Christmas Joy

     “Merry Christmas and I wish I could help you,” the passerby lady said.  There was real sympathy in her voice.

     “Thank you.  You aren’t the only one who wishes you could help me,” I replied as I straightened up and turned to face her.

        The lady just came from the post office building and walked past my car to get to her car, both parked at the curb in front of the building.  She got into her car and drove away.  I turned to my car with the engine hood raised, tool kit lying on top of the motor along with various pieces of plastic moldings, a few screws, and various screw drivers and wrenches.

     It was December 23, the day we had chosen to celebrate Christmas with the girls and families.  I had gone Christmas shopping early (8:30) that morning.  I left the gifts covered with jacket, gloves, scraper, other paraphernalia that collects on the seat of the pickup while I helped with preparations for the anticipated evening. That included vacuuming and cleaning a bathroom or two. 

      About one p.m., the Goodwife left for the post office with a couple of items to send to her mother for Christmas.  I finished my brief repast, retrieved the items from the pickup and just about finished wrapping the first one when the call came. 

     “I’m at the post office and the car won’t start.”

     I did what you should never do, assumed.  The day before, I had trouble getting the switch to turn.  I urged her to wiggle the steering wheel right and left as she turned the key.  Nothing.  Try shoving the shift lever up as you turn the key.  Still nothing.

    I left unwrapped gifts lying on the couch loosely covered with wrapping paper and other stuff.  I grabbed an extra set of car keys and took off for the post office. 

     The Goodwife got out and I slid behind the wheel.  Bells dinged and lights flashed as I inserted the key into the ignition.  The switch turned without difficulty.  The dinging stopped, the lights went out, and there was a barely-audible click, click, click. 

     Instantly it dawned on me that I had made a wrong assumption and should have fished for a few more symptoms.  I had brought not tool one.  Well, not one I needed, anyway, to clean corroded battery cable ends and battery terminals, or to replace a battery.

     I popped the hood to see how bad it would be.  In the good old days, this would be a ten or fifteen minute fix.  The battery would be easily accessible in one of the four corners of the engine compartment.  Remove and clean cables.  Clean battery terminals and replace cables, and you are on your way.

     In newer vehicles, 2001 in this case, so many plastic covers and cases have to be stowed in the engine compartment that the battery has had to find other places to hide.  In the dearly departed Aurora, for instance, cleaning cable ends would have meant removing the back seat to find the battery lurking in its covered box.  That almost sounds inviting in comparison to what was ahead of me.

     Chrysler engineers interred the battery beneath the air filtering apparatus in the right front corner of the engine compartment.  By looking closely you can barely see the positive terminal hiding in the dark below and between the air filter housing and the right front headlight housing.  See, yes.  Reach with hand or tool, no. 

     (See it?  Top center-to-right is the air filter housing.  The hexagonal bolt head in the center is the hood support.  The battery terminal is the two little bolts in the crevasse between the air filter and above left of the hood support.)

      Still not thinking clearly, we went home in the pickup.  The Goodwife prepped the prime rib for the oven as I gathered socket wrench set and screw drivers, finally a whole tool box.  Having stood in the sharp wind for a few minutes while studying the situation under the engine hood, I also donned my Carhart insulated coveralls.  The prime rib went into the oven, the timer set to go off in one hour.  Would anyone be there to hear it?  It was 3 o’clock.  Back to the post office we went.

       The air filter box came off with only one broken plastic ear.  The positive battery terminal was now accessible.  A thorough cleaning took about fifteen minutes.  The negative terminal?  Still hidden beneath the headlight housing.  The battery has to be “slud” (thanks to Dizzy Dean for that wonderful word) back to get to the negative side.

      The fender well is about an inch behind the battery, leaving no room to slide the battery back.  There is a removable plastic panel in the plastic fender well.  If I remove that panel, will the battery run into the right front tire?  I have heard that to change batteries on these cars, you have to remove the tire.  I really didn’t want to do that there in the parking lot.

