Sealed for life. Those magical three words are how such legendary manufacturers as Chrysler and Mercedes shot to the top of the reliability lists and stayed there for all eternity, unchallenged. How could one say something is maintenance-intensive if indeed it is maintenance-free, shrieked philosophers of quality control as they threw themselves off cliffs and into the paths of fully-loaded passenger carriages in their fury?
Somehow, in some small way, those titans of mechanical engineering had fallen, failing to account for the exact angle of the chamfer on the intern’s retaining snap ring, the valve body’s exact behaviour when pulling a log cabin up a hill from a cold start in December, or simply that they were actually totally retarded and holy shit a new one costs how much from the dealer?
Enter me. They called me the Unsealer.
With my powerful tools and insatiable appetite for dismantling, I would tear down anything they claimed was “sealed for life” and put new fluid in it or something. Grateful citizens would fall at my feet, praising me for my creativity and willingness to brazenly disregard manufacturer documentation, even the little cartoons they show you of someone having fun with an X through their head.
I was halfway through forcing my way into an Expensive Factory-Brand RTV gasket using a pair of nail clippers and weapons-grade profanity when the first Getrag kill squad rolled up.