Why does my hair smell like piss?

Back in the day, I terrorized the streets and back roads of Wellington County in a 1970 340 Dart. A very nice piece. Bench seat. Plain Jane. The original owner had put in a cam and had some head work done.

 Oddly enough, it still had the original exhaust manifolds instead of headers. Usually the first thing guys did was replace the stock manifolds with headers. It really wasn't till the last ten years that the common wisdom acknowledged the stock manifolds as flowing better than most headers. You spent a few hundred bucks on stuff that didn't make your car go any faster.

Anyway, I didn't ever go very far down that road, so it's a good thing the previous owner had gone for the cam and the port work. I end up with this beauty 1970 Dart, brown with a black vinyl roof, four speed. Good for a tenth over or under a thirteen flat in the quarter.

All that high energy stuff took the clutch out of it. Had to call on my pal Kipling to put a new clutch in. Hooked up at his dad's little single car garage, me with a heavy-duty racing clutch, and Kipling with the skills I didn't have to put it in.

Spent the afternoon on my back, on the floor of that little garage, holding up various mechanical parts while Kipling did the finesse work. My hair was constantly getting caught in the grate in the middle of the cement floor. This was the long-hair era, after all.

And I kept thinking I smelled piss...

Get the new clutch/flywheel assembly in. Lined up the tranny, and I recall that involved a broomstick. Get everything buttoned up. Back the snorting and gurgling 340 into the street, and leave 300 feet of rubber on Paisley Ave.

Head out to the country via the then-new Hanlon Expressway. There's a long long straight stretch below Stone Road. Three or four miles of dead straight straightaway. That 340 Dart with the 3:23's and the cam and the port work would pass 150 mph on that stretch. Did it way more than once.

So we're getting the revs up, and I've been smelling piss the whole day, and I'm smelling more than ever. At 110 I shift into forth. It's getting way loud in the Dart by now, so we're shouting... Hey man, it's hooking up nice, but what's with the piss smell? I think it's my hair... why does my hair smell like piss?

Oh, sorry man... you know that grate in the middle of the floor? In Dad's garage?

We're past 130. Ya, the grate?

Well, whenever the old man goes out in the garage, he takes a piss in there.

(With a shout-out to old Lorne. RIP )