1/22/07

My DCOE to turbo adapter is on its way. I stopped off at a Western Union authorized location the other day and finally got that guy his money. This morning I found an SU manifold for a Hardly Dumbasson Shovelhead on e-Bay. Here’s my thinking, I can weld it to the manifold from Australia and have the option of running a DCOE, DGV, or SU carburetor in front of George's turbo. Saturday I went with John to get his “new” 210. I picked him up and dropped off the Versa headlights then we went for some breakfast. We got to the guy’s place and they did their business. From there we went to a Volkswagen shop where John was supposed to look at a car. It wasn’t there. We then went to Steve/John’s muffler shop and I had him remove the center resonator from Matilda’s zorst. It made the tone deeper and added just a hint more rort. I'm pleased. After that, we parted company and I went home. My brother was there with his grandbaby so I had to endure that for a bit. I don’t like children, especially babies. When they left mom and I headed to Red Hot and Blue for some barbecue. That night I got a notice from John Ullom that he made a payment on Maxine using Paypal. I went in and did a spreadsheet, finally, to keep track of how much he owes. Of course I don’t remember what the original amount was now. Oh well, it’ll work out one-way or another. Sunday morning I headed to the shop. Since the weather was nice for a change I decided I was going to do some work on Mr. Wiggly, or something. I got to the railroad tracks at Gun Club Road and Aledo/Iona just as the gates came down. I saw the train coming from the left so I turned right on Aledo/Iona. I was pretty sure I could get to the next crossing well before the train so I decided to go for a hoon. I got in behind a motorcycle and we did indeed make the crossing before the train. In fact I looked back east down the tracks to see if I could see the train and it was nowhere in sight. It must have been going considerably slower than I was. Tee-hee. I had been pretty hot on the heels of the bike up to the tracks but let him go once we were past the crossing. At the 1187 and FM5 turn he went south onto FM5 but there was a Suburban between us so I went north to make the FM5 run from the other direction. Of course the ‘Burban turned almost immediately but I didn’t know he would do that. Oh well. I took off through Aledo and down Old Annetta road to hit FM5 at the other end. I made the turn onto FM5 and as I was accelerating the bike went by the other direction. I had been slowed by traffic on Old Annetta so I wasn’t surprised when he made the run faster. I gave him a wave and made my run listening to the new rort of the zorst. I like it. I finished up my hoon and went to the shop. Steve/John had given me a three-speed shifter ball so I decided I'd install it on Mr. Wiggly. I had a look at it but wasn’t happy with it. First off, the “H” pattern would have been on the end and unreadable. Second, there was no way to attach it anyway. I decided to drill a new hole about forty-five degrees off from the original so the “H” pattern would be facing the driver more. I did that and got a good tight fit then used some Super Glue to hold it in place. I made a conscious effort to not mess with it for a while so the glue could set. When I was happy with that I decided to go get some lunch. I passed Marty Smith on the way out and called to see if I could use his concrete pad to install the 1” lifting blocks after lunch. He said I could so when I got back I loaded up some tools and headed his way. I jacked up one corned and removed a wheel. I tried to remove the nuts from the Hugh bolts to no avail. I borrowed an angle grinder and some safety glasses and hacked the bolts off. Now the van was perched on a jack stand under the axle with the leaf spring sitting on that. I took the weight of that corner off the spring with the jack and raised the pad up enough to insert the block. I set it back down and it all clunked into place. Marty watched as I did all of that and said, “Man, I don’t want to go to the emergency room.” I told him that was why I was doing it on his porch so he could drag me there is need be. He walked away when it was obvious I wasn’t in imminent danger. I installed the new Hugh bolts and ran the nuts down. Now, Hugh bolts are really long. I couldn’t get the socket on them. I had to run the nuts down by hand and then cut off the excess bolt before I could put a good hunker on them. This I did. I moved on to the other side, which went well except for a stripped lug nut and not being able to get the axle/block/spring combination to clunk down straight away. It finally did and I installed the Hugh bolts and wheel. At about the same point in the process, when I wasn’t in imminent danger, Marty left for the auto parts store and asked if I would watch the garage until they got back. I had finished up, put away the tools believe it or not, and swept up the metal dust before they got back. Since it was still daylight for a bit I went for another hoon, this time in Mr. Wiggly. It was uneventful except to note that the new zorst makes the thing much more drivable. I was even able to run about eighty miles per hour with traffic on the highway. He wasn’t even struggling. I'm quite happy with Mr. Wiggly. Well, I think I've said enough for today. Toodles.