September 21,—1935-Where, Oh Where, Are the Motor Mechanics of Yesteryear?
The Washington Daily News—Saturday—September 21,—1935
Where, Oh Where, Are the Motor Mechanics of Yesteryear?
By ERNIE PYLE
AFTON, Minn.—This is a dissertation which will bring down on my fast-balding head the wrath of every alleged auto mechanic who happens to read it. And I don’t care. Auto mechanics are getting in my hair. I’ll fight any one of them who cares to step up, with monkey wrenches, behind the garage at dawn tomorrow. Any one of them, that is, except Bill Swanlund. He’s a real mechanic, and I wish I could advertise him all over the world.
I have been searching for the last 2500 miles for a mechanic. I think I know the foreman and grease monkeys in every garage between Nova Scotia and Lake Superior. My money is jingling in their pockets. But I had to come to this little crossroads burg (Afton, Unincorporated—Pop. 140) to find a real, honest-to-goodness mechanic who knows what it’s all about.
The trouble started in Nova Scotia. The car got so that, after an hour or two of hard running each morning, it would grind and groan in the gear-box like a Ford model. And then at intervals of three or four times a day (each one lasting about 15 minutes) it seemed that every gear in the car had expanded and was seizing, with the resultant tremendous shivering that came right up thru the throttle and steering wheel like a massaging machine. And then, at low speeds, there would be a great jerking and knocking and bucking on the inside somewhere. It was driving me nuts.
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So I began stopping at garages. Altogether, the car was worked on eight times between Nova Scotia and here. I paid out more than $35 on repairs. (Repairs, my eye!) At each of the eight places I explained just how the thing was acting, told them I thought it was in the gear-box, and begged them to drive the car around awhile and listen to it themselves.
Only two of the alleged garagemen condescended to ride in the car. One of these said he knew what it was, but didn’t have the tools to fix it. The other one said he couldn’t hear nothin’.
These two were far above the average, and deserve some sort of medal, because they were the only ones who would even pay any attention to what we were telling them. The others just nodded, and you could tell their thoughts were miles away, or that they were thinking you didn’t know what you were talking about, and a shot of grease would fix everything.
Out of those eight garages, two said it was the carburetor, and tinkered with that till it was all out of tune; one said it was the steering gear, and he took that apart; one said something was wrong with the front wheels, and took them off. The others said nothing, and just gave her a squirt of oil and handed me a bill. And the grinding, each day in every way, got worse and worse.
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So in Afton I told my troubles. “Bill Swanlund is your man,” they said. So I went to Bill. He listened to my story, he actually listened, and asked me questions.“I know,” he said. “But it’ll take a whole day”—I told him to give it the works.
Next day I went up to the garage. The car was sitting on four barrels. The hind wheels and axle were off. The insides were all out.“Did you find anything?” I asked. “Look here,” Bill said. And he showed me. The bearing that holds the front end of the drive shaft was so badly worn that the shaft was running out of line and wobbling all over the place. The five connections in the universal joint were so worn you could move them around like a loose tooth. Bill fixed them, and now the car runs like a summer breeze.
“And what do you think caused the trouble. Rough roads? High speed?”Says Bill: “I don’t know what they’ve been putting in there for grease, but it looks like road tar to me.”
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Swanlund is not an old man, but he’s of the old mechanical school. He could bring dead the best mechanic in those parts. He has the sense of accomplishment in him. He could no more turn out a cheating job of auto repairing than he could work it with a string, which he can’t do at all.
Mechanics in our big garages are robots. They do things by the book. I do believe they’re stumped unless you’re out of oil or have a flat tire.
I’m so mad that as soon as I can save the money I’m going out to Kansas City to that auto school and learn how to fix my own autos.
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