10/29/07

Well, of all the weekends I've ever had, that was one of them. Friday evening I spoke to Tony about the swap meet. He wanted to put miles on the Hooptie so he agreed to come pick me up. We went to IHOP for breakfast. I ate most of a very meaty omelet and a stack of pancakes. I don’t remember what they called the omelet I had but it is the one with all the meats. Anyhoo, after that we headed to my credit onion and then to the swap meet. I think this was the first time I went to the swap meet early enough that the last few isles weren’t packing up to leave while I was walking the thing. I got tired of walking before we were done. We walked all the isles and Tony looked at a whole bunch of stuff John, Pat, and I usually skip over. Of course we did miss all the model-kit vendors that John stops at every time so I guess it was a wash. [ I seriously doubt it... - SM ] I didn’t find anything I needed but thought long and hard about going back for the Subaru engine and transmission the guy had. Actually, he had two Scooby-Doos and a couple L-series six cylinders, none of which I need. John called at some point to ask if I had any CAT 5 LAN network cable. I told him I did not. He was at my house hooking up mom’s computer thing for her. Tony and I finished up at the swap meet and headed to the Beenbroke shop so he could collect some welding rods. I showed him all my junk and fired up Mr. Wiggly for him. He looked underneath and asked what was pouring out. I told him it was gasoline and he freaked out. Apparently a hemorrhage of gasoline onto the engine and exhaust didn’t seem like a very safe thing to have. I assured him I knew what the problem was and was planning to fix it. It took a bit for him to relax even after shutting off the engine. We closed up and headed to my house. John’s car wasn’t there when we pulled up so I assumed he was finished with the computer. Tony and I had a look around the side of the house at where I want to build my shop. At one point I noticed a young child on my back porch. “I guess John’ kids are still here,” I either said or thought to myself. Pretty soon he came back from buying another computer bit that apparently had gone bad on mom’s computer and went in to finish. Tony left without coming in and as he was going the throttle stuck on the Z. He shut it down and I walked up to ask him about it. It sounded like the clutch went away but it wasn’t that. We had a look under the hood and didn’t see anything ugly so he fired it up again. It seemed fine so he took off. He called later from the freeway to say that bouncing the thing off the rev limiter seemed to clear something out because it was running better than ever. I congratulated him and moved on. John finished up with the computer thing and mom took John, Samantha, James, Lucas, and I to dinner at Don Pablo’s. Well, the Roper family took their car while mom and I took Matilda to the restaurant. From there they went their way and we went home. Sunday morning I met John at the shop to get the 510 ready to sell. Actually I got there a little before him and tried out the Birkini top on the Seven. It required the removal of the windshield wiper and that process knocked the rearview mirror off the glass. Surprisingly, that really didn’t annoy me. I'm not sure why. The straps at the back required the unsnapping of the tonneau cover but I thought I might be able to fight through that. It looked really good on the car. I really liked it. Unfortunately I don’t bend in the right places to allow me ingress or egress with the top on. I tried a few times, halfheartedly, and then gave up and took it off. As I was rolling it up John arrived. We hooked up the trailer and I pulled it around front. We decided to swap wheels while it was still on the trailer and I think it was much easier than doing it on the ground. I may be high, but it did seem easier. John, care to refute that claim? When we picked the car up, the guy told us about some wheel adapters he had to use but we weren’t sure what he meant, until we took off a lug nut. I'm having trouble describing the things. They were these things that thread onto the stock studs adapting them up from 12 mm or so to 13/16” and offsetting the PCD inward some amount. It was simultaneously one of the kookiest, scariest, and coolest ideas I have ever seen. I plan to use those wheels on Marty so I'm going to have to get over my trepidation about them. When the guy showed up, I stayed out of the way and started in on George again. I removed the clutch master and took it to the vice along with the new master. I knew the pushrod wouldn’t work so I swapped them out. Back at the car I discovered that the pushrod I installed won’t work either. I swapped them back and discovered I was also right the first time. I need a pushrod somewhere in between the two in length. Before I could get too far into that though, they were through and John asked if he would be abandoning me if he left. I wanted to try and meet the Seven folks at a British Car show at some British Stuff Store in Grapevine anyway so we packed up, closed up, and left. I went home and showered then called Tony to see how the show was going. It was scheduled to end at 1500 h. I was calling at 1445 h. I decided to forego the British Car show. I lazed in front of the TV for the rest of the afternoon and evening then went to bed. I woke up about 0230 h and realized I had probably left the fluorescent light on in the floorboard of George. I'll need to head down and check on that tonight. Well, I think I'm just about done with the report on the weekend. Perhaps I'll have more to say tomorrow but don’t count on it. Oh, I'll still say it, but don’t count on it being very meaningful.