor vehicles. His name is Vehiculus and I have angered him. Perhaps I provoked his wrath with my boasting about the Mechanic Olympics. Maybe he takes issue with the glory of Olympia being coupled in name with such a peasant occupation. Or maybe Oglia, The goddess of Cosmetology Schools and third wife of Vehiculus, banished him to the couch for tire tracking her new faux-marble linoleum floor. What set him off is unknown. He’s pissed and he’s taking it out on me.

Saturday, April 11: Ruckus tears down the headliner from inside the Ford Fusion exposing side airbags and defiling our most pristine car. We were in Rockwall, TX at Buffet City with Doug’s family to celebrate Grandma Jo’s eightieth birthday. Protesting to being left in the car, Ruckus grabbed hold of the edge of the roof from an open window and defiantly put all 70 dog-lbs into bringing it down. Those headliners are sold as a single piece: $742 at the dealership, $512 off-market.

Monday, April 12: VW Bug won’t start. Turn the key and you get a “click-huhr” from the starter. It just so happens that the apartment complex is repainting our section of parking lot today and all cars need to be moved out of the area. Doug had stayed home from work sick and around 8:30am he’s calling me to leave school and come help him push-start Beatrix. She still wouldn’t start with a push, but we did manage to roll into a parking spot out of the way of the painting crew.

Tuesday, April 13: Beatrix VW starts. Inexplicably.

Wednesday, April 14: I drive over a cliff. Okay, it was just a really big curb. Turning a corner in the parking lot of our apartment complex, a corner navigated no less than four times a day, there’s a “KA-BAM-bam! Flub-lub-lub-lub.” The unmistakable tune of a flat tire. The front passenger tire is scrap rubber, there’s a dent in the rim, a scrape on the rear rim, and gas leaking onto the pavement. The gas leak turned out to be fuel hiccupped from the full tank up and out the cap.

My plan is to get the tire and rim off the Z, drive it down to Pep Boys in the Bug and be back in the two-car business before I go back to school. I get tire and dog into the Bug and turn the key. Nada. The battery in the Bug is dead. At this point I call Doug to come help me. He does and the day is saved. New tire for Axel, battery charge for Beatrix.

Thursday, April 15: All is well. The Bug stays home to think about her behavior, the Z takes me to school.

Friday, April 16: Beatrix gets left at the bottom of a hill. I had some meetings in Dallas and decided to give the Bug a chance to show her penitence with a drive to Big D. We get a half mile from the apartment when the engine sputters and dies. Luckily we’re facing a hill: Turn right to go uphill and get on the highway, turn left to go downhill and circle back home. I go left, figuring I can pop the clutch on the way down and get back home. It almost worked. Popped clutch, engine started, got to bottom of the hill and the engine dies again. Now all directions are uphill. $%#&*! A nice couple driving by stopped and helped me push the car into the ditch and gave me a ride back to the apartment where I jumped into the Z and proceeded to Dallas.

Around 5:30pm Doug get’s home from work and goes to find B. She starts without hesitation and drives home. No joke.

Like I said: There is a god of motor vehicles and I have pissed him off.

What must I offer the Great Vehiculus to win favor? Apparently, one tire is not sacrifice enough. This could get serious. I imagine myself in the twisted plot of a demi-god revenge, a legend in which Vehiculus comes to Earth in human form disguised as my husband. In a desperate attempt to enrage Oglia, he makes love to me. Curious tire tracks in the bathroom are my only clue of his visit.

Nine months later...

I'm as big as a double-wide and in labor. "Whoo-whoo-heee! Whoo-hoo-hee!"

"Just one more push, Mrs. Fore. I can see the tire!" the doctor exclaims.

"Whoo-whhhooo-uhaaaaaah!"

"Vbrooom-vbrumn-na-na-na!" I'm giving birth to a motorcycle baby: Half human, half Ducati.

"Almost there, Mrs. Fore..." says the doc. "Oh no. Oh god, I see the the exhaust pipe! He's coming out breach!!"

