Rest In Pieces, Naidine, March 1984 – June 2013

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

Thirteen months ago I was taking one of those once-in-a-lifetime trips. It was nothing fancy, nothing overseas, nothing out of the country. It was the trip to my brother’s wedding in North Carolina. The first week was all the normal wedding things, being with family, the wedding itself, and seeing the newlyweds off. But while everyone else from the Grohn side of things flew home, I drove my brother’s ’78 Corvette back to Oregon. It was a storage situation, and having no garage where he would live with his wife, it seemed the best thing was to store it in Oregon for the time being.

A properly working Corvette is fun to drive. And this one was properly working. Sure, it dripped coolant and power steering fluid the whole way. Sure, the cruise control was completely disconnected. Sure, air conditioning was not working. In June. But Austin had gone over this machine, and with a new 350, I was out to cover more than 3000 miles in one week. I stopped along the way to take some pictures at landmarks and monuments, and since I was alone, the car was my proxy.

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This car was fun to drive. Maybe I’ve said that before. The carburetor was new, and hadn’t been adjusted all the way. It was after-firing a little under some accelerating conditions, and we didn’t know yet what octane to use. But by the time I got to South Dakota, most of this was sorted out, and I was able to chirp the tires on the shifts. My longest day of travel was 820 miles in 20 hours from Clemmons, NC, to Saint Louis, MO.

Now, when I say fun to drive, I mean for the first 200 miles the first day, or the first 100 any day thereafter. The floorboards get hot, the car is LOUD, and the bucket seats kind of ride up on your hips (i’m not particularly wide either), and after a few hours, I shifted back and forth in the seat periodically. You can’t take much with you in this car – there are two seats, and a little spot under the back window that can hold a suitcase, maybe a suitcase and a half.

The last day of travel was over 700 miles from Grand Teton National Park to my folk’s house in the Mid-Willamette Valley of Oregon, by which point, I thought I’d driven the car enough, a total of 3500 miles. But this was a time of major transition in my life, and 3500 miles of open road in a sweet car was good medicine.

At this point, I realized, this car I’d spent a week in, this car I’d crossed the North American continent in, this car my brother had spent so much time working on, didn’t have a name.

A couple days later, I prepared to return to my home in order to go to work. I got in my own car that had been parked for almost three weeks, turned it on, put it in drive, and touched the accelerator. Nothing happened. I pushed the pedal a little more. It started to heave, but didn’t roll. I put it almost all the way to the floor . . . and then it moved. But this is all very normal, because it is a Mercedes diesel, and that’s how they are when they’re cold. My car is nothing like a ’78 Corvette. I don’t get many looks about it, not so often do people say “hey, nice car!”, and I can’t do 0 to 60 in less than 20 seconds, unless I’ve driven off a cliff. I can, however, haul things in the trunk, mainly because it has one, and more than two people can sit in it comfortably. I don’t know that this stately four-door sedan is more my style than the flashy Corvette. I don’t really know what my style is for that matter, but the 300SD is my car, I know it well, and it has served me in the same way for almost ten years.

Her turbocharged 5-cylinder diesel motor sounds like that of a tractor. She smells like a tractor too. She had 280,000 miles when I got her, and she came with a name: Naidine. Naidine was so named because her license plate was 203 NAI, and the previous owner, or his wife, thought it was right, even if misspelled. In Washington State, they make you replace the plates every seven years, whether they need it or not, so the NAI plates are gone, but the name stuck. When I went to pick her up, the previous owner showed me how the glow-plugs worked, how the seat switches worked, and how short the turning radius is (surprisingly short for a full-size sedan). The seat switches are not toggles like most other cars, they are shaped like the seat cushion, and you simply push the model cushion in the direction you want that part of the seat to go. “Hey, it’s a Mercedes! What do you expect!” said Bruce, the previous owner.

Original plates 203 NAI

The engineering in her is something else. There are only two design flaws I know of, both relate to accessories bolted onto the engine, and I made workarounds for both of them in time. I got to know the car pretty well. I replaced the engine when it developed a loud knock (never put starter fluid in one of these engines, as tempting as it is when your glow plugs aren’t working). The hood (bonnet in Mercedes-speak) not just goes up, but has a second position where it is straight up in the air. This is useful when you take the engine or transmission out, because both must be done together through the engine compartment. There isn’t too much I haven’t worked on on that car. If you have one of these cars, or one like it, and the battery doesn’t want to stay charged, there is a way you can modify your stock alternator regulator by adding a diode, and this will boost charging voltage by about .5V, and make your modern battery happier. I never had to rebuild the transmission. I never rebuilt the steering box or injector pump. I never had to mess with the differential. Otherwise, I pretty much know how it works, because I kept it that way. I keep a thermometer in the A/C vent to be sure that the service I did on the system is holding. The only time I paid someone to work on Naidine was to have the rust under the rear window (windscreen in Mercedes-speak) repaired and repainted, and to have the glass reset. I guess I also had someone else install ball joints and do the front-end alignment.

