Yesterday I chauffeured M around Cranbourne while we left the new Merc at a muffler joint to get it’s last bit of roadworthiness attended to. It felt excellent to be back in the Humber. Kind of like putting on an old, well worn pair of Italian leather boots back on after a few months. I’ve been driving the new car to and from work for the last two weeks, because it’s cheaper and it’s got a heater that works.

So I was cruising around. Two different sets of people talked to us about the aceness of the Humber (and this is in Cranbourne - a place not reknown for the cultural appreciation of anything except more McMansions and bigger four wheel drives). I left M to pick up the new car and headed back home via the post office box. I stopped for petrol on the way, and everything seemed fine. It was in the last eight kilometres that the car started to get hot and a bad noise began.

I pulled over in Tooradin, and as soon as there was no free flowing air and I was stationary, the temperature gauge cranked to eleven. The Spinal Tap kind of eleven. The ominous, evil, this looks pretty bad kind of eleven. I sat for a bit. Checked the post box. Let it cool. And then very, very carefully took off the radiator cap, and dodged the fountain of coolant that geysered out. So lack of coolant wasn’t the problem. Neither was lack of oil. I was stumped.

Consulted briefly with my dad, and then waited another 20 minutes to get it cool enough to start up. Limped down to the servo where there is a man who regards the Humber kindly. He told me he was busy, to take it home, wait until it was cold, fill up the water and then run it for 15 minutes and watch the temperature. I waited overnight. During this time I had decided that the problem was with the thermostat. I was convinced it had carked it. This morning I was so whacked out on no sleep I disconnected the radiator hose without draining the level of the coolant below the thermostat point. Turns out I didn’t need to bother.

After M had helped me sort out my radiator mess, we couldn’t get the thermostat off. I ran the car for 15 minutes. It got a bit hotter than normal, and the noise came back when I accelerated. The noise was still not a good one. I drove back to the servo, with M following behind. I told the servo man my woe.
“Right,” he said, “I’ll jump in it now and see what it sounds like. You might have cooked it. I’ll know when I listen to it.”

He didn’t even have to drive it anywhere, just revved it where it was. The noise was still there. A kind of knocking sound, deep down. I started to feel the fingers of doom. He got out of the car and shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said ruefully, “It’s fucked.”

I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. “You’ve cooked it.”

I was emphatic in my denial. “I did NOT cook it. It overheated. I stopped. It had heaps of coolant in it. The oil level was fine.”

“Well something’s gone in it. Dunno whether it’s a gudgeon pin or what, but it’s gone, and it’s deep.”

At this point I was staring fixedly elsewhere thinking, don’t-cry-at-the-petrol-station-that’s-just-stupid - but I didn’t do very well.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “Everything has to cark it at some point.”

I shook my head. The Humber has had such vast opportunities to cark it in spectacular style. On one of the four trips to NSW and Queensland. In the depths of Tasmania. On the Great Ocean Road… It’s just indicative of it’s goodness that it has carked in a way that it will just continue to drive, but will become increasingly unhappy. I don’t begrudge it the new radiator or the reconditioned carby that it’s just had. It deserved them. It’s done more than well for 15 - FIFTEEN years. It’s a 1964 model - and I would guess that there aren’t many cars circa 2004 that will still be chomping up the highways in 2044.

So, anyway. M took me out for lunch, and we ate apple pie for dinner as an attempt at consolation. I am going to pursue other opinions on the evil death rattle noise, but continue to feel very bad. And in the same week we will get the Merc roadworthied and proper, we are back down to one car again. Which would be fine, if we didn’t live on a horse farm.