  

     Then the idea hit me.  Why not try jump-starting the thing?  If cleaning the positive terminal didn’t work, I could jump-start it and take it home to the privacy of my own garage to disassemble the thing and screw it up out of public scrutiny.  That seemed a better idea than tackling the removable panel and maybe a tire.

      I reassembled everything.  Behind the steering wheel, the start attempt was rewarded with a repeat performance, bells, lights, clicks, but no start.     This time, when I removed the key, the instrument panel continued to flash and click.  Oh no, what did I do to the thing now?

     The parking spot on the Chrysler’s left opened up, so I stood in the space while the Goodwife backed the pickup out of its space, backed up going the wrong way, and pulled into the vacancy to Chrysler left.  The jumper cables were behind the Dakota seat the whole time.  Why did it take so long to think of them?

      The battery in the Dakota is on the left side.  The cables were about five feet short of reaching across both engine apartments and the space between vehicles.  So we waited and waited for the driver of the car on the Chrysler right to appear.  Finally he showed.  The Goodwife stopped traffic by backing up and poising the poor old Dakota in position to take the soon-to-be vacated parking spot.  Eventually, the guy pulled out, the Goodwife pulled in, the traffic cleared, and we were ready to try again. 

       It took a few trips between vehicles to get good enough contact to run the Chrysler starter.  It started.  And died.   (Later: starting and dying seem to be part of the computer readjusting things, as it died all three times when I started it after breaking the electric contact.)

      No matter how I tried, I was never able to get good enough contact with the jumper cables to get the starter to run again.  It was nearing 4 o’clock.  The stove timer would be sounding soon.  The very careful cooking instructions said an hour on, then off, do NOT open the oven door EVER until ten minutes before meal time.  (Heat for another hour before mealtime, no matter when that time comes, but do NOT open the oven door.)

     The Goodwife vacated the coveted parking spot and headed home to shut the oven off and do a few other things preparatory to Christmas dinner.  I would try one more time, and if that attempt failed, we would have to abandon the Chrysler to the post office parking lot for the approaching night.

      The air filter stuff jumped right off, being used to the routine by now.  I was tackling the removable panel in front of the tire when the lady walked by, apparently for the second time, and wished me Merry Christmas.  She was the second of three of all the people who came and went during my predicament who spoke or acknowledged that I was there.  The first person was an old guy who asked if I needed a jump.  I explained we were waiting for the parking spot we needed.  He nodded and left. 

     The plastic fender well panel came off without breaking anything.  After removing the hold-down, the battery would slide back.  By lifting it slightly and resting the back end on the tire, I could just get a wrench on the negative cable clamp.  I could bring the cable out far enough to clean it thoroughly.  The battery post was a little more difficult.  I wasn’t sure the battery could come out without removing the tire, so I gave the terminal a fair scouring with it in place.

      I was getting the air filter back in its place when a lady parked on Chrysler left.  She came around her car to see if I was okay.  I assured her I was okay and explained I was about to finish the repair and check the results. 

     The Goodwife arrived while the lady was in the post office.  The lady returned just as I was getting behind the wheel to give it another whirl.  She got in her car and rolled down her right window so she could hear the results of my attempt.

    The Chrysler started.  And died.

     I tried again and this time it continued to run, roughly and smellily for a little while, then normally.  The lady gave me a thumbs-up and departed.

     It took a while to clean up, gather the tools, put the removable panel in the trunk.  The Goodwife got in the car, but she advised me to follow her just in case.  So home we went in tandem.  The Chrysler was safely in the garage and we could rush about getting Christmas supper ready to go.

      I walked into the house and glimpsed the unwrapped presents scantily clad in wrapping paraphernalia on the couch.  Oh well.  If someone snooped, that was her shauri.

       Our guests arrived a bit late, the prime rib got a little overdone due to our imprecise guess as to meal time, not due to subpar cooking instructions, I’m sure.  (No, we did NOT open the oven door until we removed the beef from the oven.)

  We had ourselves a Merry Little Christmas, in spite of the day’s imperfections.