6/19/07

I forgot one other thing I did before leaving the shop Saturday. I hooked a big hose from the pipe on the side of the crankcase up to the PCV valve on the turbo inlet. I didn’t like the way it had to make a sharp ninety-degree turn at the PCV so I decided to add a ninety-degree fitting. I stopped at Tractor Supply and bought one. It was galvanized and I didn’t like it very much but I bought it anyway. Then I went hoe and watched the Flint movies. Sunday morning I waited around for a bit to see if I was going to hear from John. I didn’t hold out much hope, what with it being Father’s Day and all. As I was about to head out the door I made a devilled ham sandwich, ok two, and sat down to eat them. I popped in the last DVD of the Flint set to watch the Special Features. I watched the really horrible made for TV movie from 1975. The only, and I do mean ONLY, redeeming feature of this film was the abundance of Datsuns in the background of all the traveling shots. There were lots of 1200s and several 510s as well as a few Zeds and some trucks. Oh, I'm sure there were some Toyotas, Mazdas, and domestics as well, but I don’t really notice stuff like that. Anyhoo, eventually the movie ended and I headed for the shop. I stopped at the Boys of Pep on Highway 80 and bought another ninety, in brass, and a fuel pressure gauge. I might have bought something else as well but I don’t remember. I headed to the shop. There, I installed the ninety and the PCV valve then hooked up the crankcase hose. I liked that routing much better. The heat from the zorst is going to cook that line but hopefully all it will do is make it hard and rigid. I know, that was redundant over and over and over again. Sue me. Next, I cut the fuel line right below the inlet for the carburetor. I measured just enough hose to butt the two fittings up to each other. I thought the hose was a tad too short when I installed it Saturday and this made for a nice extension. Of course the fitting was for 3/8” and I'm using ¼” hose. D’oh! I looked at it for some time before finally throwing up my hands and heading back to Lowe’s. Oh, when I got to the low water crossing on Old Granbury Road, it was flooded. I watched as other cars went through and decided it was only a few inches deep even though the swath of road covered was very wide. I pressed on through it. On my return trip, it was much the same. This time I noticed that the reflector titties were just under the surface enough to cause a disruption of flow. It confirmed my depth assessment so I rolled on through. At Lowe’s I found the parts I needed, a ¼” NPT “T” fitting, two ¼” NPT to ¼” hose nipples, and one ¼” male to 1/8” female NPT adapter. I then headed back out. It was raining again. The water across the road was similar to when I left so I drove through again. No worries. Back at the shop, I assembled the bits into a fuel pressure gauge “T” assembly and installed it on the hose. It lined right up with the old throttle cable bracket I never removed from the DCOE, mainly because it was a pain in the ass to install and I didn’t feel like doing it again, so I zip tied the gauge to it. I think it will be fine there. It was then that I noticed I had no fuel filter in this system. I didn’t feel like going out again so I blew it off for the time being. I'll stick one in there eventually. Oh, another thing I had been playing with in my mind all weekend was a “pig tail” for the alternator. See, there are two wires I needed to hook up to the alternator once it was installed, the hot and a ground. Well, the hot wasn’t a big issue but I couldn’t see anywhere to easily hook up the ground wire. My thinking was I'd make a “pig tail” that hooked to the hot and a good ground then had a nice high-amperage two-way disconnect to hook it to the harness. Everyplace I went all weekend I looked for something but never did find anything satisfactory. So, I decided it was time to go ahead and pull the alternator again and see what I could see. I changed into the jumpsuit and crawled under the car. I took the alternator out and went to the vice with it. There are no ground lugs set out specifically on the case so I found a nut for one of the studs sticking out of the back. I knew the ground wire had a ring terminal on it and that I could get to this stud from the bottom while installing the alternator. So, no “pig tail” needed after all. I reinstalled the alternator and hooked up the ground. Up top I hooked up the hot lead and stuck a rubber cap over it to insulate it, just in case. I installed the belt and tightened it. I hope the misalignment isn’t too bad and it won’t chuck belts all the time. If it does, I'm not sure what I'll do about it. After the alternator was in pace and “finished,” I moved on to the clutch and brake cylinders. But in an effort to keep y'all entertained all week, I'll tell that story tomorrow.