Thanks Sphelps,
I could go on and on, well why not? Ok the boat is new to me as the owner but not as a user / enthusiast so I have more stories to tell and a fondness to this tin scoot more than money could ever buy.
One year we went to Canada, Charlton Lake to be exact. We towed the boat with Dad's Chrysler Labarron, great trip all around. So we arrived at camp fished, boating, skiing for the week great time, it came time to leave too soon and on the trip home the fun really begins. It was my job to make sure nothing was lost from wind from the boat, chains dragging, life vests, cooler tops etc. Watching occasionally out the rear windshield I saw smoke and notified the commander of the new conditions as only a 14 year old in a foreign country could tactfully accomplish in the middle of nothing at all for many many miles. We soon discovered the source was transmission fluid landing on the "slightly" warm exaust pipe. In another country you could be at the mercy of a garage to fix it in this situation but not my Dad, we had no idea where to find a trusty shop so we bought 4 QUARTS of atf at a little Mom and Pop store and headed on down the road. I must pause here for a side note- at this point you may be starting to understand why there were 3 spare tires inside the Jup when I received it. Back to the story, at this point measuring with the dip stick is out the window, we are dumping it in when ever Dad could sense the transmission slipping in the least little bit. The four quarts got us to the border where civilization existed once again for the brief period it was, we were able to buy more atf, two gallons should do it, (I was keeping track), and proceed to the intended destination of home to fix in the driveway. We repeated this process over and over and over again until we reached Saginaw MI where we ran into a guy that overheard Dad's conversation of why he needed the cheapest atf fluid that didn't really match the Chrysler's manufacturer recommended specifications in such a bulk quantity. The smoke cloud in the parking lot should have been a key indicator that Dad was not spending his hard earned money on the good stuff. (Ohio is not at all close at this point) This guy said to my Dad I can help, we both looked at each other with a bit of skepticism as we didn't blindly just trust everyone. See Detroit in a previous post. He tells us to follow him so we do cautiously, to his house though alleys side streets and like we were being chased with the Jup in tow. We arrived at his house to find a small garage and some guys in the yard. At 14 the spidey senses were doin double overtime at this point and things didn't look right. The guy gets out and so do we and we all meet at the edge of the road and he tells us where we can unhitch the Jup across the street, we follow his directions and meet back at the garage and they waste no time getting to work locating the source of the mosquito reduction vehicle we had created. He looks at one of his workers and says " go down to such and such junk yard and pick up a torque converter and tell him I don't want any crap ones either, this is for my friends and if he tries to pull any bs I'm coming down there, and the man left to do just that. For a small framed man he obviously didn't mess around with shady junkyard salesmen. Meanwhile we helped them pull the transmission to ready it for a new transplant. The hours passed by quickly and the next thing we knew this mans wife was hard at work in the kitchen to feed us lunch. Wow not at all what I expected as I learned early to work until the job is complete or you can't keep your eyes open any more. Transplant completed and tested, leaked, oh no, the small framed man was NOT at all happy. He went with my dad to the junkyard this time personally and came back for the round two transplant. Now it's getting late and we ate dinner with them, again not expected but a treat for sure. All buttoned up and tested on the second time around with no leaks, this was the first time I saw the man smile at this point at a job finished. The man says to us" its late and we are all tired you will stay here with us tonight and we will square up in the morning, now we had a celebration, the adults with barley pop and all of the kids with as much soda and snacks as we could handle.
The next morning Dad paid the man and if memory serves me I believe he only charged him for the part and fluid it required to fill it correctly for the first time in a long while. We left and one mile of freeway driving and the smoke was back, we pulled off and I walked back to the on ramp to a parts store and bought more cheap fluid and headed back to the disabled tow vehicle to top it off and get it to the auto parts store at the next exit and found a leaking hose to be the culprit and fixed it in the lot. This man and his family turned out to be the finest and most hospitable Mexican friends we have had the privilege and honor to meet, Dad and my step mom still keep in touch, I am now 42. I wouldn't change a thing about that trip at all. We had no more leaks up to the point Dad Sold the Car years later.Total ATF used was 54 quarts. Sorry for the long post.
