E.J. Braswell Read online

  Note: This publication is intended to convey a basic understanding of the principles of car maintenance. It is sold with the understanding that the author, publisher, and The Pep Boys are not engaged in rendering professional services in our book. If the reader requires personal assistance or advice, a competent professional should be consulted.

  The author, publisher, and The Pep Boys specifically disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

  A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original

  Copyright © 2005 by The Pep Boys—Manny, Moe, and Jack

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  All photographs are courtesy of The Pep Boys.

  Timeline created by Marian Calabro.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48947-0

  Ballantine Books website address: www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  PREFACE

  A History of The Pep Boys

  CHAPTER 1

  A Tutorial of Your Car and How It Works

  CHAPTER 2

  Basic Car Care Maintenance That You Can Do Yourself

  CHAPTER 3

  Safety Tips—Preventive and Emergency

  CHAPTER 4

  Service and Repair

  CHAPTER 5

  Appearance and Accessories

  CHAPTER 6

  A Timeline of Cars, America, and the Pep Boys

  CHAPTER 7

  Glossary of Terms

  CHAPTER 8

  Important Records for You to Keep

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book is for everyone at Dynasty: Peter, Chris, Pedro, Kim, Henry—and everyone else whose name I should know by now. I honestly could not have finished the book without you.

  Thank you to Bruce Chidsey, who made sure all the information in the book was accurate and user friendly.

  Special thanks to cousin Steve, Sheperd Todd, Maggie Libby, and my editor/driving companion, Jen Osborne.

  Manny, Moe, and Jack: Trust Is the Chassis

  In 1921, four street-smart entrepreneurs from South Philadelphia each pitched in $200 to start an automotive accessories business.

  Emmanuel “Manny” Rosenfeld, two Moes—Maurice “Moe” Strauss and Moe Radavitz—and W. Graham “Jack” Jackson were World War I navy buddies.

  With their pooled $800 the partners rented a store at 7-11 North 63rd Street in West Philadelphia; there was just enough left over to cover an outlay of $63 to a car parts wholesaler and a few weeks of salaries for themselves. The address seemed lucky; it gave them the idea to include a pair of dice in their early signs and ads. As the four were setting up shop and suggesting names to go with it, Moe Strauss happened to glance at a carton of Pep Valve Grinding compound: Pep Auto Supply Company became the company’s name for its first two years. “The Pep Boys” name arose courtesy of a policeman at 63rd and Market, who would advise motorists when he stopped them for equipment violations to “go see the boys at Pep” for a replacement oil wick (what passed for headlights in those days).

  Moe Strauss was the guiding force. After leaving the navy he had tried to start his own auto accessories store twice. While both attempts failed, Moe stood firm in his belief that there was a need for such stores; car ownership throughout the country was skyrocketing. Finally, with help from the right partners—and a job as a cigar salesman to tide him over—he succeeded on his third attempt.

  Manny was a great foil for Moe, with a head for figures and an easygoing personality that balanced Moe’s quick temper. He also brought retail experience to the mix from a stint selling shoes at Lit Brothers, a leading Philadelphia department store at the time.

  Moe Radavitz brought money and personal energy to the business, but left after a few years, leaving only one Moe; Moe Strauss.

  There were actually two Jacks; unlike Manny Rosenfeld and Moe Strauss, neither one stayed with Pep Boys for long. The first was W. Graham Jackson, a navy buddy of Manny and Moe’s and a cofounder of the business. Jack’s boyish face appeared in very early logos. He must have been important to the business because he drew the biggest salary: $25 a week. After he left, one of Moe’s brothers, Isadore (“Izzy”), took Jack’s place—both in the company and as the caricature of Jack. Izzy even began signing his business letters I. M. “Jack” Strauss. In 1929, however, he struck out on his own. He moved to New York and founded Strauss Stores, which became R&S/Strauss and is now Strauss Discount Auto.

  Sears, Roebuck & Co. had gotten into the auto accessories business early through its mail-order catalog, but Manny and Moe believed that people preferred to shop locally. Only in mortar-and-brick stores could customers touch the goods and ask for advice. An early slogan promised: “There’s a Pep Store Near Your Door.”

  Pep Boys offered a further advantage: It was the first chain in the country to specialize in auto accessories rather than just offer them as a sideline. If they could keep prices low, customer service high, and the work ethic strong, there was no reason they shouldn’t dominate the automotive aftermarket that they helped pioneer.

  Stores stayed open six days a week, and the founders worked on Sundays as well: Local blue laws forbade them from actually opening the store. “Life for us at that time began around 6:15 A.M. and continued on until about 1:00 A.M, seven days each and every week,” Manny remembers. “There was not much opportunity to reflect upon the past or dream of the future. Rather, we were more concerned about where the next meal was coming from.”

  All the hard work paid off a few years later when they opened their first branch—against the advice of their friends.

