2/27/07

I'll finish up with my report of the weekend now. Sunday morning I got a call from Allison saying that they were going to Joe T. Garcia’s for lunch. I said I needed to call Gregg and see if he was coming to pick up Cave In. He was busy fixing fences that had blown down during Saturday’s windstorms. Oh, did I mention the brown sky on Saturday? There was so much dust in the air that the sky was brown. It did make everything look like it had a pearl blue paintjob though, that was kind of cool. Anyhoo, back to the narrative, Gregg was busy and said I was free to go eat with the girls. I showered and headed to Joe T’s. I get another call from them saying they are about to order and did I want anything. I said I'd panic and order something when I got there. I arrived and looked around for them. When I found them, their food was arriving. I ordered and watched them eat. My food arrived and I ate. We chatted for a while and then moved to the parking lot where we made fun of the biker fags in their gay assed leather S&M wear. I said to Sam, “Ooh, look at me. I’m a rebel, just like everyone else!” He laughed. Sam is Amy’s husband by the way. We parted company and I headed back to the house to change into shop clothes. I knew mom had a thing at the church but was surprised to see she wasn’t home yet. I napped in my chair watching TV until about 1530 h when I finally left for the shop. I decide I'm going to finish out the wiring harness on George. I think I had finished taping up the stock harness on Saturday but I hadn’t routed it yet. Wait, I stopped at O’Reilly’s for a few items on the way to the shop. I picked up and electric fan, a sheet of gasket material, and a bunch of hose clamps because those were the only items I could think of while I was shopping. The somewhat semi-cute girl that John always tells me had a big crush on John Ullom but is way too young for me, flirted with me a little while we transacted. I paid up and left. At the shop I took the freshly soldered radiator and set it in place to size up where I wanted the fan. I took it out again and threaded the support thingies through. Fortunately I went for another test fit before installing the locks on the supports because I had set the fan too high. The radiator wouldn’t fit. I took it out and re-threaded the thingies at a lower point. Now it is a hair too low but it fits so I'm going with it. I locked the fan down to the radiator and installed the assembly. I stuck the upper and lower hoses on but didn’t clamp them just yet. I'm not sure why. Next I routed the stock harness to the passenger-side lights and hooked them up. I routed the harness to the driver’s side and hooked up those lights. I left both horn wires intact but I'm not sure if I'm going to use them or install air horns. We’ll see. I moved on to the ignition. I took the constant-hot lead and the main ground for the MSD and taped them together. I mean I routed them together, not interconnected them electrically. I grounded the ground to the top of the strut and laid the positive lead so it was where the starter will be. I wonder where the starter is, now that I think about it. It’ll turn up, I hope. Anyhoo, next I took the black and orange leads from the MSD, which go to the coil, and routed them, well, to the coil. Or at least I routed them to where the coil would be. I got the coil out and found a mounting bracket for it. I hit the bracket with some fake chrome paint and let it dry for a bit. Back at the car, I cut off the excess orange and black wire and decided they would work for the connection at the distributor. I routed them back towards the coil and consequently the MSD box. I noticed that the small red and white wires, which are switched power and distributor signal, would have reached the distributor after cutting them off where the orange and black wires ended. I was a bit pissed off until I remembered that I still had to tap power into the orange and red wires. The white one could have been splice-less but it isn’t. I butt spliced the white to the black so that the MSD box now has a distributor signal wire. I took a section of red wire and twisted it with the red wire from the MSD box. These I crimped into one side of another butt splice. I twisted a section of wire salvaged from the original ignition wiring to the orange wire and crimped that into the other side of that butt splice. On the end of the salvaged wire, I crimped on a male spade. On the two ignition wires coming out of the harness I crimped on a female spade. These I connected to give the MSD box and distributor switched power. What was the other red wire for? I decided to use it as a signal for the fan and fuel pump relays, which I don’t have just yet. I taped up all of these wires into harnesses then routed and secured them with zip ties. Next weekend I plan to have the fuel pump installed, wired, and plumbed as well as the relay for the fan. I'll run a big wire from the starter post, along with a wire for the fuel pump, back to the relays on the radiator support. I'll run jumpers between the relays for power in, ground, and signal then hook the fan and pump to their respective outputs. I'll harness them all up and then all I'll have left to wire are the gauges. I could have tried a little harder to get it all into one harness but that ship sailed long ago. Ok, I've gone a little long today so I think I'll call this a rant. Buh bye.