9/19/06

I've got nothing. I mentioned trying to come up with an air filter for the Weber carburetor on Mr. Wiggly the other day. I think I have an idea that will work. I bought one of those velocity stack funnels for a four-barrel carburetor that I will weld to a K&N base plate. The top of the velocity stack is about the size of the K&N filter from Pat's Nissan pickup. I'll mount that filter on top of the stack and close it off with one of those flow-through filter tops. All of this will enclose the Albatross air horns on the top of the Weber, I hope. Worst case, I'll use the velocity stack, with its foam filter, on Barbecue Bob. We’ll see. This Friday is Family Day here at the railroad. I've entered the Seven in the car show but now I'm debating whether or not I'm going to clean it up. I might show it with all of the track debris and patina as is. No, I'll wash it and try to get rid of some of the water spots on the hood and nose cone. I don’t plan to bash the dents in the floor back down though. Just like the scrape on the passenger side rear fender, they are battle scars. I'll wear them proudly. It’s just a tool for having fun anyway. Besides, they’ll annoy others. Mr. Wiggly's mufflers should be at the house when I arrive this afternoon. Not that I'll be able to do anything with them just yet. I think I'm going to go ahead and say, “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!” on hot-rodding Mr. Wiggly. George will get finished, eventually, most likely. Here’s my justification, George isn’t licensed, inspected, or insured whereas Mr. Wiggly is. Getting Mr. Wiggly hot-rodded up won’t take as long as finishing George. When this round of hot-rodding is done on Mr. Wiggly, Mr. Wiggly will be pretty much done. Having all of the bits to hot-rod Mr. Wiggly while working on George will just distract me and make me resent George for taking my time away from Mr. Wiggly. It’s my damn shop and I'll work on whichever car I feel like, so there. Oh, I guess I could have started with that one and saved some time. Oh well. I think I'm going to take the 45-degree slash-cut chrome exhaust tips, currently acting as slash-cut scoops on the ICT carburetors on top of that supercharger, and affix them to the ends of the pipes as they exit in front of the rear tires on Mr. Wiggly. I may have to angle the mufflers out at a 45-degree angle, but I think I can make it work. I sized up the Hugh bends to the collectors from the headers and they are exactly the right size. 2” collectors feeding 2” pipes, I couldn’t be happier. I can hardly wait. I need to buy some more argon for the TIG welder before I can do anything though. I'll probably do that Saturday morning. I hope Blank’s is still open on Saturdays. We’ll see. I just had a thought. I wonder if I need to try and get the pipes to extend past those huge-assed wheels and tires I'm planning to install. No, I think if I get the slash-cuts just out past the side of the van, it will be fine. Mr. Wiggly is going to be so friggin’ cool! I may have to shave off my goatee and rock the seventies porn-star mustache before I can drive it though! Even though it doesn’t have the pop-up camper feature, I'm kind of thinking about painting it “Uncle Rico Orange.” Anyone who gets that joke is ok by me. Anyone who doesn’t, needs a dose of Rex Kwon Do applied to them. And on that note I think I'm going to call this a rant. Buh bye.