2/13/07

I'm not sure how much I'm going to say today. I know I wanted to say something else yesterday but ran out of room. Of course now I don’t remember what it was. I just erased a big long bit about re-painting the Seven. I realized it was going nowhere and lost interest in it myself. I'm now staring at the screen looking for inspiration. I'm finding none. The dude with the title to Barbara called again this morning. I'm supposed to meet him at 1515 h today to do that transfer. I sure hope John is right about not needing the actual car on the insurance to transfer it. If we get the run-around from the state I'm just going to ask the dude for the signed title and transfer form. If he doesn’t give them to me, I'll just tell him, “Fine, I’ll drop the car back in your drive soon,” and walk off. I've got a plan as to how I'll drop it off as well. Since the thing does run, I'll warm it up before rolling it off the trailer down the road from the house. I'll then start it up in gear and limp it to their driveway and park it. I may or may not lock the key in it; I'll decide that at the time of drop off. But if I do keep it, I think I'm going to go with 14” rally tires because there are two sets of Z-car six-spoke wheels in the paint booth. One set has no tires on it while the other does but I'm not sure of their condition, the tires, that is. For that matter, I'm not sure to whom they all belong. I think one set may be mine but probably not. John will know. Ok, so here’s how I think I'll play this. If I do get the title transferred, Barbara will cut in line ahead of George for the time being. I’ll drop the car off the trailer and move it inside to the spot occupied by George right now. I'll strip the engine of unnecessary bits like the smog crap and air-conditioning and get it ready for hot-rodding. I'll plan to install the Nismo header and a DGV carburetor with the snorkel thingy I had mentioned a few weeks back. I'll gut the interior a little, mainly lose the old raggedy seats and carpets, and make it more rally-car like. I'm not sure if I'll put in a cage, not anytime soon for sure. I'll go ahead and order five of those Hankook rally tires and have them mounted up on five of those six-spoke wheels, once we determine how they are to become mine of course. Hopefully, losing a bunch of weight in the engine bay will lift the nose of the car a little at which time I'll fabricate some adjustable shackles for the leaf springs and level the car. If the nose doesn’t come up from stripping the engine, and I determine it does need more ground clearance, I'll probably make spacers to go between the strut tops and the unibody. We’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, of course I'll bleed the hydraulics and get the car back to a roadworthy state at this time as well. The only thing I plan to do that will make the car not run is the replacement of the intake and exhaust manifolds. Hopefully I can shave enough off of the bottom of an intake to clear the header. If not, I may have to get creative and stretch one. Here’s my thinking, if I cut two manifolds apart at different spots on the main horseshoe I can weld one back together extra long. I guess it’s better felt than tell’t. I just tried to make a drawing of what I'm talking about in Paint but gave up on it. You’ll just have to take my word for it. I know what I mean and that is really all that matters. Then again, if I'm welding I guess I could finish that dual SU manifold I got some time back. I need to see if this is a round or oval port head first. I'd like to use the manifold that is on the engine now as my starting point since I'm fairly certain it will match the head. Of course what would make the most sense would be to install a 32/36 DGV and leave the two manifolds alone for the time being. Perhaps, we’ll see. Well, it is just about time for me to cut out and go meet this dude. I'll talk to y’all tomorrow.