Recently, a friend shared a passage which struck him, from the book, The Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s about being stuck, and you can read it here. I only made it 20% into this passage when knew that I’ve felt this feeling a thousand times. As a long time amateur auto mechanic, I’ve felt this feeling time and time again, and on a scale that is difficult to explain. I felt almost offended by a motorcycle enthusiast claiming that they’re “stuck” 🙂
No, you’re not stuck. Nothing on a motorcycle is truly “stuck” compared to what you encounter with a car, truck, or RV
However, I completely understand the feeling. In 2021, the day before we were set to embark on a seven-week RV trip across the US with an 11-month-old and a 3.5-year-old—in a massive 36′ RV (even crazier to work on than a car)—I decided to change the accessory belt and tensioner on my Jeep which I was flat towing behind the RV. This vehicle would serve as our lunar lander when we pulled up to new planets, err places, with the giant RV (which was 54 feet long with the Jeep in tow.
I wanted the Jeep to be in tip-top shape, it needed to be reliable for my family and me, so I was doing a few final maintenance items. This should have been a 10-minute job. A mere 10 minutes. 10 minutes, you understand? I told myself it would be 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes. This would be easy, right? RIGHT!?!? Sigh…..
I removed the tensioner bolt with a 3/8″ drive ratchet. If I recall correctly, the bolt was a 10mm. It felt stuck. I applied a little more force, and it immediately became super easy. I recognized this feeling from many previous repair jobs, and my stomach sank.
The damn bolt broke off
I still had hope. Deep down, I knew this bolt was connected to an aluminum engine, which is a bad sign because aluminum corrodes in annoying ways that steel does not. But I still hoped. Often, when a bolt breaks like this, a quarter to half an inch of the shaft will still protrude from the engine block (or head), allowing you to grab the end with a pair of vice grips, and surprisingly, with the fastener’s tension released, you can back the shaft of the broken bolt out of the engine block. I’ve done this numerous times, so my fingers were still crossed. I tried several times, patiently, but slowly the grim reality began to sink in.
This bolt was NOT coming out
After about 20 minutes, I accepted that I was indeed, completely screwed. It was midday, and I still had hours to figure this out before we left in the morning. Technically, I could even work through the night if necessary. I wasn’t above it. I’ve done it before. The good news was, the local auto parts and hardware stores were still open, so I wasn’t completely distraught yet.
I tried penetrating oil, a torch with MAPP gas, and an arsenal of different removal techniques and tools from my toolbox. Nothing. For a split second, I felt the urge to cry, then quickly, anger pushed it out, followed by a string of curse words no man should ever utter. Pure hatred. I hated this bolt. I hated this Jeep. I hated this trip in the RV. I knew there was no God. And if he did exist, I knew he hated me!
Minutes turned into hours. I was broken. Finally, I caved in. I started calling friends. The feeling of the mid-to-late 90s crept in, a nostalgia. So many memories of being on the phone with my Uncle, or a friend’s dad. The voice on the other end, counseling you through some tough job. Both you and the person on the phone knew that only you could get through this, but they could maybe, just maybe unblock you with an idea. Never a good idea. Never a golden bullet. It would ALWAYS entail more suffering, but just maybe, you’d get through it.
And you always get through it
This day, I called my buddy John McGonnell. He’s a savage (in a good way). He works on so much old stuff. I also lobbed a call in to my buddy Carlo, who rebuilds Suzuki race motors for Hayabusas motorcycles. In moments like this, you wish you knew more people. This is a special mix of skill, experience, and most importantly, grit. These are men who have suffered. Cussed, thrown tools, kicked things, screamed, gnashed teeth – grease on their faces, rust in their eyes – but, come out the other end.
John called me back and asked some questions. Standard stuff. Did you put vice-grips on the end of the bolt? Check. Penetrating oil? Check. Torch? Yes. Then, out of nowhere, he offered to come over. God, I love this man. He runs towards danger. Towards total and utter calamity. Towards the most annoying problem in the universe, and it wasn’t even his problem. This man is a saint, with a heart of gold.
When he arrived, we wrestled with it for a while. He quickly aligned with my hatred of this bolt.
We stood there, quietly staring at it
Calmly, he said, “We’ll drill it out and use a Helicoil.” Dread washed over my face and body. No… damn it. Not a helicoil. They’re a sign of failure, but worse, I really didn’t want to drill into the aluminum head on this engine. If this went sideways, it would be a disaster. We could hit one of the coolant or oil channels, and then I’d REALLY have a problem. “Damn you bolt, why can’t you just come out of there. Get out of your home!”, I thought. Useless, I pushed the thoughts from my mind. It was time to accept the helicoil.
We pivoted quickly. Started removing the bumper and all sorts of other stuff to get enough room to drill into the front of the engine. Flashlights, extensions, drill bits—more and more parts accumulated in the driveway. What people who don’t work on cars don’t understand is how annoying it is to work on a large, mechanical device with all of the oil, dirt, and weight to all of the parts. But worse, it’s all covered in other plastic and metal. It’s a job just to get to the actual job. And, it feels so useless.
