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My Pipe Is Hard: Muscle Car Terminology…
By Mark Weisseg
When you hang around other classic car people you tend to hear the weirdest things. I often wonder what people think who don’t know our lingo.
My pipe is hard, my rear end leaks, my hose is not long enough, the screw is good, I need a jump, I need a ride, use plenty of lube, watch how hot she gets.
All innocent slang terms but to an outsider they can be offensive or down right funny. I wonder how they got there start but for those of us in the hobby we understand the slang and cannot imagine anything else.
Many moons ago I was working as a gas jockey and this little MGB came coasting into our lot. Smoke was pouring out of this little car like a raging bull. It was a mix of white and blue so we all knew it was not on fire. Whew, if it was I was running as the thousands of gallons of gas we stored there certainly would blow up and kill us all.
So, after the driver shuts his car off we all approach it like it was going to bite. The owner gets out and of course he is wearing one of those silly British caps and says ” I don’t know what is wrong with her”. We were all thinking, “what is wrong with you”. So the smoke clears, there is oil leaking on the pavement, it smells terrible and we all are looking at the car, then the driver, and then the car, and then…..
Finally, one of the more experienced guys on staff asks this guy what did he do. Like a Professor or a man about town this highly educated, supreme thinker, and high society gentleman told us what he did. He said that he opened the “little cap” on the top of the engine and did not see any oil. So, he added oil until it was full. Yes, the crankcase, the head, and all the parts in between. The best guess we all had was that he had poured in a couple of gallons. Just a guess. So, we pushed the little car in and drained the oil and took off the filter. It seemed like it took forever to drain all that oil out. Luckily for him when we put a new filter on and poured in the correct amount of oil, everything worked fine. No damage. What dumb luck.
The big boss reminded this genius to please let us handle the maintenance on his car he can go home and try to split the atom.
In closing I wish to remind everyone to keep using the jargon and we all will be fine. Who cares if the nutty professor does not understand!
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