Attack of the marauding moths
SADLY, I HAVE to report that my Tatra T603 has redefined the term ‘moth eaten’. While the car has been in storage, the headlining has served as a massive banquet for a marauding horde of voracious tineola bisselliella larvae. That’s the posh name for the common clothes moth.
Undisturbed for nearly two years, the corpses of thousands of deceased moths were scattered throughout the interior: I recoiled in shock on seeing them. It seemed sensible to get the Tatra into the fresh air so that I could tackle the task of cleaning out the newly musty and dusty interior. After I had connected a fresh battery and primed the carburettors by pumping up fuel using the lever on the mechanical pump, with just a few churns on the starter the 603 fired up – not bad for the first time in two years.
Because the car was parked nose-in, I attempted to engage reverse but only succeeded in provoking a very noisy crash of gears. Damn! Clutch stuck, I concluded – but incorrectly, as it later turned out. I then attempted a brute-force remedy. Selecting reverse with the engine not running, I pressed the starter, hoping to jar the clutch free. It has worked for me in the past but this time it was not to be. A lurch backwards was followed by the inevitable stall. Another go. Similar result.
I abandoned the mission before serious damage was inflicted, and discovered that the column shift was locked in position. Double damn! My moth incubator was well and truly stuck. An away-day for ace mechanic Janos, fresh from fettling my Cord, was clearly on the cards.
On arrival, the sympathetic Janos asked a fairly obvious question, which (embarrassingly) I had failed to ask myself: ‘Is it a mechanical or hydraulic clutch?’ Even though, years earlier, I had replaced the clutch myself, I had forgotten and assumed it was mechanical, as with most of my old bangers. Fortunately those thoughtful Tatra engineers had made access relatively easy via a large inspection hatch behind the rear seat. A quick look established that it was indeed hydraulic and that it shares its fluid with that of the brakes, once supplied by the now empty reservoir under the front bonnet.
A short while later, after some bleeding, we had a clutch but no brakes. Inevitably, after several static years, all four wheels were reluctant to turn. With Janos doing the hard horizontal work and yours truly taking it easy at the pedal, after a few hours we had brakes, too. The good news is that I now have a mobile Tatra 603. The bad news is that it’s currently uninhabitable.