11/6/06

I'm not going to have much today because I'm getting a late start at it. I've been over at the TOB for a few hours longer than necessary, worked up a sweat loading and unloading a bunch of new projectors, and doing other general work like stuff. I haven’t even had time for a nap today. Man I hate it when they make me work at work. Ok, so what happened over the weekend? Saturday I started out to the shop intending to stop at the auto parts store on the way. Instead I took a wrong turn and went to the Motorsport Ranch instead. Oh, I took the long way there as well. I'm not going through all of the roads again but it involved FM5, needless to say. I hung out with Pat for a while and we went to Granbury for German food at Niester’s at lunch. I dropped him back at the Ranch and headed north. I decided to swing by the house and release a hostage. Mom wasn’t home when I got there but was when I finished. We discussed possible dinner plans, for later of course, and I headed out again. I stopped at Orally and bought two green LEDs, one blue LED, a four-wire flat trailer connector thingy, and a small block Chevy fuel pump block off plate. I then went to the shop and pulled Mr. Wiggly around to the front. I removed the dash, cutting the four wires to and from the tachometer/gauge cluster thingy so I could install the plug later. I took the dash in and sized up the holes for the LEDs. I trimmed them, the holes, and installed the LEDs. I made a ground wire for them and then had a look at the old printed circuit board from the instrument cluster. I figured out which wires I needed to splice to make the LEDs work and then noticed something. If I cut the board in half and soldered on another wire, I could light the speedometer pretty easily. I cut the board in half and soldered on another wire, which I then spliced into the same circuit as the tachometer light. The speedometer light is on any time the key is, but that’s ok by me. I installed the circuit board to the back of the speedometer and inserted lights. I made three more wires for the LEDs and marked the panel with which color goes where. Yep, thinking ahead for a change. Back out at the van, I spliced in the LED leads where they needed to go and installed the dash. Oh, I spliced in the four-wire flat plug thingy as well and plugged it together. I hooked up the ground and gave it a test. The dash lit up as soon as the key was turned, the left indicator flashed with the left turn signals, the right indicator flashed with the left turn signals, just kidding it worked right, and the high beam indicator lit when the high beams were turned on. I was quite pleased. So much so that I parked Matilda and drove Mr. Wiggly home, at dusk, with the lights on. The voltage stayed rock steady at 15.5 volts any time the revs were above 1,000 rpm. The one complaint I have is the high beam indicator is too bright. I'm going to have to color it with a Sharpie so that it only has a faint glow. I showered while mom went for tacos, which we ate later. I crashed out eventually and got up Sunday morning. I went to the shop determined to paint the grille on Mr. Wiggly. I stopped at the Boys of Pep and walked the isles looking for inspiration. The other night, John and I had a look at the alternator he bought for his 510 to see how it would fit in George. Short version: it wouldn’t. We decided to buy a small block Chevy bracket and make a plate to attach it to the A-13 block. Lo and behold, there was just such a critter at the BoP. It was for attaching the same bracket to the number one header bolts on a small block Chevy. The holes looked to be pretty close to those in the side of my block too. I bought them, along with a can of spray paint. I headed to the shop and got cracking on the removal of Mr. Wiggly's grille. That thing is huge! I should have bought two cans of paint. I sprayed it and got it mostly covered when I ran out of paint. I stole about a third of a can from John to finish up, sorry dude. I reinstalled the grille and stood back to have a look. Awesome! I touched up a few spots and called it done. I then moved on to the bracket. The holes for the SBC header are just a bit too wide compared to the holes in the Datsun block so I made a little piece to span the gap and drilled it. I sized it up and decided where I wanted it, then zooked the two together. I took it to the car and had a test fit. Very nice. I bolted the other bracket to the first and reinstalled it. I called John to see if the alternator was still there, knowing full well it wasn’t. I was right so I asked him if he’d order me one like the one he just bought. He said he would. At some point Marty Smith came by and asked if I wanted to go to the hardware store with him. I decided I did and we went. I bought a replacement bulb for the right rear side marked on Mr. Wiggly as well as some much-needed electrical tape. As the sun was setting, I replaced the bulb and it still didn’t work. I use a test light to find the problem and narrowed it down to dirty contacts in the socket. I cleaned them and now all of Mr. Wiggly's light work. Huzzah! With that done, I decided to call it a weekend and headed home. Well, would you look at that? I guess I made time to have a complete rant today. Ok, I guess that’s about it then. Have a day.