5/5/08

Usually I wish everyone a happy Cinco de Mayo and then ‘splain that it isn't Mexico's Fourth of July and so on and so on. Not this year. Nope, I'm going to just let it slide on by. So, this last weekend was unproductive as far as George goes, but we shouldn’t be surprised by that now should we? Saturday morning I went to Dick Brink’s to meet with some fellow Seven owners to help with the planning of the annual Southwest Sevens Festival. Being the slacker that I am, I only volunteered to help with one thing, the photographer. Of course I had John in mind. He and I still need to hash out some details about what he’d be shoosting, the big group photo is the most important thing though. We, the Seven owners and I, decided to check out a possible venue for the event. Hopefully the reconnaissance weekend they choose won’t coincide with the weekend mom wants me to go to Big Spring with her. We’ll see. After the meeting, Bernie and I were going to follow Carlos to his house to see and hear his Seven fire up. He’s been working on it for some time now. These guys who take several years to build their cars really make mine look rather slap-dash in its construction. Of course, I've been driving mine so poo to you with bells on! Anyhoo, as we were about to leave, Carlos asked me what I was driving so we wouldn’t get separated in traffic. I nonchalantly said, “I’m in the black Renault Clio,” and began walking to the car. I heard both his and Bernie’s reactions without looking back. “What? Where did you get a Renault?” I just shrugged and kept walking. When we got to Carlos’ house, they both converged on the car. Bernie asked, “Where, and more importantly WHY, did you buy a Renault?” I shrugged again and said, “Well, if you will ignore the ‘Nissan hamburger’ on the steering wheel and the ‘Versa’ floor mats…” They got it then. Of course then they wanted to know where I got Renault badges for it. I told them that the Versa is sold as a Renault Clio in Europe so I just went on e-Bay and bought them. We then went in and had a look at the Seven. It was very nice. He fired up the engine and it sounded good. He showed us some of the things he had done special and they looked neat. Pretty soon Bernie and I headed out. I called John to ask if he was home and working on his 510. He was home but was taking a break from the car. I said I'd stop at Krystal’s for some sliders and then head his way. I did and then did. We discussed the headlight film for Darth Versa and the photography thing for the Festival and then I went home. I decided that I wanted to install a set of air horns on Darth Versa so I stopped at the Boys of Pep. Since I was at the BoP near my house, I swung by there rather than going straight to the shop. I'm not sure what happened after that though. I don’t think I made it to the shop. Sunday morning I did finally go to the shop and had a look at the installation of the horns. I removed the stock horns and painted the A/C condenser black. Well, I painted it dark silver-grey hammered-metal since that was the only black-ish paint I had. I installed the compressor and hooked it up to the existing horn wires. I may go back and install the auxiliary relay just to be Über safe. We’ll see. I made two little brackets to attach the air horns in the spots vacated by the stock horns and ran the hoses. They were too short. They made it but they are bent and slightly crimped. I may have to go in and replace them. I'll probably do that when I install the relay. I painted the red horns with the hammered metal spray paint since they were visible through the grille. With the horns installed, I had a look at the little Renault badge I bought for the grille. I hammered out a bend in it and stuck the double sticky tape to the back. I stuck it to the grille mesh and stuck on another piece of double sticky from the opposite side. My thinking was the double sticky stuff would bond to itself in the large gaps making full 360° contact around the wires of the mesh. It worked really well I discovered when I put the grille on and realized the emblem was at an ugly angle. I cut through the tape and removed the badge. I reapplied new tape and lightly stuck it down with the grille on the car. When I was happy with the placement I reapplied the backing tape from the other side and stuck it to itself really well. I reinstalled the grille and stepped back to have a look. It looks good. So now all I need to do is get rid of the “Nissan hamburger” in the middle of the air bag and install the headlight tint. Then the transformation will be complete. Since I didn’t want to get dirty before driving Darth Versa home, I forewent working on George. I decided to grab some lunch. I went to Chicken Excess and then home. I took a quick nap while “watching” a show about Hitler and the Occult. When I woke up I hopped in Mr. Wiggly and headed back to the shop. Oh, earlier I had run down to the MSR to see if Ray was there so I could pick up those 32/36 carburetors he has. I was thinking that I might install one on Mr. Wiggly. He wasn’t there which really didn’t surprise me. So I drive Mr. Wiggly to the shop thinking I'd wash off the shoe polish and then go to the BoP to price floor shifters. I got to the shop and started scrubbing the windshield with steel wool. I finally got all the shoe polish off but then didn’t really feel like going shopping. I had a look at the column shifter instead. While looking, I noticed that the nut holding the second/third shift lever to the transmission was loose. “Ah,” thought I, “that is why the thing shifts so wonkily.” I crawled under the van with a wrench and tightened it up. I gave the reverse/first nut a hunker as well while I was down there. When I got back up and tried the lever, it felt much better. I decided against a floor shifter for the time being. I went inside for an experiment. I took a junk 32/36 top and chucked it up in the vice. With the Saws-All, I cut away the choke tower to see if it could be done. “Why?” you ask? Well, at some point I listened to John and shaved the choke tower off of the carburetor currently on Mr. Wiggly and trimmed the air horns to fit even though they were designed to be installed in the unmolested carburetor. It did give more air filter room but it meant that any time I want to use that air horn it will have to be on a shaved 32/36. The top of Mr. Wiggly’s carburetor is the part which has been race-modified. I'll need to shave a stock carburetor to be able to continue to use the horns. Anyhoo, the Saws-All worked but I'm not sure about a certain circuit it does away with. I need to look into the inner workings of a 32/36 to be sure I'm not terminally damaging a vital system. I took the top off of the 32/36 on the L-20b next to Timmy and had a look but it told me nothing. With that project stalled, I decided to go on home for the weekend. Mom and I went to Don Pablo’s for dinner and then I watched “Dexter” on CBS. Thanks CBS and Showtime. I'm 42 years old and you have successfully given me nightmares with that totally fucked up show. On that note, I think I'll call it a rant. Toodles.