So… the other day, the Psychopath decided to ask me how I got the timing on my old Antichrist of a car from decades ago adjusted using crayons. When I explained to him, his response was a very lovely laugh and he uttered God love you and called my technique broke bitch ingenuity.

Let me explain to you how I managed to do this so you to can share in his laughter. Any semi-mechanically inclined man will stare at this dumbfounded and ask the same questions the Psychopath did and later realize there were pointless questions:

• How did you adjust the distributor cap?
• Did you use belt dressing?
• How did you adjust the tension?

 

So, there I was, in my early twenties with a toddler and the Antichrist for a car. Oh, and dating a good for nothing unemployed ass (not one of my finer moments, but I ditched him not long after this day). The Antichrist was bought for a couple of thousand dollars and was such a crappy car, I had more than that into it trying to fix it over a year. Sadly the real fix would have been cheap, but some mechanics see a woman and just start adding dollars… I was tired of paying them, especially since I was making a whopping $6 an hour raising a child and the damn car needed more repairs. Antifreeze poured out of it faster than you could put it in… My father swear the block was cracked from all the excessive overheating that was never resolved with all the repairs that were supposed to fix the overheating.

Well, I figured what the hell, I’m gonna fix the Antichrist myself. Not that I knew what I was doing or looking at, but I sure couldnt do anymore damage, So I bought the manual on all the stuff you need to know about the Antichrist, I bought a water pump, cause that’s what seemed to be spewing the antifreeze and figured I’d give it a whirl. How hard could it be, especially since my good for nothing unemployed ass of a boyfriend was going to help. Ha…

So while my lazy good for nothing unemployed ass of a boyfriend laid under the apple tree, I dismantled half of the Antichrist, cause go figure the water pump wasnt in an easy to reach place. Maybe I should mention that the pictures in the book didnt match what the engine compartment looked like either… but I figured out that the thing in my was was the alternator and removed it, but I decided to work around the power steering and not take my chances with it. The timing belt, however, had to come off, no way around that.

Now, I didnt have a timing light. I knew enough to know one should have one when messing with the timing, but not enough to have the foggiest idea how to use one. So, being the inventive problem solving person living on a broke bitch budget that I am, I went in got my son’s crayons and…

I marked the top of the belt and top gear with one color, moved to the side and used a different color on the belt and gear and then a different color on the other side… This way I could line the markings up exactly how the belt was when I took it off. Then I every so carefully slide the belt off, ok, maybe not so careful as it was a bit tight.

Once I finished changing the water pump, I slid the belt back on, trying not to stretch the belt and line my crayon markings back exactly and voila. Broke bitch ingenuity at it’s best. The Antichrist started and ran, my overheating issues were resolved, and the block was not cracked.

And every semi-mechanically inclined man who hears this store stares at me with those questions from above in their eyes, wondering just how the hell did that damn car ever start after I was done. I just grin. Since then, I’ve learned you adjust the time while it’s running using the light to line up little markings that exist somewhere and do some other stuff, blah blah blah… or we can do it my way and get the crayons.

The Antichrist lived for several more months before the next issue, which involved a mechanic begging me to not fix the car but to scrap it.