DELWYN MALLETT
WITH TIME ON HIS HANDS DURING LOCKDOWN, MALLETT TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO SORTING OUT WHAT HE REGARDS AS ‘USEFUL SPARES’, BUT WHICH OTHERS MIGHT REGARD AS SCRAP…
Mallett’s mental meanderings
Aquick question for you. What day of the week is it? As I write this we’re less than three weeks into a lockdown brought about by a desire to stem the coronavirus pandemic, but I’m sure you had to think twice before answering. In these extraordinary times and deprived of our normal points of reference – no sport or school and, for many, no work – I am amazed how rapidly the individual days of the week have lost their relevance. One aspect of daily life that is agreeably noticeable by its absence is noise. There are no aircraft overhead, only contrail-free blue sky and the sweet sound of birdsong. Mercifully, for me at least, even the frequent window-rattling Chinook flybys from nearby RAF Odiham airbase have stopped, and there are no motorbikes screaming to the red line as they scorch past the end of my street.
With travel restricted I’ve put one of our everyday cars on a SORN as it seems to be a pointless extravagance to have two on the road – or more to the point, off it and burning up money but not miles.
Most of us don't use our classics everyday but now, as they are effectively banned from the road and turned into expensive ornaments for who knows how long, chances are that batteries will be going flat, petrol going stale in carburettors and, if the lockdown continues for months as some predict, brakes may even start seizing through lack of use. Doubly frustrating as the weather is currently beautifully sunny.
Already I’m succumbing to Parkinson’s – the Law, not the Disease – with what seems like unlimited time ahead I find that my pace is slowing down and the execution of essential tasks expanding to fill it. On the other hand, rather than Parkinson’s Law it might be its Asimov corollary, which states that ‘in ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day.’ As yet I’m not sure if I’m gaining ground or losing ground.
Feeling vulnerable and contemplating the possibility that my poor wife might one day have to cope with dispensing with my accumulation of automotive detritus, I’m attempting some sort of catalogue of the more valuable bits cramming the loft of my garage.
Since my first Porsche in 1967, I’ve owned six 356s and broken two (still have three of them and a 911), and I seem to have surplus bits from all of them – and more, many more, acquired as spares.
I’m of the ‘that might come in handy one day’ school and what others would discard as rubbish I find impossible to shed. In fact over the years chums have taken to aiming their jetsam in my direction knowing that I would be unable to resist adding it to my mountain of ‘scrap’.
Being a multi-marque owner I have tried to zone my loft – in other words I’ve piled different makes in more-or-less distinct heaps, although as time has passed a certain amount of blending has occurred at the edges.
One end is solely Porsche while the other is Fiat (I have several Fiatbased Abarths), while between several lesser heaps comprise various motorbike bits, a Simca pile, a Tatra section, bits of VW from a car long departed and the ‘miscellaneous zone’. After several days of sorting I have to finally admit that a fair proportion of what I’ve held on to is rubbish that will never find its way back into something that moves, but I still can’t dispatch it to a proper scrap heap.
Peering into boxes and crates undisturbed for decades I’m discovering stuff I’d long forgotten about – how about a brand new pair of cylinder heads that I bought from AFN at least 40-years ago? Likewise, four boxed and new Super 90 pistons and barrels, now distressingly rendered useless by surface rust in the bores! I appear to have at least four 356 engines in pieces, two complete sets of disc brakes (not new) that I’d intended to fit to one of my Speedsters, and assorted other brake drums – including a pair of salvaged Carrera drums. (Don’t get too excited as they are suffering from aluminium ‘rot’ and the steel linings have separated).
It’s beginning to feel like
I’m creating a Porsche version of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Leaving out the lower numbers as I don't have one, two or even three of anything – I'm purely a multiple man – I have discovered six dynamos dying, seven radios not receiving, eight seats-amoulding, nine clutches slipping, 10 floorboards delaminating, 11 spotlights desilvering and 12 carbs corroding. And that’s just in the Porsche pile.
My garden loving wife is a fan of TV programme Gardener’s World, in which Monty Don – what is it about Monty that appeals so much to women? – invariably signs off with ‘a few jobs for the weekend’. I’m falling into the same habit, drawing up lists of jobs that have remained undone for, in some cases, decades. I’ve started small. First up I ordered a set of jeweller’s screwdrivers on Amazon and I’ve cannibalised five pairs of broken Ray-ban sunglasses into four. I also ordered a bag of 40 wire brushes for my Dremel with a view to cleaning the corrosion off a few of my 12 carbs, and who knows, if this lockdown does continue for months I may even get round to rebuilding one of those engines?
Keep safe, and I hope we are all here when normal service resumes, and we can fire up our Porsches again.
“THAT MIGHT COME IN HANDY ONE DAY…”