The fan belt recently let go in my wife’s car.

When I was younger, poorer, and thinner, I used to work on my own cars.

I’ve replaced a few fan belts in my time, so I figured this one would be no big deal.

Besides, if I showed what a big, strong, he-man I was under the hood, I figured it would earn me a few more kisses and oohs and ahhs from my wife.

That was a week ago.

Her car is still in our garage with the hood up, tools and parts scattered around the floor like dead insects.

It turns out that a few things have changed since I used to play Mr. Goodwrench with my beloved 1974 Pinto station wagon.

For starters, parts have gotten a lot more expensive.

The fan belt, a tiny little thing, cost nearly $25.

The belt which holds up my pants is twice as big as the fan belt in question, and made of leather, yet it cost me less than the little rubber band which runs around the pulleys in our Suzuki.

In my youth, I would have figured a way to actually use an old dress belt to get the car running.

I remember one of my favorite fixes back then was to cut the ends off an old Cambell’s soup can, then clamp it to the broken ends of my car’s tailpipe and muffler.

Salt on the Maryland roads in winter guaranteed I would have to employ this technique about twice a year, so I became good at it.

Plus I enjoyed the soup.

Also, thanks to my skill with a roll of duct tape, the hoses and other parts of my car back then frequently looked a lot like an homage to the truck old Jed drove to Bever-lee.

This time I figured that since I was now earning more than $2.90 an hour like I was back then (not a lot more, but more), I should do it right.

Then I actually opened the hood.

It took me a while just to figure out where the fan belt was supposed to go.

Back in the mid 70’s, cars had big engines and big roomy front ends.

You could practically set a small sofa in the engine compartment that you could sit on while you tinkered with the carburetor or reseated the valves.

Today’s cars are as cramped and filled with useless junk as a bachelor’s first apartment.

It turns out that the simple fan belt replacement was going to require that I remove the front end of the car.

And the Mesquite Fire Department has fewer hoses than this little Japanese car has running in and around the motor.

I’m not sure what some of the hoses do or how far they go, but I spoke into one of them and heard someone answer me in Mandarin Chinese.

And of course being an import, all of the nuts and bolts require metric sockets.

Fortunately, I have a great set of Craftsman metric tools.

The metric sockets are easy to find because they’re the ones that don’t have a speck of dirt or grease on them, since they’ve never been used.

The hard part is trying to do the conversions in my head from what is obviously a 7/16 inch bolt to its metric equivalent.

Also, my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, so I sometimes have to set the socket on the hood of the car then back up into the living room so I can read it.

As has become common in newer vehicles, some of the parts aren’t even held together by traditional screws and bolts.

For example, the fan housing (which is plastic) protecting the fan blades (which are plastic) is held on by four little plastic fasteners that seem to require a special tool, like maybe a spatula.

(Believe me, back in the day my toolbox used to include about half the implements missing from mom’s kitchen utensil drawer, so I’m familiar with using culinary equipment in my auto repairs. A rolling pin was a serviceable replacement for a ball peen hammer or rubber mallet. Back then I couldn’t afford Craftsman, so I settled for Betty Crocker.)

Eventually, I’ll figure out how to finish getting the radiator out.

It may require a Ouija board and incantations involving “The Force,” since there seems to be a magical essence keeping the stupid thing locked in place, but I’ll get there.

The hard part comes when I try to remember how to put it all back together.

Inevitably, I’ll have a few extra parts left over, and the fan shroud will probably be fastened with twisted sections of an old coat hanger, but it’ll run.

That is, as long as the duct tape holds out.