Internal Combustion 2

This is a grave and dangerous game I’m playing.  Trying again, taking on a project with hope that it will be more than it appears on the surface.  I am playing with gas – the risk of excess and failure – while smoking a fat cigar.  I’ve done things like this before and gone too far.  I’ve done them wrong and gotten carried away.  It is my adopted nature to receive a vision and run too fast with it.  Take it outside the bounds of its original intention.  To make it more risky, I’m involving other people, their hearts and healing.  But I know it can be done well.  I keep getting visions.  I can see fleeting pictures of transformation in my head.  I am reckless with my hope. 

There are so many possibilities with engines, transmissions and suspensions.  There is so much possible with the heart, mind and body.  They are both complicated, interconnected entities with character made of these unique interconnections.  Each one has a capacity, limitations and particular steps required for achieving full potential.  Both can be dealt with too quickly, overburdened and damaged – even broken beyond reasonable (rarely beyond unreasonable) repair. 

For a vehicle or a human to operate to it’s full and glorious potential their parts must be synchronized and work together in harmony.  They must be matched in purpose, strength and direction.  Imagine a four-speed transmission with a granny gear mated to a Lincoln Continental.  4500 rpm at 60mph and shifting into second at 5mph doesn’t make for a good highway cruiser.   An off road rock crawler with highway gearing and squishy suspension would be stopped by the first tiny rut or rock it encountered.  Each has its intended use and can be tuned for it according to its design.  Each can be improved to accomplish amazing feats.  But parts and pieces must be coordinated.

To restore a vehicle or a person in such a way that they go beyond the norm and are truly durable, reliable and glorious requires alteration.  Weakness must be replaced by strength.  Sometimes focus must go from broad to narrow.  No one person can do everything well or at all, but many people together can do super-normal things, Including restoration.  The big difference between humans and any other metaphor – we have to cooperate in our restoration. 

Something I hear a lot, usually from people who feel sorry for me / don’t want to think too much about themselves / don’t want me to talk anymore / actually I don’t know… (I guess I’m not sure what their motive is, mostly I’m cynical and suspicious, the bad kind).  Anyway, someone will put their hand on my shoulder, tip their head a bit to the side and ask with great sympathy, “How ya doin’?”  I talk for awhile about whatever seems to be authentic or convenient at the moment until that glazed over look appears and I realize I was supposed to say, “good, how are you?”  I mess this up constantly.  Anyway, I pause at the glaze and give them time to regain brain function.  When the lights click back, they say something like, “Don’t worry, in no time, you’ll get back in the game and things will be just like they were before.”  As my synapses connect with that idea, I quickly become aware of a deep and desperate need for Imodium (I’m not a throw up guy, I’m the other kind).  My desire for things to be like they were before is akin to my desire to become a Chip & Dales dancer.  I’m not saying I couldn’t, I just really, really don’t want it.  Like, you’d have to hold my wife at gunpoint kind of don’t want. 

Olds 442

Blown 32 Vicky

I’m looking for the restored model to be better than the one that wore out and got broke.  This is a “kind of guy” as well.  There are restore-to-original-condition guys and there are restore-to-a-specific-genre-of-hot-rod kind of guys.  This is true of trucks, Model T’s, Old’s 442’s, Land Cruisers, VW buses, 55 Chevy’s… everything.  I am of the opinion that, while the original, numbers matching restorations are worth tons more dollars, I like the customization for looks, modernization, specific task accomplishment or raw speed and power.  Not much is cooler than a ’32 Vickie with a blower or a 68 SS Camero with modern C-class corvette suspension and six speed tranny, AC and a killer sound system.  An old VW bus that has been chopped, dropped and painted flat black with red wheels and whitewalls (rat-rod) or a sleeper Dodge Dart with a blown 500hp, nitros injected 383 stroker, a tubbed rear end exhaust dumps will capture my attention much more than a bone stock anything any day.

Dropped Rat Rod VW Bus

69 Dodge Dart - sleeper

Ok, that was a lot of secret car guy speak to anyone who isn’t a car guy (or gal).  I’d get rid of it and make it simpler but the real car guys will think I’m cool if I leave it alone.  That’s worth it.  In any case, I’ve noticed that – that which has been broken is more likely to be improved when fixed than put back to it’s original condition.  It’s better, improved, bionic, more durable, powerful and applicable to a particular need.  I want to be that kind of restoration my whole existence.  I think that’s what God is after.  I think every time something breaks, its for the sake of transcendent improvement.

Just getting broken because it’s a crappy life would be really depressing.  Getting broken because brokenness brings on newness through restoration at the hands of the mighty mechanic - that I’m up for.  If he wants to take off parts, grind them down, replace crusty rubber bushings and manifolds with newer better equipment - ok.  I will growl through my tuned exhaust, fat polished valves and fire breathing 600cfm carburetor.  If I whine while he grinds, you can sort of ignore me.  I’m proclaiming now, it’s worth it.  I hope Earl agrees.