One’s life, according to legend, flashes before you at the moment of death, when there’s nothing you can do but sit back and enjoy the highlights film. My experience installing the diff-prop assembly wasn’t exactly analogous, but close enough to be discomforting.
The procedure was straightforward. Slip the prop shaft into the transmission tunnel, raise the diff until it nearly touches the frame, pass an eleven-inch bolt through a diff lug and two chassis-mounted sleeves—voilà, you’re done. The differential hangs nicely from the frame, ready for centering and final bolting.
I knew the task would be physically challenging, but it turned out to be emotionally draining as well. I had never pictured myself lying on a garage floor with a 50-pound auto part balanced on my chest, very concerned that a sonic boom, say, would bring down five hundred pounds of steel on my helpless body.
I’d worked on jacked-up cars many times before, but this experience was like no other. For one thing, I was completely under the Seven, head beneath the De Dion tube and feet below the engine compartment: only that position gave me decent leverage over the diff-prop assembly. For another, at ground level the Seven resembled no other car: it was pure machine, having no sound-proofing, no underbody panels, an extremely modest floorpan, and not a hint of road grime. From this vantage point the Seven seemed airy, bright, positively roomy—mostly because, with scores of components still awaiting installation, I could see the garage roof right through the chassis.
It was a nice place, in short, to daydream...until, that is, reality intruded. Those jerry-rigged sawhorses: one inadvertent whack with the diff, or a misplaced leg movement, and whomp, I’m flat as a pancake. Why in God’s name did I buy the first pair of jack stands I saw? Even after reading the warning labels: never support a car exclusively with stands, and never set them at different heights. I had done both (the latter, to compensate for a lumpy garage floor).
Lying under the Seven, the differential at my side, I continued to take much-belated stock. How could I perform some tasks, such as hacksawing the diff, so carefully, and approach others in a sleepwalker’s daze? Jeez, look around: those jack stands are too small at the top anyway, the crossbeams too narrow; the rear-end stands are too close together, and also too far forward. I didn’t tell Jenny what was happening, either, so there’s no back-up if I, if I.... Well, shit. Shit, shit, shit.
So what did I do? I wriggled out from under the Seven, asked Jenny if I could borrow the Rabbit, drove to a first-rate auto-supply store, bought heavy-duty jack stands, and devised a new, safe way to support the Seven. Right?
Of course not. I stayed put, because a Y-chromosome gene kicked in, big time; the one that compels men to do stupid things on purpose.
I studied the diff, and divined how long I could hold it up, steadily and at the proper angle, before my arms gave out. I appraised the chassis, attempting to locate those sections that would inflict the least injury should the car fall. I glanced at the garage roof and inadvertently confirmed that danger does magnify one’s senses, if only for distraction’s sake.
Those pipes and planks stored on the roof joists—a nice tableau, wouldn’t it make a terrific photorealist painting? And those rivets, right there, anchoring the Seven’s skin to the chassis; a primitive technique, but a handsome effect, clean and uniform. Wait—was that a wren trilling? An early warbler? Could it be a....
I would have stayed so for days, all but paralyzed, if the winter chill hadn’t crept into my bones.
The key to installation, clearly, was squeezing most of my body between the differential and the garage floor. That’d be the easy part: a little horizontal dancing—snake-like butt-and-shoulder humping, mostly—to center myself under the diff-mount lugs; a good, careful, clean-and-jerk on the diff itself; a mind-over-matter paralysis of the legs (perhaps I should tie my ankles together?); and yes, finally, the diff would be balancing on my chest. I’d be only a breath away, then, from aligning the thing with the chassis’ lugs.
I had one shot, I figured, possibly two, to raise the diff to the proper height before I lost control. Timing, beyond a doubt, was everything. By arching my back, taking a deep breath, and supporting the diff lengthwise with my left hand, I was pretty sure I could hold the diff in position long enough for my right hand to push the long bolt—already test-fitted and greased—home.
Breathe in, breathe out. In, out. In—and not out. Just think: it’s a relaxation-assembly combo technique!
Up went the diff, raised on my lungs. Good, fine, yes—until the diff’s passage was interrupted, momentarily but scarily, when the breather tube caught on a chassis cross-member. I worked by feel, since the diff blocked all useful views; with my right hand, which also held the mounting bolt, I located the diff lug. It was good and close, just an inch from the appropriate chassis sleeve.
Cue the “Mission: Impossible” drum roll—no, not the damn theme, the incidental, technical-problem-solving music. When Peter Lupus is between floors, or inside a wall, tapping circuits.
I pushed the bolt through the chassis sleeve until it butted the edge of the diff lug. I raised, slowly, the lug into alignment, trying to prevent my torso from shivering under the back-arch strain. A few misses, tap, tap, tap, and then the bolt slid through; more pushing, and the bolt didn’t stop until it hit the second chassis sleeve, where a measured hip-roll brought it into line. I nudged the bolt through to its head, and when I exhaled the diff was off my chest, suspended like an ornament.
Life was good.
It would be a stretch to say, considering the anxiety, patterned breathing, and substantial weight loss, that installing the diff was like giving birth. I experienced, nonetheless, a kind of post-partum high, which I wanted to share with Jenny over a cup of coffee. Walking toward the back door, though, I noticed for the first time that the Rabbit wasn’t in the driveway...which meant that Jenny wasn’t home, hadn’t been all morning. Leaving me to ponder, once more, why I do the (foolhardy, demented) things I do.
