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Behind TheSteeringWheelBy Jeffrey AronsonIn 1948, the Three Stooges made a film called“Pardon My Clutch,” in which the boys try to get anold car running. It reappeared as “Wham, Bam, Slam”“Pardon My CLutch” 1958in 1958. Last August, Peter Jenny, Sheridan, WY,Jacques Jenny, Middlebury, VT, Nick Barton,Washington, ME, and yours truly, Vinalhaven, ME, portrayedMoe, Larry, Curly and Shemp in our unintentionalremake of the film.In our Three Stooges moment, Nick [Shemp]and I [Moe] watched Jacques’ [Curly] Series II startup with a cloud of black smoke out of the exhaust.“Ah,” said Moe knowingly, “We know what to do. Mustbe a Zenith with a warped carb body!”Shemp looked skeptical. “Do you know whatyou’re talking about?” Moe grimaced at him andbarked, “You bet, knucklehead. Get in the Rover.”So Pete [Larry] and Jacques [Curly] followedMoe’s Series II-A down the lanes in their Series II untilthey arrived at Moe’s house. “Just park the car right inthe middle of the lane,” said Moe. “This won’t take aminute. Gimme my tools, Shemp. I’ll pop open thehood and smooth out the carb.”Moe opened the hood against his nose andnearly dropped it on his head before he figured outhow to work the hood brace. Shemp looked at thecarb. “It don’t look like a Zenith.” “Soitainly not,” saidCurley, “It’s a Weber!” Moe grimaced, “there goes thattheory.”Moe rubbed the wrench in his hand thoughtfullyagainst his head, leaving a black shiny stripe of oldmotor oil. “How does a Weber, which runs lean, tossout a cloud of black smoke as if Curly was cookin’dinner?” Adjusting the mixture screw really didn’tchange anything. The car ran rough at idle andsounded at once starved and flooded for fuel.“Ah, ah,” cried Moe, “it’s not the carb at all!”“It’s not?” said Larry.“No, it’s gots to be in the ignitionsomewhere. Let me disassemble the distributor andreset the timing.” He turned to Shemp. “Get me mytools, and make it quick.”Shemp looked skeptical. “Do you know whatyou’re doing?” He dropped the toolbox on Moe’s foot.As Moe hollered, Shemp spent a lot of time looking athis watch and announcing how he had to leave for anappointment real soon – an appointment hours ahead.“Let’s check the timing,” cried Moe! “Shouldn’twe check the points, first?” asked Curly, showing off toLarry that he really did take physics at Middlebury lastyear.“OK, OK,” said Moe, “but make it snappy. Wehaven’t got all day.” “Larry, you take this here crankand turn the engine so it opens the points. I’ll tell youwhen to stop cranking.” Moe unclipped the cap andremoved the rotor. “Here,” he said to Shemp, putthese where we won’t lose them.” Shemp put them onthe fender.Larry bent under the car to insert the crank andhe started to turn it, inch by inch, step by step. Moerested his foot on Larry’s head as he leaned over thedistributor. Each time the engine made a full revolution,the lobes on the distributor cam pressed againstthe points, but theyhardly moved at all.“Hey,knucklehead, didn’tI say to turn thecrank!” “Moe,”protested Larry,“I’m turning, I’mturning. How manytimes am I supposedto do this?”“Until the points open, you dummy!”Moe peered at the points again while Larryturned the crank, getting more and more tired.Suddenly Moe realized the points weren’t opening atall. He took a feeler gauge to the points and couldbarely get a .004 blade in between them.“Hey,” said Moe, rearranging the motor oil in hishair, “what’s going on, here? Moe took the points plateoff the distributor, handing the tiny screws to Larry.“Don’t lose these,” he said. He stepped off the frontbumper.Moe looked hard at the set of points andcompared them to an old set he had in the toolbox.“Curly, where did you get this set of points,” askedMoe?” “NAPA. Why?” “They’re not the right ones,dummy.” He dug out a new set he had bought yearsago from Rovers North. “Look at the difference!”Sure enough, the two sets were not identical at all.Both were red in color but had different shapes intheir metal plates. So Moe went to put the new set onthe car.“Pardon My CLutch” 1958He looked at Larry, leaning on his elbow againstthe fender. “Do something useful. Hand me the screwsand the other pieces,” ordered Moe. “You mean theones I just knocked on the ground with my elbow?”asked Larry. Knocking their heads together, Moe, Larry,Curly and Shemp bent down to pick up the distributorparts and screws.They found most of the items and retrievedreplacements from Moe’s toolbox. But in what orderwere the ground wire, condenser wire and insulatingwashers to go back onto the post? And why was theNAPA post plastic and the Lucas post metal? What didthat mean in terms of grounding?Larry gazed at the clear sky in the setting sun.“What a great day for a repair,” he said. “Usually it’sraining, snowy or cold when something breaks down.This is great!”First Moe, then Curly, insisted they knew the rightorder, but in neither case would the car start. Well,once it wouldn’t start because Moe hadn’t put therotor back on the distributor shaft, but it didn’t seemto matter what the boys did to the distributor parts.The car did not sound as though it was getting a sparkat the points.Again, Larry gazed at the clear sky in the settingsun. “What a great day for a repair,” he said. “Usuallyit’s raining, snowy or cold when something breaksdown. This is great!”Suddenly, a car full of self-important peopledrove up and found Curly’s Rover blocking the lane totheir expensive summer rental. Larry guided themexpertly right onto a rock which grounded out theframe of their fancy car. The driver made a face atLarry, who returned the look and said, “Aw, go on!”Now Shemp has become really nervous aboutgetting a ride to his appointment; Curly’s dead Rover isblocking Moe’s Rover, so Shemp has to borrow a thirdcar to flee the scene.Moe knew a trick. If he turned the ignitionswitch to “on” on his Rover, then he could get a sparkat the points. Why don’t we do the same on Curly’s car?So out came a screwdriver, and Curly turned the ignitionkey. Moe opened the points gently, puts the screwdriveracross the points, but no spark. They ponderedthat question for a while and wondered it the coil wirewas functioning. They swapped out coil wires, but tono avail.Suddenly, Curly asks, “why don’t I have anywarning lights on when I turn the key to on?” Moescoffs, “Curly, what do you know,” and continued tomove a screwdriver around the points, searching for aspark. Suddenly, one appears. “Hey,” cried Curly, “thewarning lights went on!” Curly starts the car and itruns so, so smooth. Moe adjusts the mixture and theidle and the car hums.Once again, Larry gazed at the clear sky in thesetting sun. “What a great day for a repair,” he said.“Usually it’s raining, snowy or cold when somethingbreaks down. This is great!”Moe and Curly go for a quick test drive; Curlyconfirms the car runs better than ever.“How long have you had those NAPA points,” askedMoe? “7 or 8 months,” said Curly. “The car hasn’t runthat well for a while.” “You know,” said Larry, “that’sthe trouble with Land Rovers. They run really wellwhen they’re actually running poorly. Go figure!”Once again, the boys had stretched a 15 minuteshort into a full length movie of slapstick mechanics.Patting each other on the back, Moe watched as Larryand Curly took off down the road. Only the followingPage 27