The Mustang, cars and a reluctant owner

Elena is a foot loose and fancy free girl officially these days. I do not know what happened between them. One day when she is drunk maybe she’ll tell me. You know loose lips and all. She works part time at Caliper Tire because business is slow there. She has convinced me to let her work on the Mustang that has sat in the garage for the last five or so years.

Back in 2017 or so I was driving home from Elmsford when the transmission O/D overdrive light went on, the car slowed down. I managed to get it home. I parked it in the garage because we didn’t have the money to fix it at the time. Now all these years later we still don’t have the money, but it is also a 24 year old car, so I get classic car insurance, it’s really cheap. We got the car towed to Caliper. We tried to use triple A, you know that membership I told Teri was a waste of money several months before I called them to tow my car, the Pontiac Grand Am when I blew a hose on the Thruway. I managed to get it off the Thruway onto the Palisades onto Route 59 before I decided I’d pressed my luck far enough.

The Mustang wouldn’t start so I tried to push it out of the garage. Teri finds out and yells at me,”Your old you stupid old fool!” She didn’t say that, but that was what I heard and ignored. After that she did say, “Get Sean and Elena to help you!!” I didn’t, I don't ask for help ask Nastia about that time in Home Depot. I tried to push it out a second time. I have to admit my heart wasn’t into it. I was scared to let Elena work on the car. When I tried to push it out on a Sunday Sean and Elena magically appeared. I feel the brakes have rusted and the car won’t move. After a few attempts I’m about to give up when I remember I used to do things like this all the time when I was younger. We needed to rock the car to get it going. We rock it, it moves a foot, then we do it again and it moves a little further. I move to the driver's door to straighten the wheel. The last thing I want is to take the mirror off the car. We get the car moving and I realize the driveway is pitched down a hill and the car is moving slowly, but at a good pace and I need to stop it before it rolls down the hill across the street into the guardrail. God is watching all of this and between giggles and out right belly laughs he decides I don't deserve that fate and I manage to stop the car before it got going too fast. The roof has holes in it (a later project) and we put a tarp over it. Use pool clips I got last fall for the pool cover. Opened the door and put the tarp between the door and the frame. Yes, that night is one of the windiest nights in several weeks. The next morning the tarp was held on only by the doors of the car.

Triple A wouldn’t tow an unregistered car, but he’d do it for $150.00. The first unanticipated expense. At Caliper Tire, Elena replaces the fuel pump, you know that thing above the gas tank, when you remove the gas tank it’s easy to see. Who the hell thought to put it there! She takes it for a test drive confirming the car has some problems,it backfires, sputtersand the O/D light comes on. She can’t road test it until I get it registered and insured. Did someone say triple A? Yes again that Triple A membership I didn’t want comes through again. I scheduled an appointment for Saturday. The place is empty, on a Saturday! I’m helped and I receive my plates in around 10 minutes. I drop them off at Caliper Tire and Elena puts them on the car. I think it got an inspection. She does work on it iver the next week or so. Everyone at the shop says the transmission is shot. I can’t believe it. Eric, my brother said it was a group of sensors that one of them had gone bad. I ask him about it, but it has been five or more years, so he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t have a machine to test the transmission and no one knows what happened all those years ago.

I make an appointment to bring it to a transmission shop. I’m almost confident that they’ll tell me it is a sensor that is blocked or is bad or it is an electrical something or other, easy to fix. I don’t expect them to say that the transmission is from a time when Ford made bad transmissions and even though it only has 58,000 miles on it it needs to be replaced. In for a penny, in for a pound, I love saying, but not this one at this time. I love this car, when did it suddenly become a classic? I guess when I went on Medicare, it should have been a hint. When I went through my first midlife crisis and I called it my midlife crisis, like the first World War was originally The Great War, Classic Rock was originally Rock and Roll and was cool! My car and I stood still and suddenly it’s a cool classic and I’m just old, not fair. The real fun thing is Elena has driven the Mustang more in the last five, seven years than I have. She road tested it, she drove it up to the transmission place in Stony Point. They will have it done in about another week. I asked them if they could store it inside because of the top. They could only at night. And yes it poured the past two days like a mother…Thank God Elena went up and put a tarp over the top and rear window. I don’t need a soft top car with a pool. Fun Times!!