Father Far and Away: Part III

Since the late 1980s, nearly all cars (barring trucks and SUVs) are front-wheel drive, meaning the same front wheels that steer the car also power the car (like a tricycle).

But virtually all American cars through most of the 20th Century were rear-wheel drive (more like a bicycle than a tricycle). From Henry Ford’s first mass-produced Model T to the fabulous 1964 Mustang and beyond, the power from the engine under the front hood was transmitted (via a transmission and a driveshaft) through a long, high hump in the car floor to a differential between the rear axles which turned the wheels.

Why the brief primer in automotive design? Because many readers, including my dear family, know little about what makes a car go--much less how designs differ. And because a basic understanding of rear-wheel drive hardware is essential to this part of the story.

So let’s see… where were we. Oh, yes…

We were headed north on I-75 in the family wagon, a 1964 Ford Country Squire, tooling along in the right lane at 55 MPH, which as you may recall was the national speed limit from 1974 to 1988. It was imposed in the "oil crisis" caused by OPEC's embargo against the U.S. which sent gasoline prices to an all-time high of 59 cents a gallon! (It was half that just a few years before.) In response to such unthinkably high prices, the Feds demanded that we "Slow Down and Save."
.

So Dad was putting along; everyone else was dozing off or staring out the window. When all of a sudden, just outside of Berea, Kentucky, something in the rear axel snapped-- Kerplunk! Wham! Whup-whup-whup! Smell of rubber. Sound of grinding steel. The car rolled to a shaky halt on the shoulder of the interstate, leaning to the right, as we held our breaths in trembling silence.

“Is everyone alright?" Dad asked, "Did anything come up through the floor? Stay in the car while I go see what we hit.”

Mindful of the traffic, Dad slipped out his door around the rear of the car to my side. Shaking his head in disbelief, he motioned for us to get out and have a look. The tire was in shreds. Worse yet, the wheel itself was leaning at a 45 degree angle and pressed down in the gravel under the weight of the car.

“Oh, Don,” Mom sighed, “Can we put on the spare?”

“It’s not just the tire, Mom,” Dave explained as Dad shook his head, “The whole wheel is off.”

“We must have broken the axel,“ Dad added. “I don’t know how it stayed in the well like that.”

“I felt it pounding around in there right behind my seat,” I said.

“I thought it was going to come right through the car,” Jim added.

“So now what?” Mom asked trying to stay calm.

“So now I go up that exit ramp and see if that gas station has a tow truck. Dave, why don’t you come with me and Tom you stay here with Mom and Jim.”

Until that moment, I had not noticed that we were just a stone’s throw from an exit. We could see a faded Marathon Gas sign high on a pole, but not the station below it. Within a half hour, an old tow truck rolled across the overpass, came down the far on-ramp, crossed the “emergency use only” short cut, made a three-point turn on the shoulder and backed up to our car. Dad, Dave, and a large man about Dad’s age in dirty coveralls got out of the truck. The name “Clee” was sewn on his pocket.

.
The man nodded our direction but got right on the ground to see the damage. He shook his head, let down the hoist, and double-hooked the bumper. [This was back when bumpers were made of steel and actually up to such a task.]

“I don’t want to pull it on that bad wheel,” he said, “It’s pert-near off already. Likely drop right out when we lift ‘er up so step back.”

He slowly lifted the car onto its front wheels. Sure enough the broken wheel dropped to the ground. He and Dad picked it up and heaved it in the back of the truck.

“I can take you and the wife and him,” Clee said, pointing at Jim.

Dave and I walked to the station in as little time as it took Clee to wait for a long gap in traffic, make a slow, wide U-turn, and lumber up the ramp. I’m not sure which looked sadder, my parents and Jim squeezed into the front of that truck or the sight of the car itself being hauled off like road kill by the tail.

.

Standing there alone with my brother in the setting sun, I asked him the question that had been on my mind for an hour.

.

“Do you think it was all those neutral drops?” I whispered.

.
A “neutral drop” was what boys back then did to cover the fact that they were driving an uncool car that could not “burn rubber” [squeal the tires from a dead start] We would sometimes rev the engine in neutral and then drop it into gear so the tires squealed when you took off. The sudden jolt was extremely hard on every moving part involved. We never did the stunt in front of our house, of course, but it did occasionally happen when we were with a car load of boys headed to the beach. Dave did it more than I did, and we felt bad the summer before when Dad had to replace the universal joint (U-joint) in the drive shaft, which had developed a strange rattle. After that Dave and I drove the family car more gingerly--except the time when he wanted to see if it would go over 100MPH. It did. If the wheel had come off at that speed, I would not be writing this story.

.

I asked Dave the question again: “Was it all those neutral drops?”
.

“I don’t know. I was thinking the same thing, but it's been over a year ago since Dad replaced the U-joint. Besides this wasn't the drive shaft; it was the axel. And don't forget: Mom's been driving this car for a year without us. She's awful hard on cars," said the neutral drop king without even a hint of irony.

.

Crossing the road to the station, we agreed not to bring up the subject again, and to this day we have never talked about the possible connection between our foolish tire-squeeling and the wheel falling off that day. [In fact, it is only safe to write about it now because Dad is not here to read it.]

.

The filling station was small, just two pumps, but on the north end of the cement-block building it had a garage stall for repairs. Unfortunately there was a car in the stall up on the lift. Just beyond the station was a one-floor, long motel that looked like it had been built about the same time as the station when the interstate came through in the early Sixties.

.

Dad and Clee were looking at the bottom of the car while it was still in the air. There are some young men our age who would have walked right up to that conversation and joined in, but Dave and I decided to stay back just in case Clee was explaining possible causes of such a freak accident. Suddenly Dad smiled and thanked Clee who ran off to pump gas for a car that had just pulled in. (This was a few years before self-service at gas stations became the norm.)

.

"We're spending the night."It was a relief to see Dad smiling. "In the morning he's going to take me to the junk yard to get the parts we need and let me do the repairs myself."

.

"So whatever broke can be fixed?" Mom said somewhat in shock.

.

"Sure. Anything can be fixed on a car if you've got the parts."

.

"What about tools?" Dave asked.

.

"Clee says he's happy to let me use his tools."

.

"How much?" Mom winced. "We don't even know this man."

.

"Sure we do. His name is Compton. Friends call him Clee. He knows the guys at the junk yard and he says they'll take good care of us. He's calling the motel to get us the best rate, too. As soon as he lets down the car, we'll grab what we need and check in."

.

He said it as if we'd stayed in a motel before, but his nonchalance could not hide the relief that we were safe, this bad thing happened at a good place, and this problem--like nearly all problems in his life--was something he could fix.

.

Jim and I looked at the motel a short walk away. In spite of the circumstances, we couldn't help but feel excited about the fact that we were staying the night. It was then Jim pointed to the edge of the motel parking lot. There was an outdoor pool. We tried hard not to smile.

.

To be continued...