JR's Korner of BillyBob's Garage

WHAT'S NEW is a chronological listing of updates to the BillyBob site.

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS is the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I can accomplish without a garage.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PARTS SHOP The Parts Shop is a repository of How-To articles. Things that I have done over and over enough times to have developed a procedure. This gives me a checklist and saves brain cells.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

16. Now for something completely different

The Jeep saga reminded me of a tale that had nothing directly to do with BillyBob but goes to the character of Krash, me, and the Kephart clan in general. When I removed the Jeep's rear cross member for replacement I removed the rivets that secured the cross member to the frame mostly using a hacksaw. This brought back a memory of when Krash was in college and I was in high school.

It all started when my maternal grandparents bought Krash a '59 Ford Three Hundred Custom, four door sedan for high school graduation. The Ford was powered by a 223 cu. in. six cylinder and a three speed transmission. As was typical of a 200 dollar car, much work was needed. Krash responded to this challenge by spending his meager funds on wide oval tires, a piston head shift lever, and a foot shaped gas pedal. Krash's careful accessory selections seemed to anger Dad who, for some inexplicable reason, felt that repair of things like bad brakes was more important. Dad just didn't understand the importance of looking cool. Why wide oval tires on a wore out, ten year old, four door sedan was cool is beyond the scope of this essay.

Henry, the name Krash bestowed on the Ford, might have been a four door family car but Krash drove Henry as one would drive a bracket racer. The result of this was a trail of broken parts-most notably the transmission. In the small town where we lived there was another fellow named Dicky who had a '59 Ford as well that was also consuming transmissions due to driving technique. The rumor was that Dicky had used twenty-three three speed transmissions. He had cleaned out all the local salvage yards of Ford three speeds! This made the acquisition of three speeds for Henry difficult to say the very least.

One transmission came from J. C. Whitney out of Chicago. It had no gaskets, everything was painted the same color and the gears were rusty! Another transmission, however, came from a '53 Ford that was up in the pasture at my granddad's farm. One of my numerous uncles (my dad had twelve siblings all but two of which were alive at the time of the story) just pulled the '53 into the pasture one day and that's where it sat for perhaps ten to fifteen years.

One thing ya need to understand about the Kephart Clan is that every one of us has a good deal of mechanical ability. Please don't take Krash's endless need to make things harder than necessary as a lack of ability; it's more of a fiscal disability ya see. We all have opinions on what will work and what won't work and we're all either staunch Ford men or staunch Chevrolet men. There is no middle ground. Just a side note: both Krash and I were nearly shunned when we bought American Motors products. Krash got a Javelin and I got a Gremlin. Okay, I can understand why I was in trouble. The family consensus was that the '53 Ford's transmission would work in Henry. By the way, the '53 Ford's name was Henry as well.

So on a sunny summer day my brother, two of his friends and I set off in my Dad's 1967 Plymouth Fury for the farm. The family had placed Dad on probation because of the Plymouth. Upon arrival at the farm Krash parked the Plymouth next to my Granddad's shop, an imposing concrete block building large enough to house a Cat D9. Granddad ran a diesel repair business out of that shop hence its size. Building the shop years before was a family affair, at least for those living close. Granddad had some trouble getting the shop up. It seems that he'd get the block laid and the wind would blow one or more walls down before he could get the roof on. So there was marathon Kephart event to build the walls and get the roof on in one day. It looked sort of like an Amish barn raising except for the lack of black clothing and long beards and the presence of a large quantity of beer. Henry '53 sat in the pasture fifty yards away and witnessed the entire event.

Krash and I, having been on the farm countless times, easily negotiated the singing, electrified barb-wire fence. I don't recall whether our companions were as lucky. The four of us walked up to Henry for a look. Henry was stuck in the ground up to rims and weeds grew all around him. The first problem to solve was how were we going to get to the transmission? We would need a jack at least; there would be one in the shop as well as all the tools necessary to unbolt the transmission. We entered into a discussion about who was going to climb under Henry with the bugs, spiders and possibly snakes to actually do the work. Our two companions considered this to be Krash's responsibility because he was the one needing the transmission. Krash figured that it was my responsibility because I was his younger brother and I was smaller and weaker than him.

