The Secret Ingredient

Sometime in 2005, I believe during the short interval between leaving Socorro and moving to Durham that August, Dad offered me his spare can of anti-sieze compound. The spark plugs in the ChevOldsmobuiac had rusted into the block during it's long Virginia hibernation and years of dusty New Mexico roads. I did not wish to repeat the extraction battle with the new plugs in a few years.

"One can will last you a lifetime!" he opined.

I turned his kind offer down on the basis of not wanting to haul a container filled with a nasty, sticky, hard to clean substance across states in the same space as my precious backpack, treasured powermac, and clean underwear.

I did, however, end up purchasing my own can in 2006, when my attempts to repair sticking brakes were severely hampered by the rear wheel being firmly stuck to the axle, requiring days of bust'rloose, hammering, and rough driving with loose lug nuts to overcome.

Chaos through endurance.


Since that time, my small jar silvery Teflon slime has become something of a religion for me, as I apply it to every metal-metal contact that does not serve some critical function (e.g. like brake pads...). Lug nuts, the back of rims, sheet-metal screws, sparkplugs, the list goes on. 21 year old cars in humid climates simply want to rust in two directions: together and apart. A small coating of the silver stuff does wonders to keep things in workable pieces.

I'm beginning to suspect it should be standard equipment.

This weekend I was rotating the tires on the ChevOldsmoBuiac, and I looked into the can anti-seize, and realized that dad was wrong. I realize now that he has been aging cars in the bright Colorado sun for far longer than he did on the east coast, where 300 days of sun and low relative humidity provide active denial to the chemistry of oxidation.

Given my battles, I will likely run out in another 5 years.