2/6/07

The receiver hitch for Mr. Wiggly arrived yesterday. It is too big and heavy to carry around in the back of Matilda so I'm going to leave it in the garage until the weekend. I'll probably run home in Mr. Wiggly Saturday or Sunday and pick it up. I really need to change the clutch in there soon too before he strands me someplace. Here’s the rub, I'm not sure if I have a 10” or 11” clutch. I'm going to have to take the transmission out and remove the clutch then go to the BoP and compare it to the new ones. Of course I could always buy one of each and take the one I don’t use back. Now that I think about it, I may go that route. The BoP in Lake Worth, which is sort of on my way home every day, had both sizes in stock last weekend when I called about it. I've got a bid in on a four-barrel manifold for Mr. Wiggly but I don’t expect to win it. I'm only getting about eleven miles per gallon from the thing and I think the problem is that modified DGV carburetor I have on there. It has had the “power valve” circuit removed and replaced with a fuel dump tube of sorts. [ I'll trade you a "stock" 32/36 for it? - SM ] I'm sure it makes great power on a Formula Ford race engine, for that matter it makes pretty good power on Mr. Wiggly, but it sure doesn’t do anything for gas mileage. Speaking of gas mileage, Ed Schairbaum took Pat, Marty, and me out on his boat one time back when we were running his 240Z racecar. Pat has wanted a speedboat for some time and was asking all kinds of questions. The one that I got the biggest kick out of was when he asked, “What kind of knottage does this thing get?” When we looked at him funny he said, “Well, it wouldn’t be ‘mileage’ with a boat, now would it?” I had to laugh. Of course I may have been a little high at the time, but that is beside the point. Anyhoo, my thinking is if I win the manifold for Mr. Wiggly, I'll buy a Holley 390 CFM carburetor with vacuum secondaries and will probably get better mileage and probably a little more power to boot. Of course that would make my Plexiglas top on the doghouse a little superfluous. Then again I do have that bitchin’ chrome valve cover to show off. Oh well, like I said, I'm really not expecting to win the auction anyway. I've only bid $182.00 so that when the $18.00 shipping is added I'll only pay $200.00 for the whole shebang. This morning the bids were up to $156.00 or so and there are a couple more days to go. In fact, I've probably already lost it. It’s cool if I do lose the auction because I really do like the DGV with the Albatross showing through the doghouse. And eleven miles per gallon isn’t all that bad for a thirty-year-old van. If I drove more conservatively I could probably stretch it as well. Did I just go full circle explaining, justifying, re-justifying, and settling for what I already have? Looks like I did. I received another thing I bought from e-Bay yesterday. I'm not going to tell y'all what it is until John has had a chance to see it. Suffices to say, it will rock the very foundation of your world. It may cause you to doubt your entire belief system. Black will become white, up will become down, Hondas will become actually cool, it may just spell the end of the world as we know it! Imagine if you will, the Fonz and Leather Tuscadero have a daughter, she meets and has a son with Vinnie Barbarino, that boy still wouldn’t have enough cool genes to outshine the item I'm talking about. But I don’t want to oversell it. John will see it Wednesday evening so perhaps we’ll post a picture on Thursday. Then again, I'm not sure the internot is ready for this, the ultimate in cool items of all time. We’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, by the way, it isn’t the cold air kit for Matilda if that is what you were wondering. Well, I think I've done enough damage to my credibility for today. I think I'll shoost this off to Spiderman and perhaps call it an early afternoon. Buh bye.