Jolene, pt. 1

So I’m probably the luckiest person in the world. Except when I’m not, but that’s a story for another time.

A little over a week ago my dad and brother came over and we spent a carefree five days removing the engine and transmission from my 1965 Chevrolet Bel Air, Jolene.

Jolene ran when I bought her, although not super well. She brought me home safely from where I found her in Olympia, over an hour away, but I couldn’t tell you how fast I drove because over about 45 miles an hour the speedometer needle bounced around. It was a bit of a job staying in the lines, her steering was that sloppy. I stopped for gas early on because of course the gas gauge didn’t worth either. But I was ridiculously happy.

Once home I sent her for a little sleep away at the mechanics where she behaved tolerably well, aside from the way one of her ball joints fell completely apart when they put her up on the lift. Her steering was considerably improved after the subsequent front end job.

She sat in the driveway and then in my garage for the past two years, waiting for me to have time and money to start the process of restoration. Then last spring I had some difficulty with the Subaru (the Impreza with the crappy brake design, a pox forever upon its name) and we needed a more powerful vehicle to tow the trailer anyway. We traded in both of our cars on the Juggernaut and bought my little Mazda back from our friend’s son as a little around-town car to tide me over until Jolene could be brought back to life, Jolene who had spent last winter emptying her cast iron bowels onto my garage floor.

I ordered an engine from a company in Spokane where my dad lives, and because they didn’t have it done on time it then spent a few months in the garage of one of my dad’s friends, waiting for the weather to calm down and not actively try to kill us. My dad is reasonably hale and hearty but he’s of a Certain Age and I’d like to not contribute directly to his actual expiration by asking him to wrench on my old car in some kind of crazy swamp heat out there.

Finally the stars aligned and we had a fairly mild weekend mostly free of other obligations, and so it began.