7/24/06

Oh snap! Matilda looks so much better now that she’s sitting low! I might use exclamation points through this whole day’s rant! No I won’t. Anyhoo, Saturday morning I head for the shop around 0830. John is pulling up to the gate as I'm finishing throwing away the bags of trash from last weekend out of the back of Mr. Wiggly. We meet back at the shop and start looking at things. I don’t remember what he was… oh yes I do. He was pulling the seats out of his blue 510 for Steve/John. I put the Cragar wheels back on George, after clearing the tools and stuff off the top of the car, and jacked it back onto the ground. Marty Smith shows up and parks his truck right behind the door. I ask him to move and we roll George out. I'm filthy and John is dirty enough, so I ask Marty to pull Matilda in for me. He stalls it and we both give him grief about not being able to drive a stick. He finally gets the nose in and we jack up the front. I pull the passenger side wheel off and disassemble the strut. Of course Nissan, in their infinite wisdom, has put one of the top bolts on each side in a totally inaccessible location. I snake my arm through a hole and get to the one on the passenger side and scratch the hell out of my forearm. We swap the springs and install the strut. At some point, I drop a socket into the blind hole on the driver’s side and Marty fishes for it the whole time we’re working on the passenger side. Finally the socket falls down behind the fender and I get to it through the fender liner once the wheel is out of the way. Actually, I had the whole strut out and while John changed the springs, I got the socket. We got it all back together and lowered it off the stands. It looked good! I had Marty pull out and back in, as in back the car in not roll back and pull the nose in again. Anyhoo, he backs in and John jacks up the back. I set the stands and he crawls under. He gets one shock undone and then the other. The axle drops and the springs fall to the floor. He sets the new ones in and reattaches the shocks. So, one hour each for the front springs and fifteen minutes for both rears. Not bad. Again, I have Marty pull the car out and drive around the building to settle the suspension. When he gets back we all have a look at it and declare it good! John and I clean up and head for some lunch. I don’t remember where we went though. Oh yes I do, Mexico Real. I was sorely disappointed. We went to the Boys of Pep to buy some spacers for the rear, since the rear wheels could stand to come out some more, but they only had one. We were going to go to the Seminary store but John got a call that some dude was at the shop looking for him. We went back and John helped another 510 guy with some parts. We also took one of the faux Panasport wheels that John has and tried it on the front of Matilda. It would have been really close to being too wide but it didn’t clear the caliper so the point was moo. We put the Altima wheel back on and decided to roll that way for a while. The 510-dude left and Steve/John showed up. We all talked for a bit and then he left as well. I took Matilda to the Motorsport Ranch to show off and to have a hoon. When I got home I decided it was time for a shave. I had put my rechargeable clippers on the charger several days before but it had gotten unplugged. I had had enough of that unit so mom and I went to Best Buy and I bought a hair-cutting kit with a corded clipper thingy. We stopped at Taco Casa for ten tacos and a gallon of sweet tea. Back at the house, we ate and then I finished shaving. I had made that run with one lopsided sideburn and none on the other side. I took another shower and settled in for the evening. I asked mom what she thought of the ride, ingress, and egress. She then noticed the car was lower. She didn’t have anything to say about it. Well, some people have all their taste in their mouths. So I wasted the rest of the evening and most of Sunday goofing off. I did finally head to the shop at about 1530 or so. I pulled Mr. Wiggly back to the dumpster and unloaded the rest of the trash from last week then pulled back in front of the shop door. It was just shady enough. I took the instrument cluster out and apart. I cut out the hole next to the speedometer and installed the bitchin’ quad gauge thingy. I pulled the doghouse out and started looking for water temperature probe locations. I found one but had to make an adapter to go from 3/8” to 1/8”. I drained the water and installed the sensor. I refilled the radiator and started it up to look for leaks. There were none. I shut down and started looking for oil pressure sensor locations. I found one but needed another 1/8” to 3/8” adapter. I knew I had one in the head of George for the water temperature sender so I stole it. The sender for the oil pressure gauge wouldn’t clear the block and thread in. I was hosed. I reinstalled the stock sender and parked the truck. At some point during the day I was listening to a different radio station then usual and heard about a low-speed chase on I-20 headed west. They said it was leaving Arlington at that time. I thought I might stumble onto it on the way home but didn’t really give it much thought. I closed up the shop and washed up. I headed home without incident. When I turned on the TV to watch the end of the “Simpsons” the chase was just passing the I-20/Loop 820 split by my house. I had missed it by about five minutes. Mom and I watched until it became a hostage standoff and then I watched other stuff. Now it is Monday and I'm here talking to y’all. I think I've said all I have to say for today so I think I'll quit.