About this time my Granddad arrived on board a 1954 Ford Model NAA tractor with a high lift. The tractor was, of course, named Henry. (Author's note: All Chevys tend to be named Jezebel in the Kephart Clan. Why has been lost to the ages.) Instead of a bucket on the high lift there was a structure that resembled as side-less bucket with flat forks on the bottom. This unit was used to remove the hay and cow shit mixture found in all barns where cattle are housed. We took little notice of Granddad as our discussion continued. Granddad simply lowered the high lift as he drove Henry to the side of Henry '53. He then drove forward placing the forks under Henry'53, picked up Henry'53 and then rolled him on his side by tilting the forks downward. The transmission was now exposed. It's a good thing too as I was losing the argument.

"How you boys doin'?" Granddad said as he got down off Henry. "We're good" we pretty much said in unison. Krash got the tools. Probably I got the tools in as much as I was smaller and weaker than him but at least I can dream. We removed the bolts holding the universal at the differential loose, pulled drive shaft away from the universal and then pulled the drive shaft out of the transmission. Next the four bolts holding the transmission to the bell housing were removed with much effort as well as the shift linkage. But now we hit a snag. The bolts holding the cross member under the transmission in place had become one with the cross member and the frame. "Just saw the damn thing off." My granddad offered. Since there seemed to be no other choice we agreed. Krash was first and after vigorously sawing for what seemed like a half hour he stopped and passed the saw on to the next guy. He had made a quarter inch gash in a four inch wide cross member! The rest of us produced similar results. Granddad said "Let me have the hacksaw." He proceeded to cut through the rest of the cross member in about a minute and a half! We were in disbelief!

"How'd you do that?" Krash exclaimed. "It's nothing" Returned Granddad. "Your Dad and Dutch cut a Model T block in half with a hacksaw. They were making a two cylinder engine." Granddad said. Dutch was our uncle Anson that we never knew. He died fighting for his country on board the USS Abner Read, DD526 at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. Later, I asked Dad about Model T block. His only comment was "If I had that to do again I'd do it different." Dad would offer nothing else on the subject. One thing I certain of: The Model T engine block came from a Ford named Henry.

We thanked Granddad for his help and the transmission, loaded it into the Plymouth's trunk and headed for home. We dropped off one of our companions and proceeded down the alley behind his house. An old geezer backed out of his garage and right into the right rear quarter panel of the Plymouth. This Plymouth had been cursed by the gods with regard to the right rear quarter panel. This was the third time it had been damaged. In this case there were two dents in the panel. One was the indent left from the geezer's bumper and the other was a protruding dent created when the transmission in the trunk slid across the floor and impacted the panel from the inside. The geezer immediately attempted to blame the accident on Krash, Krash being a teenager and possibly naive. However, what the geezer didn't know was that Krash was somewhat of an expert at dealing with fender benders in as much as he had racked up an impressive list of minor accidents in his short driving career. The geezer lost.

The transmission was installed in Henry with some minor modifications required. The transmission shafts had different splines than the 1959 transmission requiring a change in the clutch disk and the universal yoke. It also had different ratios so Henry drove differently as well. This transmission worked for awhile but eventually it too needed replaced. And so it went until Henry left us and went to the big crusher in the sky.

Editor's Recollections: JR's story is pretty much as I remember it tho' I thought it was a fall day (and I'm probably wrong), not a summer day but that doesn't affect the storyline so it doesn't matter. I also remember Granddad carrying the transmission down to the Plymouth even though he had suffered a series of heart attacks a few years before. He was tougher than us even then.

The day we got the Fury back from the bodyshop from getting the damage fixed, I took Dad back to work at the end of his lunch break. He was driving and as we went down the street a few blocks from the house, a panic-stricken deer burst out from between two houses. Dad sped up but the deer slamed into the newly fixed rear quarter panel! Dad stopped the car with a stream of profanity. The stunned deer made it to its feet and ran off between two other houses on the other side of the street. We had nothing to prove what had happened 'cept our own eyewitness accounts and a newly dented quarter panel. I looked at Dad and said "I'm glad we're together. You would never have believed me if I came home with this story. I would have had to make something more plausible up!"

JR, over the years, has harbored a festering resentment of my older brother/younger brother domination of him in our childhood that I barely remember. I guess I've forgotten a lot of times when I've been less than honorable. Clear up into the eighties, when JR and I would get together, I could expect an assault sometime during his visit like Kato springing impromptu karate attacks upon Inspector Clouseau. These usually ended up in broken furniture and much winded heaving and laughing. I do remember an incident from our childhood when a neighbor boy, Butch, started beating up on JR and I took Butch on in a knock-down drag-out. Butch outweighed me by then and I don't remember whether the outcome was win, lose or draw. I only remember feeling proud of sticking up for my brother.

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Issued Friday December 31, 2004

Updated Monday April 23, 2018

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