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One reason I keep driving Festivas is that, besides the way they handle, I'm impressed with they way they're built, not something people generally say about an economy car. But if there was one thing I'd change, it's the way the front rotors are put together, as we all know. When I did the brakes for the second time, maybe 20yrs ago, and went to the Ford dealer to have them press the knuckle apart, they said the guy with the tool had left and sent me to this machine shop nearby. And so ever after, whenever I do my front brakes I go to the machine shop at Valley Auto Parts in Wilmerding PA, about 12mi E of Pittsburgh.
Frank, the head machinist, was always happy to see me (he'd even recognize my voice on the phone when he hadn't seen me in a couple yrs!), and always knocked the hubs apart for me, free. I think he liked the idea that there was still someone in the trenches, fixing his own car. He wasn't any older than me (I'm 64 now), & probably younger, but for some reason I always had a foreboding that some day I'd show up and they'd tell me that he had died. That day was yesterday, when I went there to extract some broken bolts from the mounting flange of my lawnmower. He died last September.
His son's the head of the shop, now, and he remembered me. I spent over two hrs on those two #$% bolts, and in the process sharpened a drill bit myself for the first time ever, (success, first time!). They said come back anytime I need something. What great people. And Frank, jeez, I'll miss you, amigo.
Frank, the head machinist, was always happy to see me (he'd even recognize my voice on the phone when he hadn't seen me in a couple yrs!), and always knocked the hubs apart for me, free. I think he liked the idea that there was still someone in the trenches, fixing his own car. He wasn't any older than me (I'm 64 now), & probably younger, but for some reason I always had a foreboding that some day I'd show up and they'd tell me that he had died. That day was yesterday, when I went there to extract some broken bolts from the mounting flange of my lawnmower. He died last September.
His son's the head of the shop, now, and he remembered me. I spent over two hrs on those two #$% bolts, and in the process sharpened a drill bit myself for the first time ever, (success, first time!). They said come back anytime I need something. What great people. And Frank, jeez, I'll miss you, amigo.
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