6/12/07

I believe I left the narrative at the point where I had received the quote from Hawk Electronics on a stereo for Matilda and had left. As I was rolling to the credit onion, mom calls to say my oldest brother, his wife, and their grandbaby were there and wanted to meet me for lunch. I agree to Red Hot and Blue and we set 1200 h as the time. I go ahead and get $400.00 out of the credit onion then head for RHB. I'm about 15 minutes early but get a table anyway. I order a sausage and cheese platter and wait. They arrive about half a minute after the appetizer. We eat then I head to the shop while they go back to the house. It is hot at the shop. I have a look around and then remember that mom was stressed out about some dinner at the church on Sunday. I started thinking, “Did Bruce and Mel drop in unannounced?” I decided to haul ass home just in case. I chose to drive Mr. Wiggly for some reason. I got to the house and Bruce’s truck was gone. I assume they didn’t stick around since mom was trying to get ready for the luncheon. I was wrong. Bruce and the baby were napping in the guest room while mom was asleep in her chair in hers. I sit down and channel surf. I stop on the original “Planet of the Apes” and the doorbell rings. I answer it to find the mail lady asking for a signature. I signed for my mirrors and mud flaps which came from Thailand. I sat down to open them and have a grok. They are pretty cool. Mel comes back and has some Legos for herself and some bead things for the baby. We watch POTA for a bit and then everyone else gets up from their naps. Eventually, they leave and I ask mom what she needs help with to get the luncheon thing ready. She assures me she can handle it and I decide to go ahead and return Mr. Wiggly to the shop. Inside I play with a 32/36 Weber for Barbara for a little while. Finally I decide to go on home. Just as I sit down in the car, mom calls to see how much longer I’ll be. I tell her twenty minutes and by golly it takes exactly twenty minutes to get to the driveway. I help her with her final preparations and send her off to bed. Sunday morning I hop up to go to the shop. I change into a pair of coveralls and… what the hell did I work on? Oh right! I remember now. I did NOT change into a pair of coveralls but grabbed a hunk of radiator hose from George and took Mr. Wiggly to Lowe’s to buy some pipe to make the unions in that system. I strolled several isles at Lowe’s until I finally hit the electrical conduit section. There was a 10’ hunk of galvanized pipe that was a perfect fit for the hose. I bought it. I wandered a bit more thinking about other stuff I might need. I wound up buying just the pipe. Back at the shop I took a piece of welding rod and bent it into the shape I'd need for the lower radiator hose if it were made of solid pipe. I tried to bend it with my Pearl Harbor Chinese pipe bender but couldn’t get the bends close enough to each other to work. I wound up making a splice and using one of the flexible hoses to snake around the alternator and turbo down-pipe. I played with the upper hose for a bit and finally opted for the other flex hose. I debated going to the store to buy hose clamps but then I remembered John saying I could use the ones he had bought. I did this. I wound up two clamps short of sealing the whole cooling/heater system. I stole two clamps from Gregg's 240Z engine on the floor and finalized George. I debated with myself about attempting to fill the system with water. I won. I took a gallon jug that had a little coolant in it and filled it the rest of the way with water. I began pouring it in the radiator. When the level reached the top of the cylinder head, it began pouring out of one of the extra boltholes for the intake manifold. I dabbed some silicone on a bolt and threaded it in. I removed the valve cover to see if I was filling it with water but wasn’t. I saw that the unoccupied front hole hit a similar fitting as the one in the rear that had leaked so I silicone-and-bolted it as well. The remaining hole appeared to be welded up from incurring into the valve train area so I didn’t worry about it. I should have. As I continued pouring water, it began to pee. I grabbed another bolt with some silicone and sealed the last leak, I hope. I topped off the radiator and watched it for a bit to make sure it didn’t go down. It didn’t appear to so I declared it a success. We’ll see. On that note, I think I'm going to go release a hostage and then go to lunch. There’s even more to the tale of Sunday’s activities so stay tuned.