First published in The Emporia Gazette January 17, 2006
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Gary Thompson |
THE MECHANIC
by Cheryl Unruh
The other day as I stepped out of my car, I noticed an unusual odor.
Something smelled hot.
Car problems torment me. I never know… Is this smell (or noise) something that needs attention? Immediate attention? Or should I just ignore it?
The odor was still obvious the next morning when I was out running errands, so I stopped by the shop of my friendly mechanic.
“It’s kind of a burning smell,” I told Gary Thompson who owns and operates Thompson Auto Repair at Fourth and Mechanic Streets. (Mechanic Street is, of course, the perfect location for an automotive shop.)
“Do you smell the odor inside your car or outside?” he asked.
“Outside,” I said.
I started the car and the odor drifted past us.
“Have you run over any plastic bags lately” Thompson asked.
How did he know?
As a matter of fact, the day before, I had parked over a black trash bag near the Dollar General Store across the street from the post office. As I parked, I noticed the bag on the ground but didn’t think it would be a problem.
“I’ve seen so many bags stick to exhaust systems,” he said and told me that plastic bags are sucked up by the intense heat and adhere to the metal.
Thompson told me that the melted bag could “raise havoc” with the exhaust system’s oxygen sensors. He explained how these sensors work.
“It reads the oxygen percentage inside the exhaust pipe and uses the oxygen level outside as a base point and compares the two,” he said.
Apparently, from this comparison, a little brain inside my engine determines whether the fuel mixture is too rich or too lean and adjusts it accordingly.
And this plastic bag, smoldering on the catalytic converter, could
affect the oxygen reading outside the car.
For some reason, I was fascinated by the information about oxygen sensors. There’s just so much I don’t know, so many details of life that exist outside my realm of experience.
Therefore, I’m in awe of people with knowledge, aptitudes and abilities that are so different from mine.
Me, I hear a whining sound and wonder if my engine is about to go into convulsions. My mechanic listens to the whining and says, “That’s the fan belt.”
I’ve taken my mechanical problems to Gary Thompson since about 1988 when he was recommended by a friend.
With my previous car, I had starter problems. Instead of installing a new starter or even a rebuilt one, he performed some sort of miracle on the old equipment. And it worked perfectly fine the remaining eight years or so that I owned that car.
Thompson was a mechanic for the Ford dealership for 17 years before starting his own business. He had a shop in another location for a year and a half, and has worked in his brick garage at 406 Mechanic Street since 1985.
His shop is tidy. One wall has a set of shelves that reach to the ceiling. Displayed in an artsy manner are old carburetors, a Mustang grill, a steering wheel, oil cans and tools, hubcaps and repair manuals.
I returned the next day to Thompson’s shop for an oil change. While my car was on the lift, he used a grinder to remove the glob of black plastic from the catalytic converter.
I wasn’t in the midst of an automotive crisis or anything, but nevertheless, I’m happy that my car is now free of the toxic odor and of melted plastic bags.
It’s reassuring to have a mechanic that one can trust and rely on.
I guess that’s why, last spring, readers of The Emporia Gazette voted Gary Thompson as “Best Auto Mechanic in the Flint Hills.”
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Copyright 2006 by Cheryl Unruh
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e-mail Cheryl
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