His name shall be written in letters of gasket cement

It is said the gods look kindly upon a man struggling against great odds. It is not recorded what they think when he gets his wife involved.

The clutch replacement procedure for the 1996 Geo Metro involves taking most of the car to pieces: front wheels, battery, starter, radiator, exhaust pipe, two drive axles, and finally the entire transmission, from which wiring and the gear shift mechanism must be extricated. I owe a silent prayer of thanks to whoever invented the air impact wrench.

There wasn’t much car left when I was done — just a little three-cylinder engine partially suspended by a chain wrapped around a two-by-four, alone with its burned-up clutch. It was with exquisite caution that I replaced that clutch and began the dreaded re-assembly process. Dreaded, I say, for as anyone who has spent days and nights beneath a motor vehicle will tell you, transmissions do not go back in as easily as they come out.

One must raise the 70-pound transmission by means of a jack — preferably a dedicated transmission jack — such that all of the bolt holes line up, letting the transmission slide into place. Lacking a transmission jack, I used the plain Chinese floor jack that I bought to change the oil in Natalie’s car. The transmission, however, will not sit firmly upon this jack, and must thus be balanced thereupon while the jack is raised.

Natalie was drinking her mid-morning coffee when I cautiously approached. “Can you pump up the floor jack while I hold the transmission?”

“Yes, but let me change my shoes and I’ll come out there.”

Twenty minutes later she walked into the garage, a garage transformed into an auto repair shop, with Geo Metro parts scattered about, a drop-light hanging from the engine lid and the air compressor roaring. “So this is where you live now,” she observed.

There was a lesson in the operation of a hydraulic jack, to wit: pumping it up and letting it down. And it was this last point that caused all the trouble.

“Okay,” I said. “Pump the jack three times.” She did so, and the transmission rose obediently. Then came five or 10 minutes of pushing and twisting the uncooperative beast into position as close to the bolt holes as I could manage. But it was half an inch too high.

“Let the jack down very slowly, and stop when I tell you.” Whereupon the laboriously-positioned transmission descended faster than I could hold onto it and lazily rolled onto the floor with a clunk.

The resulting exchange was not pleasant. “I did what you told me to do,” she contended. Through clenched teeth I again delivered a brief lecture on hydraulic jack theory.

“Oh,” said she.

Well, the transmission is back in the car, and we are still married. That is because she is the most understanding of women, having suffered my antics for years.

“You are worth far more than any clutch,” I told her.

“I love you,” she answered.

Mark Kinsler is a science teacher and generally rotten auto mechanic from Cleveland Heights who lives in an old house in Lancaster with Natalie and the four cats. He can be reached at kinsler33@gmail.com.