Met my brother out at the Old Trail Tavern north of Goodhart, along remote shore drive. Or what used to be the Old Trail Tavern. Since the 50s I believe, it’s been just a residence- no longer a stopping point for motorists in the Very Old Days to catch a meal and a room, but the building is largely unchanged. In the main room, above a stone fireplace is a black and white photo of that very room, completely unchanged except for the rows and rows of tables full of haunted people in old suits and cigars.
No one home when we arrived to conduct our business. Just silence, some birds and bugs, a breeze, and the hint of distant waves far down the bluff to the lake that the property overlooked. No cell service out this way. Trapped by beautiful serene greenery and that old almost forgotten feeling of being on your own, off the grid.
We had to remove a threaded 3/4” galvanized steel fitting (ancient), from this tiny cement box in the earth, out back, that it was recessed in. This was tricky for several reasons, and the reason my brother called me out to back him up on the project. All we needed to do, essentially, was reach down into this narrow concrete box, grab this fitting that had to be removed, and unscrew it like a light bulb until it came off.
Unfortunately, ancient galvanized steel, especially ancient 3/4” galvanized steel, has a way of not just rusting together- but FUSING together, with rust, requiring the combined efforts of multiple feet of leverage on a wrench for torque- counter torque to keep the pipe that it’s stuck on from twisting in half, by way of another wrench, and a whole lot of blow torch to expand our metals and break things up.
The problem was that the angle a wrench would have to go on- perpendicular to the vertical riser coming out of the old earth- limited the wrenches we were able to use. We could only use wrenches that would fit inside the box, and then we could only have as much space as the tiny box would allow to apply force.
With some ingenuity and teamwork, we managed to get two small wrenches on the situation- one on the fitting we wanted to remove, and another on the pipe below it as counter torque. This one we wedged into place so the reverse torque was automatic, which was essential as we both needed both of our hands for what came next.
Instead of sticking a long steel pipe on the wrench handle like I usually do to get more leverage, I wedged it down in the hole perpendicular to the wrench on the fitting, and while I made sure the wrench stayed in the right place and the force was being applied directly where we needed it, my brother levered it forward from above with the long steel pipe, ratcheting up the tension on it until, almost to our surprise, the threads broke and it rotated on the pipe.
This is the hardest part of the process, and always the goal. We had gotten it good and hot with the torch beforehand, but it is still rare to get one of those fittings to break loose. Let alone in a recessed box like that with all the limitations.
We enjoyed some celebratory inside jokes, and worked together on the rest of the easy parts of the job that followed. But there is just something about working on a goal with another man, overcoming it, and reveling in the triumph of it together that is absolutely peak living.
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