See what I mean? Do not anger Vehiculus. It can only end in tears.

Mechanic Olympics

Almost one full year has past since I left Kuwait, embarking on a quest to become an aircraft mechanic. Some said I'd lost my damn mind. Some called me their hero. Most probably wondered if I'd actually do through with it and I count myself in that third group. If you know me at all, you know that I've had a great many "career paths" in my relatively short number of years as an adult. If you've ever asked me what I'm doing, or what I'm doing next, you have probably heard a great many more grand schemes of possible career paths, some of which I have not completely ruled out. I still like the pirate idea. And the tree village resort idea. There's still time... I may get to those yet.

As for the choice to pursue my A & P Mechanic certificate (Airframe and Powerplant mechanic for those not hip to the aeronautical industry lingo), I think this one is actually holding water. I am almost halfway through my classes, I have a summer session and one more school year to go. Plus, my written, oral and practical test for both the A and P ratings. It's safe to say that I'm still a beginner. I have no military experience, no aircraft experience, and no mechanic experience. And yet, I volunteered my name for the PAMA (Professional Aviation Maintenance Association) Olympics: a competition among A & P students, sponsored by Snap-on tools.

I wrote down my name, never thinking I'd be chosen for the 5-person team to represent our school, after all, I'm just a beginner. They picked me. I was flattered of course. So, when the coaches informed us that we would have to perform 12 skills from all aspects of the A & P program, including the subjects I have not covered yet, I wasn't really listening. I was thinking about how cool I was to be selected over the obviously more qualified dudes in my class.

"Do you think they picked you cuz you're a girl?" one of them asked.

"Maybe." I said. "Too bad you're a guy. I have a lot less competition."

Two weeks before the competition, we, the Tarrant County College (TCC) team, gave up all social life and extra sleep to spend 12+ hours a day at the school practicing our skills. Or, in my case, to learn a semester's worth of material in a few days.

The weekend before the competition I came down with a fever that lasted from Saturday afternoon to Sunday night. Monday morning I went to school, took my airframe electricity section test (scored a 96) and then went to the doctor. Bronchitis and pneumonia. "Take it easy," they said as they injected a steroid shot into my backside and gave me a prescription for anti-biotics. "Get some rest."

Yeah, right. I did take a nap though. One. I hate naps. Then back to school.

Last weekend TCC hosted the 2010 PAMA Olympics and your favorite faux-redhead took 4th place. Unofficially. Officially, our team won the 1st place team award and one of the guys from our team, who has recently finished his oral and practical tests for both the A & P, took 1st place as an individual. Unofficially, I scored higher than the other three guys on my team and just barely missed the 3rd place prize of a Snap-on wrench set. The results were not published so to not offend anyone, but I've been told from several reliable sources that the crusty old dude instructors were "blown away." They now know me by name instead of just "the skinny redhead one."

And so, it was all worth it. Next year I go for the gold.

These are the skills we were asked to perform within a time limit of 15 minutes at each station:

• Magneto point setting (a magneto is like the distributor on a car)
• Spark pug end replacement
• Electrical resistor values, wire splicing and wire selection charts
  
• Weight and balance equations (finding the center of gravity and stuff like that)
• FAR research (Federal Aircraft Regulations. The FAA publishes enough rules to fill an entire library. Now, find the one rule that applies to this specific situation... yeah, no fun.)
• Safety wire (Aircraft bolts are tied together with wire to prevent them from coming loose, and if they do come loose, to prevent them from flying off and into the engine or propeller.)
• Rigid tube manufacture (Look as this schematic and bend your tubes to match with the proper hardware fittings.)
  
• Hardware identification (Part numbers, not just general categories)
• Hydraulic hose manufacture (measure, cut, and install fittings according to a drawing)
• Borescope an engine and report any damage found
• Torque procedures (torque hardware according to size and material)
• Rivet installation (aircraft exteriors are held together with rivets, like nails for a house)

I am proud to say that, yes, I do know how to do all of these things.