  Pep Boys outfitted Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s second Antarctic expedition with two Kellett K2 Autogiros (a small, maneuverable craft with a plane fuselage and helicopter-like rotors), a pilot, and a large supply of Pep Boys Snowman brand antifreeze. Pictured here after the September 22, 1933, presentation ceremony are Emmanuel “Manny” Rosenfeld (front row, second from left), Admiral Byrd (front row, third from left), and Maurice “Moe” Strauss (second row, left).

  In 1923, with the business on solid footing, Manny and Moe were finally able to take a vacation/business research trip: a cross-country journey from Philadelphia to Los Angeles in a brand-new Model T. The desire for long-distance car travel was burning like a fever among Americans, spawning a new landscape of motels, campgrounds, roadside eateries, and billboards. One particular sign that caught their eye was for a dress shop called Minnie, Maude & Mabel’s. They came back home with “Manny, Moe & Jack” and the idea of opening stores in southern California.

  The use of the founders’ names seemed to call for faces to match. Harry Moscovitz, a commercial artist—and Philadelphia native— created the caricatures that are now icons of American marketing. The real Manny did wear glasses, sport a small mustache, and smoke a cigar. The real Moe was in fact taller, had a broad smile, and carefully waxed his winglike moustache every day.

  Founded and still proudly based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pep Boys was the neighborhood automotive parts and accessories store. As early advertisements used to proclaim, Manny, Moe, and jack were “the three best friends you
r car ever had.”

  Manny, Moe, and jack were used to full advantage in every advertising and media campaign the company produced, becoming popular American icons. Here they are shown with a variety of Pep Boys’ private-label products like Cornell tires, Pure as Gold motor oil, and Cadet batteries.

  Pep Boys continued to expand from Philadelphia and Los Angeles starting in 1933 with the opening of two stores, eventually developing the concept of the automotive Supercenter. Larger than early Pep Boys locations, these stores displayed more products and accessories than the competition, as well as maintaining attached automotive service centers.

  These eight-foot-tall Manny, Moe & Jack statues adorned many early Pep Boys and have become a much-sought-after item for serious memorabilia collectors.

  Pep Boys now operates in thirty-six states and Puerto Rico, and is in the midst of a retail renewal, which began with the introduction of exciting new products and continues with dynamic store remodels throughout the chain. New store layouts feature the latest in interactive displays, brand-name products, and associates who are trained and ready to assist all Pep Boys customers.

  Ready with a trusted, unbeatable sales and service team, Pep Boys truly offers “Parts, Service and So Much More.”

  Learning How to Drive

  Sure, you know how to put the key in, shift into drive, and pull away—but do you really know exactly what goes on inside the car when you’re out there on the road? You will by the end of this section! When you’re done, you’ll no longer think of your car as a Big Black Box, but as a logical sum of its fairly simple to understand parts.

  Note: If you find this next part confusing or the terminology a little alien at first, don’t worry. Continue to read through the next section on all the different systems in your car—and we’ll go through all of this again. It will make sense—we promise.

  When you put your key into the ignition and turn it, you close a switch that allows electricity to flow from the battery to the starter, an electric motor that starts turning the crankshaft. As the engine spins, the pistons and the fuel start pumping and the valves start opening and closing. Compression is achieved, the spark plugs fire, and the engine itself takes over. The starter then disengages itself from the process.

  The fuel pump delivers gas to the cylinders of the engine through intake valves, where it is mixed with air and compressed by the pistons. This highly combustible mixture is lit by the spark plugs and explodes, forcing the pistons down, which then turns the crankshaft.

  The crankshaft connects to the transmission, which determines with how much power and at what speed the wheels should turn. To shift gears, the car must first release the transmission from the crankshaft, and this is done by a clutch if it’s a car with a manual shift. Power is converted hydraulically through a torque converter in an automatic, transferring engine power by the use of fluid.

  In rear-wheel-drive vehicles, the driveshaft continues from the transmission on to the rear of the car, with a hinge on each end called a universal joint (or a CV joint in a front-wheel-drive car) to keep the whole thing flexible and from snapping like a twig when the car hits a bump. A differential (sometimes called a rear end) at the end of the driveshaft delivers the turning power of the shaft and converts the power through a ring and pinion gears “sideways” to the two rear wheels and determines the difference in speed that each wheel must have in order for you to execute a turn. When turning, the outside wheel must turn faster than the inside wheel or you would break the axles or gears. The differential is what allows this to happen.

  In front-wheel-drive cars there is a transaxle instead of a transmission, which handles gear-shifting as well as the individual speed of the left and right front tires for when you want to turn.

  Oil keeps everything lubricated and operating quietly and properly.

  … Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

  Okay, it was. So now let’s break down your car system by system and go through each one simply and clearly. We’ll put it all together at the end of this section again—and you’ll be amazed by how much you’ve already learned.

