writer: Dr. Vern
I was recently underneath my Jeep letting out a few choice words. In case you're wondering, I was already on the garage floor before I started cussing. It wasn't like I felt the urge to curse and then said to myself, "Where shall I let loose with a blue streak: the backyard, the basement, or underneath the Jeep?"
As far as locations for cursing, underneath the Jeep has to be one of my most productive spots. Many words have flown when a wrench slips and my knuckles meet an immovable object. Another legally permissible reason is after crawling into position underneath the Jeep with plenty of tools, only to realize a lefthanded all-sixteenths wrench is needed, and it's still sitting on the workbench. Yet another good excuse is when the Jeep has been saving up stray drops of gear oil and waits to let loose only after I'm in perfect range.
This last scenario is why I was working under the Jeep. My Jeep had an oil leak and it was no longer cute (insert joke about Jeeps marking their territory). From my days as a professional mechanic, a good rule of thumb is a leak must be repaired if you can't jump across the puddle (a running start is perfectly acceptable). My cursing wasn't based so much on the fact that drops of oil were using me for target practice. No, I was upset because it appeared this old Jeep had been designed to leak.
The source of the leak was at one of the bolts that joined the transfer case to the transmission. A blind hole for this bolt would have been a foolproof design. Unfortunately, the end of the bolt hole was open inside the transfer case, which made a convenient escape point for all that gear lube. What engineer came up with such a poor design? The basic design of the Model 18 transfer case goes back more than 60 years ago, so there's no point in tracking down the designer to slap him around. He'd be old and frail, and to accost him at such an advanced age wouldn't be very sporting, no matter how tempting it would still be.
To encourage engineers to design their products carefully, I have a proposal. The engineer's name, address, and telephone number should be permanently displayed on his handiwork. Find something nice and want to shake the designer's hand? It would be easy to find him with my plan. Find a design that drives you crazy and you need revenge? Wish you could introduce the designer's daughter to a magazine editor?
Certain designs are sheer poetry. Good poetry, I hasten to add, not Vogon sonnets or that drivel high school sophomores feel compelled to write late at night. What are some of my favorites? (I'm still talking about mechanical designs, not poetry.) Things like the Golden Gate Bridge and Empire State Building may be engineering marvels, but front and center, in my opinion, is the distributor used by General Motors back in the heyday of the contact-point ignition system. With any distributor, the points had to be filed smooth, cleaned, and painstakingly adjusted every few months. Some kind soul at GM endeared himself to mechanics everywhere by including a little access door on the side of the distributor cap. The adjustment could be made with the engine running, avoiding the time-consuming trial and error needed on other brands. I'd like to buy that guy a beer. When he's finished, I'd like to break the empty bottle over the head of whoever decided to bury the distributor way in the back of the engine. Unless he had a sadistic Jekyll and Hyde personality, there's no way the same engineer could design such a wonderful component and then locate it in such a horrible spot.
While that overall design may have been a wash, there's another candidate that clearly belongs in the Hall of Shame. Who designed the clutch slave cylinder used on many Jeeps? Supposedly a new and improved concept, it's hidden deep inside the bellhousing. Unlike other simpler designs, the transmission must be removed for access. Please tell me that engineer is unemployed now and was even forced to surrender his pocket protector. For some odd reason, engineering schools apparently no longer teach that any part likely to need replacement should have reasonable access. What a shame-that's a concept to swear by, not swear at.
-Dr. Vern