I needed wheels to get around town, while I was putting my
Mercury back together. I purchased a 48 Pontiac for twenty dollars.
The Pontiac burned a lot of oil, I don't think the piston rings even
touch the cylinder walls, but once in while.
When I could hear the rods, then I knew it was time to add some
oil. I kept a gallon of "AERO OIL" in the trunk; it was cheap, about
20 cents a quart. AERO oil was recycled oil picked up from gas
stations, so you got a multi-brands and grades in one can.
There was some sort of guarantee about not having any metal
flakes in AERO oil, but it did not matter to me or the old Pontiac.
If I had to go across town for a car part, I did my best to
make every signal light, but then there is always that one light. I
did not want to sit at idle very long.
When the light changed, I started off very slowly, but to no
avail, I could see the smoke rolling out behind my car. As I speeded
up, the smoke would just mushroom out into a large cloud, I knew there
were cars behind me, but I could not see them through the blue haze.
One day, Denny and I headed out of town, to look at a car; we
took the Pontiac since it was full of gas. We had not gone more ten
miles, when we stopped, and filled it up with oil, Five miles later we
stopped again, to fill it up. This was not a good sign, so I turned
around, and hoped we would make it home. We put the last of the oil in
the car, and the rods were still knocking.
I got up to 35 mph, when steam, mixed with oil started coming
out from under the hood, my windshield was getting darker and darker,
then the smoke started coming up thought the defrost vents. I had my
foot on the brake slowing down and my head out the window, Denny
yelled now! I swing the Pontiac to the right and slammed on the
brakes.
I pulled the keys, and left the Pontiac in gear, and we both
bailed out of the car. The car was rolling in one direction; Denny and
I were running in the opposite direction.
The car and us, stopped about the same time, we were 50 feet
away from the car. We were just standing there, when we heard a driver
of a car entering the cloud of blue haze, yelled something about
teenagers. The haze thinned out, Denny and I started walking back to
the car.
I noticed a trail of oil on the road, and now and then some
metal. We pulled the license plates off and I got the registration out
of the car, and we started hitch hiking home.
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