Hunting

I would have driven her anywhere, and often did. I took her hunting in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. As a Washingtonian, I didn’t want to pay for the non-resident permit, so I was only shooting with a camera. When I got to camp at an elevation of about 10000 feet, I asked my uncle if he had seen any other Mercedes diesels up there. He said, “not too many, less than twenty.” She has never left me stranded, except one time when the alternator/water pump belt tension bolt broke. She couldn’t stay cool enough to drive on the freeway, so I limped back home, tensioned it by brute force, bolted the alternator down, and got to work two hours late. I later invented my own bolt, since the one from the parts-house cost over $141 and kept breaking (one of the two known flaws), and it has never been a problem again. That was the only time I couldn’t get somewhere on time on account of trouble with Naidine – all the other failures were minor, or detected and dealt with ahead of time.

Camping

As I drove away in my slow ’84 300SD, I realized how nice my old car really was. The input jack on the radio wasn’t intermittent. The dash clock kept perfect time. The ride was smooth and quiet. She drips a little oil (what Mercedes diesel doesn’t?) but I don’t have to check the fluids every time I fill up the tank. Good ol’ Naidine.

Naidine in fine form

This Saturday past, I was stopped in a line of traffic, and someone ran into the back of Naidine. I don’t know exactly what size truck it was, but it something like a 1- or 2-ton flatbed. I didn’t get out of the car at the scene, but a couple days later I got to see Naidine where she’s locked up at the tow yard. It’s ugly. Naidine is done for. Mercedes gives grille badges at 250K, 500K, and 1M kilometers. Naidine had already passed the first two marks, but I figured I’d just wait and go in to get them when the last one had been passed too. But we’re 250,000 miles short of that, and it would have taken at least 25 more years at the current rate.

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I thought I had taken more pictures of my car, but apparently not. This is all of them, and most of them only once she got crunched. Strange I should take over 1000 pictures of my brother’s car in 3500 miles, but only a handful of my own in almost 90,000 miles.

Final Odometer reading

And which car got driven in the Strawberry Parade this year?

Going to the Strawberry Parade

Not Naidine. She was left behind in the driveway. Sorry Dad, you missed your chance on that one. And Naidine had air conditioning.

But lets face it – Naidine is just a car, and will be replaced with another car, or maybe a pickup truck. And I’m already working on the most important part: getting another bumper sticker.

Issues, Etc. – Christ-Centered Cross-Focused Talk Radio – www.issuesetc.org

most unique, but still the same

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

Last month, I traveled to Atlanta as a trainer in the repair of one of my company’s music delivery platforms. As nice as it is to meet people and see another of my company’s offices, it was pretty much just work. But there were two things that were really great about this trip.

First, my brother, Austin, who works a few hours from Atlanta, managed to come over for a visit one night. My food was all coming from the Publix supermarket down the street from the hotel and office, so this was my one real meal out. We were in the Atlanta suburb of Norcross which neither of us knew, so GPS was how we selected our restaurant. We settled on Polish. For some reason, the restaurant was not there, but in the strip-mall where it should have been was a place called China Garden. We were both starving, so China Garden it was. But as we approached, one glance in the window told us to keep walking – the only people in the restaurant at 7:00pm were behind the counter. The last suite in the mall had a sign for tacos, and nearing it, we could see the place was hopping, and the whole waiting area was full. It was worth the 20 minute wait for a table: a conversation about life, remodeling, careers, neighbors, disappearing garbage cans, and theology over a couple 32oz Dos Equis, fajitas, and a shrimp quesadilla. So if you’re in Norcross Georgia and the choice is Polish, Chinese, or Mexican, head for Kiko’s Tacos. Taking your brother is recommended.

Second, I was looking for an Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod congregation that held a Lenten service on Wednesday. I went to the Synod website, www.lcms.org, and started looking near the hotel. To my surprise, I had to go thirteen miles before I found one in Tucker. There were a bunch of them closer that had “family night”, or youth group, or some other function that night, but none closer than St. Mark Lutheran Church had an actual Lenten Service. I was surprised because of the four LCMS churches I have been a member of, all have (or at least had) Wednesday Lenten services.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ll be honest here – this is in the South, and population demographics are somewhat different than in the Northwest from whence I hail. My high school had one black student, the Student Body President in my senior year. My university had three black students, one of which I sang with in the men’s choir. Perusing St. Mark Lutheran’s website I saw the pictures of three pastors – two of them were black, and the white one was an interim pastor. I just wasn’t sure what it would be like. Would I know the hymns? Would they even sing what I know as hymns, or would it be some other kind of songs? Would I even be able to follow along? Of the three Sunday services described, one is English, one is Wengalawit Eritrean, and the other appeared to be another congregation. What is Wengalawit Eritrean? But for whatever reason, this is the congregation I found, so this was where I was headed.