It makes you hate aesthetics. Who cares if it’s pretty, I just want it to work again. It makes you hate aerodynamics. In that moment, I don’t care about gas mileage. In moments like this, there is a purity, a singular focus on getting this stupid, little bolt out. It’s as if this bolt is the avatar of of some evil God and it’s laughing at you. An imp, a Gremlin – one of Satan’s minions taunting you. And everyone, and everything in the way is the enemy.
Two grown men. Two savage large-bodies, large brained, new world primates, staring at and caressing this machine – with greasy hands, black marks on our faces, and ultimate focus. The cuss flowed like good wine. We were in our groove. Men doing man stuff.
After a good long while, which included trips to the hardware store, trips to the auto parts store, and more curse words than I care to admit, we had it drilled out, tapped, a Helicoil installed, and the new tensioner bolted on. I remember looking at the new bolt and it was a couple of degrees off, probably 88-89 degrees to the engine block, but it was close enough. I may have mentioned it to John, saying something like, “eh, I think it will be fine” (betraying my mystic fear of it). But alas, the job was done. And that tensioner is still going strong in 2025, four years later as I write this.
But, I was not unscathed form this job, mentally anyway. For the first time in my life. The first time ever. I had actually lost hope that day. Without John offering to come over, I think I would have given up. I really do. I don’t know if it’s me getting older, and more tired. I don’t know if it was the pressure of the RV trip, and the kids. I don’t know what pushed me over the line.
As a backyard mechanic, this wasn’t my first rodeo. It all started in 1994 when I was 19 years old. A friend of mine, Jake, was driving my 1984 Ford Escort station wagon when it overheated and finally cracked the head (it had overheated many times before). I didn’t even fully know what that meant. A head. What is a head, surely the top of the motor, right? I just knew the oil looked like a mix of milk and sugar. I called my uncle, he came over, we opened the hood and he said, “you’re going to have to change the head!” I nodded, not even knowing what that was. I assumed, he was going to hang out, and tell me what to do, but boy was I wrong.
I asked how I change the head, where do I start. He said, “you see all of this plastic and metal?” I said “yes”. He said, “take it all off. It’s under there. The head is under all of that stuff. Everything you see take it off!” and he left. Literally, that was it. He left. He sort of implied he’d come back when I took everything apart, when I could see the head of the engine, but it wasn’t explicit. He gave me a few more words about head bolts, and some other pointers, and he left. No manuals, no YouTube videos, no bonding with your dad (my dad wasn’t around) or Uncle. Just a mission in front of me, with no map.
I sat there alone, and thought, I have no friggin clue what to do. But, I needed my car for work. I needed my job for money. I needed money for life, girlfriends, etc. All of modern life revolves around the dull compulsion of the economic. But I digress…
And I did take off every single part. I called up my buddy Mike, and he came over. We made a fire in a 50 gallon steel drum to keep us warm, and that December, we took off every God damned, mother fucking part I could see. Slowly, this big metal object made itself visible. We pilled metal and plastic parts on an old picnic table, under a green corrugated car port, in North Hill, Akron, Ohio in December. And that day, we learned what the head of an engine was. It was sort of magnificent.
Two primates, staring at this mechanical glory
Queue record scratch. We took all of the head bolts out, and could not get the head off. We called my uncle. We called my friend Mike’s dad. We got pointers. Nothing worked. It’s as if the top half of the motor (the head), and the bottom half of the motor (the block) were fused together for all of eternity. There wasn’t an ounce of movement. Nothing. I didn’t believe it was possible to get them apart. My uncle was quite confident on the phone, “it’ll come apart”, he said, in a cool voice. Eventually, my mom protested for my uncle to come back and help us. He sent his buddy Bobby.
This random 40 year old guy comes over with a giant blond afro as I remember it. He looks at the engine, and says, “mmm hmmm” – he had a confidence about him. He “knew” we would get this motor apart. I wasn’t so sure. Sledge hammers, and pry bars, and cussing, and grunting, and sweat – even in December. About 30 minutes later, if I recall, and Bobby (who I had never met before, just some random friend of my uncle), Mike and I stood there reveling in our success. The head was off! We enjoyed that moment for a bit, I thanked this random Bobby, and he left.
Now what?
After that, I spent a week figuring out whether the head could be repaired (too expensive), whether I could get a new one (way to expensive), and eventually found a used one at a junk yard (still expensive). It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t new, but at least I didn’t have to remove it from the junk yard car myself! I took it to a machine shop to have it “pressure tested” to make sure it would actually work, and not leak oil or coolant. Then, I put it on my car, and slowly bolted the pile of parts back onto the engine. By some miracle, it actually ran again. I couldn’t believe it.
And so started my journey as a backyard mechanic
I’ve probably gotten myself out of 20-40 shit shows like this. Now, at 49, I’m tired. I’ll still figure it out. I’ll get just as angry. But that one with the pulley tensioner on the Jeep really broke me. I had too much riding on it. It was so unexpected. It should have been so easy. It was jarring. And I had little kids, and the RV trip, blah, blah, blah. I’m calling John later today to thank him and return the favor. I think he wants to use my garage this summer for a job he has to do on a motorcycle or a car. I owe him. BIG TIME. He’s a saint.
And now, to make this understandable for Millennials and Gen Z 🙂