Vice Grips

Vice Grips

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

So my steering column goes out. What do I do? Thank heavens for Vice Grips.
Allow me to explain.
I had this 1995 Plymouth Reliant station wagon. Small, ugly, but it ran…most of the time. It served me pretty well for almost five years. Then the steering wheel started getting a bit of play in it. Then it got more play in it…then more, and more, and more, until finally it got so loose that I had to spin the wheel like a whaling ship just to change lanes. So, being the genius that I fancy myself to be, I thought Id fix it. I mean, come on, how hard could it be? Pop the cover off, remove the center nut that holds the wheel on, pull the wheel and you’re good to go. Make the necessary repairs to the column and voila! Back in business.
A slight problem – getting the steering wheel back on.
You see, there’s all these bolts, and sleeves, and springs, and washers, and little metal plates, and odd little spacers, and other strange parts inside the column that somehow all fit in with the mechanism. And I swear - my solemn word on this - they change shape and size while they’re sitting there on the floorboard (either that, or while I was inside my apartment getting a couple of dozen more aspirin so I can finish up, someone replaced my steering column with an almost, but not quite exact, replica).
So there I am, tiny little pieces of what used to be the innards of my steering column strewn all over the floor mat, my steering wheel on the seat next to me, a one inch hexagonal nut sitting on the dashboard, and a single bolt sticking up out of my steering column as if waiting to shoot out of its hole and into my brain.
What do I do? I got jobs to finish, I need my car. And until I get at least one of those jobs done, I don’t have the money to have someone come out and put a new column in. So I’m sitting there, a big, fat, steel steering column sticking up out of the floor between my legs like a round metal fencepost – with no steering wheel.
But wait! All is not lost. Just then, as I sit there, the .357 cocked and aimed squarely at my temple, the heavens open up, the clouds part, rays of sunshine pour down upon me like a band of angels with feathery wings as divine music calls my name from on high.
“Keck, let thy Vice Grips be the answer to thy prayer,” I hear. And lo…I am saved.
Vice Grips! Of course.
I put the nut back on the bolt, tightened it down, inserted the cotter pin, and went looking for my Vice Grips.
Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with one of the greatest tools since duct tape, let me introduce you to the wonderful world of Vice Grips. It’s like a wrench, only it has a threaded bolt that runs along the inside of one of the handle legs so that it can be adjusted for grippage. You turn the bolt at the end of the leg with the small textured wheel at the bottom, thus closing the jaws until they are at the right opening diameter. Then you place the jaws over the nut, or whatever you want to hold onto, and squeeze the handles together. The jaws close on the nut or bolt until the handle is stopped. You squeeze hard and the handles snap together in a vice like grip, thus the name: Vise Grips.
So I simply positioned the Vise Grips over the nut of the center bolt of the steering column, adjusted the jaws, squeezed them down tight, and presto – a steering arm. Or a stering leg…or steering bar, what the hell ever, it was something to hold onto and steer with. Not quite as good as a steering wheel, but hey, for a makeshift control for the front wheels, it worked surprisingly well. It was somewhat difficult though because my power steering unit had gone out months before. But when you doing around 50 mph, I gotta’ tell ya’ it was pretty smooth.
The only real hair raising moments were when I had to make an actual left or right turn. The Vice Grips are just under a foot long, so I had to lift whole body up and spread my legs to clear the tool as it spun all the way around for the turn. Other than that, it worked fine. If a cop would have stopped me, he would have probably had me evaluated for mental stability. But for once, luck was with me and although I passed a couple of squad cars, I didn’t get stopped.
Hey, go ahead and laugh, but it got me the fifteen miles to and from my shop for a couple of days and back and forth to the store a few of times.
Never under estimate the power of stupidity. Put a guy with a decent set of tools in the vicinity of something broken and watch out!
I junked the Plymouth and bought another car shortly after that – one with a steering wheel. After all, I needed my Vice Grips for something else.
Steering your car isn’t the only use for a set of Vice Grips, ya’ know.

Keck