  Breakdown: Your Car, System by System

  ENGINE

  Okay. This is actually a far simpler thing than you might imagine. Relax, take a deep breath and imagine yourself in a tropical paradise … on a bicycle.

  In the same way that bicycle pedals go up and down, the crankshaft in a car pumps up and down, transferring rotation and power to the wheels.

  But instead of legs (and feet), a car engine has pistons that push down on the crankshaft. The pistons are propelled downward by an explosion above them in the cylinder. So the more cylinders you have, the more pistons you have; the more feet pedaling on the bike, the faster and more powerful the bike—er, the car. This is why a V8 is so much more powerful than a V6 or a four-cylinder engine.

  (The V refers to how the cylinders are set up. Either they’re in line and called an inline 4, 6, or 8, or sort of alternately positioned like the two tops of a V. They can also be directly opposing each other in a flat design, as in old VWs.)

  How the explosion occurs is where our little human-and-bicycle metaphor breaks down. It takes four cycles or up-and-downs to make things happen.

  As the pistons move down, a mixture of gas and air is sucked into the cylinder through the intake valve.

  As the piston heads back up, it creates compression, and the gas mixture is lit (or detonated, if you want to be precise) by a spark plug, which—you guessed it—creates a little spark. It’s kind of like the electric ignition on a gas stove that causes the burner to light.

  The resulting explosion (in the cylinder, not your stove) pushes the piston back down against the crankshaft with power, the transmission transmits this power to the wheels, and your car goes zooming off.

  As the piston comes back up the exhaust valve lets out the burned gases, and the cycle starts all over again.

  Back to your bike. Even if it’s instinctive by now, your brain figures out which leg pushes down to keep your bike rolling smoothly. If you tried to push down both legs at once, nothing would happen. The same thing is true with a car—the pistons have to push down on the crankshaft in precisely timed movements. Ignition, or spark, is timed exactly when the piston nears the top so the explosion will force the piston back down again.

  ELECTRICAL

  The electrical system in your car does three important things:

  It cranks your engine to help it start.

  It makes your car start once it’s cranking by causing the spark plugs to fire.

  It runs all the electric devices in your car; the headlights, the radio, the fan, the computers …

  Starting Your Car

  When you put your key into the ignition and turn it, you’re doing two things. First, you’re closing a circuit that allows a current to run from the battery to the starter motor. Second, the starter gear physically moves into and engages the flywheel. The starter is a little electric motor that jump-starts your car by turning a flywheel that then turns the crankshaft, causing the pistons to go up and down, beginning their cycle. When your car has started—and you let your key turn back—the motor disengages itself from the engine, which is now merrily chugging along of its own accord.

  Running Your Car

  At the same time you start your car and electricity flows to the starter motor, some electricity also goes to a coil that amplifies the voltage to about 50,000 volts. (And yes, that’s more than enough to kill you, especially if you have heart problems, so be very careful.) From there the current runs to your engine through the distributor cap in an older car or the coil wire on a newer one, sending that 50,000-volt spark of electricity to each of your (yes, you guessed it) spark plugs. The voltage or pressure of the current is so great at this point that it leaps across the open space between the two electrodes of the spark plug in the cylinder. The spark sets off an explosion of gas and air in the cylinder, and the piston fires, the cycle begins, and off you go.

&n
bsp; Running Other Things

  Everything in your car that draws electrical juice—the fan in the heater, the map light, the computer that controls your engine, your CD player, etc.—is capable of having its expensive inner parts fried if there’s a sudden overload of electricity, which happens more often than you might think. That’s why the current for each one runs through a fuse. Think of a fuse as a really weak, badly made lightbulb: The slightest power surge causes the filament inside to burn out. In the same way, a fuse blows out if there’s a problem in the system to stop the electricity from traveling any farther up the line and damaging anything.

  The fuse box for most of the passenger and driver utilities (radio, map light, etc.) is somewhere under or behind the dashboard; for the onboard computer, fuel pumps, and other operational items, the fuse box is often under the hood in the engine compartment.

  If a fuse blows, it generally means you have a problem with a component in that system or that a wire has rubbed up against a metal part and is grounded out. Merely replacing the fuse generally will not fix the problem. Never replace the fuse with one with a higher value.

  Your Battery and Alternator

  The electricity to start your car is stored in the battery, just as the electricity to power a flashlight is stored in its batteries. Unlike a flashlight, however, your car battery is recharged every time you run the car from the power of the engine. An alternator (really a generator) runs off a drive belt attached to the engine, and converts this physical power into electricity, sending it to the battery and all of the other components in the car that require electrical power.

  Efficient, no?

  On most cars the red-colored terminal on a battery is positive and the black is negative. Whenever doing any work on the battery, always remember to disconnect the black or negative side first—this prevents everything in your car from getting fried if there’s a problem.