From Veeduber@aol.com  Mon Oct  9 01:34:00 1995
msgnum: msg17201
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 02:29:33 -0400
From: Veeduber_at_aol_dot_com
Subject: Grendel, Sunday III


                             Grendel, Sunday III

It's about eight thirty in the evening, Sunday, the tenth of October.  Clouds
are scudding across the face of the moon like something out of a Japanese
print. I left my home thirty-four days ago for what was meant to be a quick
trip, a week, ten days at the most.  Today is my third Sunday in the home of
friends.  They are religious people, she more than he but the bond of love is
strong between them; he is her Ruth and a better man for it.  Their religion
is highly structured, this day of some particular importance that saw them
leave early to return yet some hours from now.  Having no particular religion
I am a heathen in her eyes, a profane swab who landed on their doorstep, a
Christian duty for them to perform, which they did without question.  But she
is wrong about me.  The sea is like a foxhole in that neither contains any
athiests.  Agnostics perhaps but the typical sailor pauses more often to give
Thanks than the most devout Muslem, for the sea is more empty than any
desert.  And you can't walk home.

Grendel is the ship that will carry me home, if not in style at least with
some degree of comfort.  She consented to blow a little warm air on my shoe
today, thanks to wiring the heat exchangers open and hammering loose the
collision-damaged vent in the cockpit.  I cut strips of construction paper, a
foot wide by two feet long, squirted foam sealant on them and plastered them
onto the 3" vent pipe I've used to replace Grendel's missing main heater
duct.  The foam will expand and insulate the fragile aluminum ducting.  With
the faithful engine rumbling at high idle I can detect a baby's breath of
warmth from the defrosters.  Were I freezing to death it might prolong the
agony a minute or two but it may help keep the glass clear when I encounter
rain, as I'm sure to do now that autumn is upon us.

The street where Grendel is parked is lined with towering American Walnut
trees, densely green in their Clovis-spearpoint leaves when I arrived, yellow
now, the leaves fast falling into damp windrows.  I spent some time raking
them, moving Grendel cautiously back and forth to get at those drifted
against her wheels.  The chore brings back memories of my youth and crunching
piles of sycamore leaves and thin lines of blue smoke standing into the
windless November sky above a little town in California's central valley,
where autumn comes later than here.  I'll carry autumn south as I go.  Jack
Frost and the Grendelmonster.  

Grendel now has a fuel gauge.  I had fashioned one of wood, was planning on
spending my first day's journey cautiously measuring her fuel consumption.
 The gauge is a blessing.  

Grendel also has a horn.  The wire, a bit of fine gauge speaker wire, was
broken at one end, loose at the other, the fitting corroded.  I replaced the
wire with some hefty 14 gauge aircraft stuff, steel-wooled away the
corrosion, tinned the connector with solder, made everything shipshape.
 Noisy horn, another legal requirement met.

Still no turn signals nor brake lights.  The brake light switch is promised
for Tuesday morning.  But I now know when the headlights are on high.  Don't
ask me how I did it; it didn't work at first despite a new bulb and checking
the circuit and scrubbing everything with steel wool.  Then it was working
when I conducted a test on another circuit, another of Grendel's
belly-laughs.  I stopped a moment to smile, thanked the Boss Mechanic, happy
for any help at all.

Packing things up, dividing the load into Hold and Cabin baggage.  The hold
will be well filled with split drums and destroyed spindles, promised
displays for other veedubers on the Vanagon list.  

Still to do:  Check my toe-in.  Rebuilding the spindle has surely thrown
things out of alignment.  And I must drain and refill the transmission.
 Heaven only knows how long that lube has been in there.  I can check the
toe-in myself but I've no way to dispose of lubricant nor any means of
refilling the tranny once it's drained.  That's a chore that will have to
wait until I have brake lights.

Gave it a solid 12 hours today.  Little things but needful, like sealing the
gap below the cargo doors.  Not only is the sill rusted away and sagging, the
lower flange of the doors is gone.  Used the last of the foam, shut the doors
with pieces of waxed paper to keep the foam from welding them closed.  Sand
it down, give it a shot of paint, mebbe sell it as Good Conditon. 

And I still have to replace the brake return spring.  I'd better put that at
the top of my list for tomorrow.  And hope it doesn't rain.  But I've got a
hunch it will.

-Bob

-Bob