9/26/06

I've got nothing. John and I had, sort of, planned to go to the shop last night to replace the water pump on his 510. We didn’t make it. We’re, sort of, planning to go tomorrow evening. I need to stop at Blank’s on the way to the shop to buy some argon. Oops, I just remembered I didn’t load the bottle in the car on Sunday like I was supposed to. Good thing we didn’t go to the shop last night after all. I guess I need to make a run to the shop tonight to get that. I don’t know if that will happen though. I'll need it for Mr. Wiggly's zorst and it looks like Blank’s isn’t open on Saturday anymore. I'm going to have to get that during the week. I've been looking at valve covers for the “leaning tower of power” and I'm in a quandary. Do I buy the really cool cast aluminum Offenhauser one for $150.00 or a cheesy chrome-plated steel guy for $25.00? Logic tells me to go for the cheap one. Stupidity tells me to go for the cast one. I've found both on e-Bay and the cast one at Summit. Oh, another plus for the cast guy is with an order from Summit it will be on its way immediately. I guess since some of the chrome units are “buy it now” priced they’d ship as soon as I paid for it. It is really silly to be thinking about a nice valve cover for a Slant Six in a van since no one will be able to see it unless I remove the doghouse. I wonder how tough it would be to have a clear thermoplastic doghouse made. Yeah, like I'd do that! I am thinking about doing some surgery to mine to get a little more clearance above the air filter. It is going to be really close as it sits now. I'm thinking I might have to make a “power bulge” on top of it. Then again, I might not. I need to actually look at it before going off on these wild tangents. Here’s what I'm basing my thinking on. The top of the velocity stack is just a hair below the gasket surface where the doghouse mates up to the firewall. If the doghouse, which like I said I have not examined closely yet, comes straight back from that surface I'll just have a millimeter or so of clearance. If the doghouse dips down from the gasket surface I'm screwed. If, however, it goes up from that point I may be golden. Thing is, I think it does go up but then dips back down again. I just don’t know. John took measurements the other day and we think there is room. He suggested removing the insulation from the back of the doghouse to make more room but then recommended against it because he’s actually driven a van with an un-insulated doghouse. We’ll see. Well, I just had a quick nap and have lost all interest in continuing this ramble. I think I'll shut down and go to the internot.