I was greeted by several parishioners just as soon as I chose a pew and sat down. Of course, they asked my name, where I was from, and how long I would be there. They seemed disappointed I was leaving on Friday. They had Lutheran Service Book in the hymnal racks, much newer than The Lutheran Hymnal that is at my home congregation in Vancouver Washington. The sanctuary was modest, and not too big, with old stained glass windows set into thick walls. Rev. Dr. Wilton Heyliger approached me and asked some of the same questions his parishioners had, although I had more questions for him than he had of me. I asked about the three different services on Sunday, and he told me that this is one of the most unique worshipping communities in the United States – St. Mark has two services, one in English, and one in Eritrean, and then the third is a separate congregation, Incarnate Word Lutheran, that uses the facilities of St. Mark. Rev. Heyliger is the pastor of Incarnate Word, and since this was a joint service, he would do the liturgy, and interim pastor Rodger Meyer would preach the sermon. I asked what Eritrean meant, and he said Eritrea is a country, very small and right beside Ethiopia, and the language there is the Tigrinya language, in case I know it. I replied that I not only didn’t know Tigrinya, but that I did not even know a place such as Eritrea existed! Rev. Heyliger smiled, and assured me it did, and that this community of immigrants to the United States worships here on Sundays.

Looking back, I don’t know what all my apprehension was about. It was mostly the same as back home. When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (LSB 425), Psalm 119, John 14, Let Us Ever Walk With Jesus (LSB 685), Law and Gospel sermon, Offertory, You Are the Way (LSB 526), Prayers, Collect for Peace, Lord’s Prayer, Luther’s Evening Prayer, Benediction, Oh that the Lord Would Guide My Ways (LSB 707). And though the words were all printed in the bulletin, I was actually able to use the hymnal here. I loved it.

The cross over the chancel in St. Mark’s is made entirely of square nails brazed together.

The World’s Biggest Pipe Organ I Won’t See

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Nathan Grohn

About once a year I get to fly somewhere on an airplane. Sometimes it’s for work, sometimes for a wedding, sometimes for a funeral, never just for vacationing, but perhaps I will do that someday. I like flying in airplanes. I especially like that final turn on the tarmac, sometimes followed by a pause at the runway, when I know the engines will throttle up next, and inertia will push me back in my seat. I recently found out that most people like aisle seats, and airlines may be charging more for them soon. But I like the window seat, especially during the day. I like when there is a break in the clouds and I can see the ground passing below. Once in a while I can see the shadow of the plane on the ground, miles below. From that height the shadow is tiny, just like an airplane in the sky is tiny when viewed from the ground, and not at all as the aircraft seems when I am in the airport watching them come and go. I like watching the shadow pass over the patchwork of fields of different colors, of green circles made by irrigation systems inside of arid brown squares. Passing hundreds of these fields in a minute, I begin to add up the length of the flight . . . all these parcels, owned by someone, tended by someone.

Next week I fly again, and this year’s trip is for work. As much fun as it is to fly on an airplane, I am really excited because I am going to Atlanta, Georgia, and there is a small possibility that I will get to see the World’s Biggest Pipe Organ. I read about it a couple years ago. It is up in the air exactly how the biggest pipe organ would be measured, so there are actually a few contenders, depending on if you count manuals, ranks of pipes, total number of pipes, or number of stops. But this particular one is a stand-out among gigantic pipe organs. It has seven manuals (keyboards), over 1200 stop tabs, and it has one of only two true 64′ open stops in the world.

The boxes on this wall are the actuators for the lowest diaphone pipes. There is one box per pipe, and the bottom of the pipe begins at about chest level.

The 64′ Diaphone is a pipe that makes an 8 Hertz tone, more than an octave below the normal range of human hearing. It works the same way a foghorn does. I have personally heard a 32′ Diaphone in person and remember it well, but this goes a full octave lower! It is true that this organ is not in very operable condition, and much of it doesn’t work. But even so, I hear that they are open a couple days a month for tours, and maybe I will be able to catch one of these. That would be so cool! This organ is the loudest musical instrument in the world – the Grand Ophicleide stop alone produces 130 decibels at a one meter distance. It operates on 100″ inches of air. That is to say that the air supply for the pipes has enough pressure to raise a column of mercury over 100 inches. Mercury is heavy! A church organ operates on something like 30″, and most theater organs on 60″ or more. But 100″?

I’m not really a pipe organ nut. I don’t play them, repair them, or collect them. But I do appreciate the complexity of moving parts, the mechanical apparatus of a tracker, and the valves, solenoids and switching network of an electrically operated organ. I appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into an instrument like this, and the amount of time and skill it takes to build one. I love the sounds they produce and the works written for them, especially those by the greatest Lutheran cantor ever, J. S. Bach. And I love a performance by a skilled organist. The pipe organ is, after all, the mother of all brass instruments, and while I am confined by ability to playing the smaller, less complicated, and less expensive variety of brass, that doesn’t mean I can’t sit back and enjoy the performance of someone else who can play it well.

So although this is a business trip, I am hoping that there will be an opportunity for me to break away and go see this behemoth of pipes.

What’s that . . . ? I have my cities mixed up . . . ? The biggest pipe organ is at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey? It’s not in Atlanta, Georgia? I guess my chances of seeing it on this trip are significantly diminished.

So what else is there to do in Atlanta? At least I still get to fly on an airplane. And I have a window seat.

Nothing New

Category Archives: Travel

Rest In Pieces, Naidine, March 1984 – June 2013

most unique, but still the same

The World’s Biggest Pipe Organ I Won’t See