Gobs
Jenya and I had a weekend camping trip to Death Valley with friends Linda and Brad. On the last day we drove our Chevy Blazer over some rough road to check out the Devil's Racetrack, and then even rougher road to maybe explore further nether regions of the park. We were in an SUV, so no problem, right?
Wrong. The brakes were suddenly "softer" and a warning light appeared on the dashboard. Guessing (hoping) we were simply low on brake fluid we headed back to the crater parking lot and now on paved ground aimed to check the levels. This should have been easy, but the hood was stuck. Nothing we could do with our limited tools could make it unstuck. Well, shit.
We carefully managed to get the car through the park and toward the nearest mechanic. He spent a long time getting the hood to open again, which required going underneath and practically removing the radiator first. Once loosened he lifted the hood - and then it fell right back down on his other hand. He claimed he wasn't hurt.
The brake fluid reservoir was indeed completely empty and we filled it up with a freshly bought bottle. But it all then spilled out onto the ground underneath the vehicle. So the awful truth was finally revealed: we had a broken brake line. This usually isn't that big a deal, except he didn't have the replacement parts here in the middle of nowhere, and it would take 3 or so days to ship them. We were aiming to head home tomorrow.
The mechanic instead did us a big favor by clamping off the line such that the leak was fixed but only 3 of the 4 wheels will have brakes. This isn't standard (or safe) practice, but it got us back on the road. And he only asked us for $20 for all the above labor. Brad and I paid him $40. We made it back to Oakland in one piece, where I took it to a cheap garage to replace the brake line for real.
A few months later Jenya and I were on a separate trip exploring canyons in Southern Utah with my brother Ben and his girlfriend Lisa. We were returning from an epic stay in Coyote Gulch and were just barely at the end of the 50-mile dusty, unpaved, ungraded Hole-in-the-Rock road when the brakes went completely soft again. Goddammit! We were able to limp the car into the town of Escalante.
After breakfast, I bought some tools at a convenience store, only to succeed in covering myself with brake fluid and whatever else from the oily puddles in the parking lot. Luckily there were mechanics in the garage across the way available and willing to check things out.
As a team they quickly patched and machined a new flange at the end of the broken conduit. One of the guys - naked from the waist up except for leather vest, sunglasses, and handlebar moustache - explained the problem to me through his thick Utah drawl: the Oakland mechanic who worked on this left too much extra brake line just hanging there unsupported in the undercarriage to wiggle around and eventually fall apart, especially when riding on rough terrain.
He pointed at the conduit wrapping around the bottom of my car like a nest of snakes and said, "Ya see ya got *gobs* of brake line under there." He then pulled up his shades, pressed his face within inches of mine, stared deep into my eyes and loudly repeated, "GOBS!!"
They charged me $20 for the repair. We paid them $40.
