3/22/06

I went by to visit Mr. Wiggly last night. I kind of browbeat Robert into moving it into the fenced area. The rolling problem is with the parking brake cable. He disconnected it somehow and we rolled it in. As it approached the fence, Robert hit the foot brakes and it stopped short, just like it was supposed to. I was quite pleased. I don’t think it is going to take all that much to get it going again. Which reminds me, I need to put it on my insurance as soon as he gets it fired up. I can hardly wait to have Mr. Wiggly in my corral! I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl! You know how I tell y’all about making turbo noises while walking down the hall? Well, I'm making three-on-the-tree shifting noises now. I need to finger out how to get rid of, and keep away in the future, the rust in the drip rails. I just don’t know what to do about it. I'll probably do some ghetto repair to seal it up and prevent water from collecting and call it a day. Have I mentioned that Summit has a dual one-barrel manifold for the Slant Six? Well, they do. They also have a dual header setup that would essentially turn it into two three-cylinder engines. I suppose it could be looked at as a V6 with one bank flipped around and put in line with the other, but I won’t. John and Robert both tell me that a 318 will fit in there but it looks awful narrow to me. Perhaps it is a perspective thing, I don’t know. I'm kind of excited about the Slant Six though. I'm pretty sure it will do everything I need it to do. If it comes up short on power someday, then I'll reconsider. Thing is, I don’t need a 12-second drag van; I need a tow vehicle and junkyard parts hauler. I need a mobile shop! I almost forgot about the mobile shop. Ok, I was going to go over the whole mobile shop thing again but I think I'll spare you. I am going to go into the Mr. Wiggly to do list and figure out what all I need to do. I may be back after lunch. We’ll see. And we’re back. I made a list of the things I'd like to see installed in the back of Mr. Wiggly to make it into a mobile shop. I'm not sure how much of it I will actually do though. Back when I had the 110-volt MIG welder it was no big deal to include a bracket or cubbyhole or something for it. Now that I have sold it I'd have to replace it with another. I just had a thought though. If it is just for emergency “sticking two pieces of metal together” type repairs, I could get that really cheap wire-feed flux-core welder. I think it was in the $100.00 range as opposed to $200.00 for the MIG. I'll have to look into that again. That would free up the space I had allocated to argon/carbon dioxide bottles. At one time I had found an engine mounted 110-volt generator. I need to search that out again. I'd rather generate 110-volts than rely on power inverters, but I'm not really sure why. I guess I don’t really get how the inverter works. I mean, I understand a transformer but it seems to me to be a lot of draw from the vehicle’s electrical system. I need to go to the Northern Tool and Supply website. I wonder if McMaster Carr would have anything like what I'm looking for. Well, josh just showed up so I think I'm going to head off to the internot again. I don’t think I'll be back again today. No, in fact I'm sure of it.