Page 34 - July 2022

Revenge of t he Ast on, continued from page 2
I bought Josh an official Aston Martin boiler suit, factory approved, to wear when he worked on the car. I
had a vague thought that if we demonstrated we appreciated the Aston?s "ultra luxury" heritage, it would
treat us better and adopt a civil attitude, surrounded as it was by a group of no-nonsense Porsches. We
are now disabused , through experience , of that notion. The Aston can't be bought off.

t
To be fair, it did make it to Unionville for its mini-welcome party on June 5th, but we all knew it wasn?
staying. I drove it back to PON right after the Jubilee lunch to finish up a list of things yet undone, while
adding a few new things that came apart during its 10 day sabbatical-- like the window that went down
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and wouldn? go up and the bump and shake that the car now exhibited on the left front at speeds of
40-50 mph that would mysteriously disappear at 55. ( The cause? 3 bent wheels-- we'd get to those later
on.)

t
The car couldn? make up its mind on the way back to the shop whether it was going to run hot,
t
lukewarm, or in the middle of the gauge. (Earlier, it was determined when we couldn? get the brake
lights to turn off, that the emergency brake was never to be engaged no matter how big the emergency.)
In Brentwood, Blake, my service advisor, dutifully made notes to add to the growing sheaf ; Josh stroked
his beard ; the shop supervisor, Nick, looked doubtful.

The previously discovered but unremedied leak at the pinion seal seemed to have stopped of its own
accord, but the car, once returned, now developed a new leak in the vicinity of the oil filter, measured as
only the Germans could do, as ?one drop per every four seconds? The initial splotch it deposited on the

.
pristine workshop floor was described with distaste in an email as ?4? in diameter, about the size of a
sand dollar.?

My master plan was to get the Aston back in some shape to display at the Tennessee Downs event in
Shelbyville on June 25th. [We have a story about that in this issue] Thus, I'd pick it up on the 23rd, detail
it, show it, then haul it back to PON on the 28th (for an indefinite time) to finish up the work. I'd pay the
bill at some future point and live happily ever after surrounded by Connolly leather. The Aston, however,
now thought of itself as a stranger in a strange land and determined not to be so easily conquered.

As an aside: the Vikings invaded England during the time of Alfred the Great. When they sailed away, they
must have left their three spinners of fate on the shores of the island where , somehow, they were
transported to Bloxham, the birthplace of my handmade Aston. Even as the team thought we were
making good progress in making the i6 roadworthy and semi-dependable, the spinners were, unknown to
us, busily breaking the slim golden thread of our plan.

I picked up the car, on schedule, at 1 PM, started back to the interstate at 1:30 and by 2:45 was cursing in
the very rural parking lot of the New Vision Baptist Church of Unionville. With a savage display of
disloyalty, the Aston suffered a no- warning loss of power just after I entered a stretch of road with no
shoulder and no place to park. Flashers on ( Hallelujah-they worked!) the DB7 managed to inch down to
a speed of just under 9 miles an hour and that, when combined with a clutch that was protesting my
efforts to keep the car running until I could find a place to safely put it, resulted in the emission of the
smell of a Saxon village after it had been fired by King Harald. The tow truck arrived at 5:45 and by 6:50
pm the Aston was back safely , now in possession of a $550 tow bill, at what it clearly considers its real
home -- the workshop of Porsche of Nashville.

There is some good news from this latest unpleasantness.
When I called fellow NBCC member Rick Mathis to yell, ?Help!?, he jumped in his truck and rescued me,
saving me the several mile walk in the heat of the day back to my farm . Then, while driving Ms. Beatty,
My Ast on Mart in in it s comfort zone.
he reminded me that the Aston had not one but two fuel pumps and gave me a list of other things that
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