The time, the time!
07/12/2025
So, everything is fine, all lubrication points have been taken care of once again, axle checked and some oil added, the support for the sealing ring on the Pignon axle (bevel gear) has run in because a hero was probably traveling with a stone sealing ring many moons ago. I "repaired" this with a Speedi-Sleeve from SKF, a cover. One expert even said that this was a legitimate way to get something like this tight again. Well, it's not quite that tight. But I didn't want to go into that here. Because as I said, the oil is in, the same applies to the gearbox, which on the DeSoto is actually supposed to be nothing other than 10W engine oil, it's even written on it in huge letters.
Then the electric fuel pump was installed, a small thing, only intended to give the mechanical pump some support. All done quickly in the evening. Well, briefly? No way! As always, I ran out of time, looking for a pair of pliers here, fitting a shrink tube there, where were those things again? In short, everything takes time and nothing can be done "briefly", "quickly" or "on the side". The result is that the actual intention of giving the car a thorough wash was left out of the equation.
It is still exactly as I left it in my workshop after the last job. I told a colleague who wrote to me about whitewall tire cleaner that my bottle of this magic substance looks like new, while my car looks more and more like a Barnfind, a barn find from my own garage - dusty and with a few flying insects on the front of the car. What can I do about it? Claim that my car just looks like a car that's moved around a lot - a car, not a fetish! Or I could get up earlier and write my columns early in the morning. Then I can get home earlier and finally grab a sponge and bucket and - meditate! Washing the car.
(The VW Type 3 in the picture had it better: in 1967 it was cleaned, ondulated and polished at the recently opened Zürich Autowasch AG on Sihlquai. Source: ETH e-pics)
