Wednesday morning, September 20, I met Sandra and her little red Midget in Bakersfield and followed her up the winding highway to Tehachapi, through that little hill town, then down a tiny dirt lane to Jon's garage. Once there, I soon realized I'd hit the BBCC's "tech" ground zero.
The garage itself is a metal shed surrounded by a British boneyard of Triumphs and MGB Midgets and chrome bumpers and rubber bumpers, old cars with semaphores and half-gone badges and stripped innards and such. Inside, under the big British and U.S. flags hanging on the wall, Jon's got a full sized hydraulic lift and a rack of profressional grade tools--everything needed to work on the cars.
Jon guided me in and we lifted the coupe and checked out the underside and basically worked the car over. I greased the fittings and replaced a lost nut, among other things. Then we lowered the car and got under the hood and went to work.
We adjusted carbs and cleaned spark plugs and set the gaps and tweaked the timing. Jon explained the technical aspects of each job to me and then shoved the wrench or the strobe light or the gapping tool my way and said, "Now do it!"
Lou showed up in his red coupe, and Pat in his burgundy roadster, and Dale in a beautiful blue Triumph. All of Jon's dogs--led by Coyote the mini pin--were nearby, especially when the pizza and cream soda arrived. The dogs flocked to Jon as if he were St. Francis of Tehachapi.
Before I left, I said hello to Gizmo and the other exotic birds and coy fish nearby.
Where else could I have had the opportunity to work side by side with a fine import mechanic and other enthusiasts on my own car? As a new British car owner, I couldn't have asked for a better day.
1 comment:
Gary,
Welcome to the club. I think the site is the cat's meooooow. Danielle and I will not be at the October meeting as I am going to show her there is more to the U.S. than desert. See you at Clovis on the 8th, I hope.
RD
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