7/28/08

We had another look under John’s 1200 Saturday. I think we decided to scrap the independent rear suspension. It looks like we’ll be installing the S110 200SX axle currently residing under the ass end of the Chickenhawk. I also recalculated the dish volume in Shi-Chi’s pistons. Well, to be pedantic about it, I finally calculated the volume of the dish since the first calculation was the surface area, but I digress. It was 0.33 cubic inches or 5.4 cc by the way. I also measured a crushed head gasket and found a new one as well. I didn’t measure the new gasket’s thickness because it was still sealed up in cellophane. I recorded the dish volume and dropped the two gaskets in the floor of Fifi to take to Automotive Machine. When John and I were through looking at stuff, we took off for AM and then lunch. We wound up at Mexican Inn and chatted about stuff there for a while. From there I went home to take a nap. I went ahead and parked Fifi on the back patio so I took Darth Versa when I headed back out to the shop again. With mom out of town and my cat missing, I didn’t really feel like hanging about. I swung through the Boys of Pep and bought four single filament amber lamps and two dual filament clear lamps for George, and some Scotch Brite roll lock discs for the angle grinder so I could clean the head gasket deck of Shi-Chi’s engine block. I looked for a straightedge so I could measure the warpage, if there were any, of the block as well. The BoP didn’t have one. I headed for the shop and stopped at Lowe’s where I did buy a straightedge. Well, it was a metal yardstick, but it had a straight edge. At the shop I fired up the air compressor and ran a hose to the car. I swapped out the worn out roll lock disc on the grinder for a new one and went to install the lights in George. I'm pissed. The sockets have slots for the little retention nipples on the side of the bulb at 180° from one another. The bulbs have the nipples at about 120° to 135° from one another! I swore but didn’t break anything. I set it all aside and went back in to work on Shi-Chi instead. When the compressor had charged up, I cleaned off the head gasket residue and swapped to a polishing roll lock disc. Once I had the surface good and clean I took the straightedge and tried to measure the warpage. The straightedge was too long. I took it to the chop saw and cut it in half, mostly. I cleaned up the cut end on the grinder and went back to Shi-Chi. The good news: I couldn’t even get a 0.002 feeler gauge under the straightedge anywhere along the surface! Finally, something went my way this week. I poured some Mobil 1 synthetic ATF on a paper towel and wiped the surface in an attempt to prevent rust and moved on to the radiator. I removed the small radiator and had a look around at stuff. Nothing looked amiss so I decided I'd done enough for the day. I went home. I took the long way and went for a hoon on FM5. When I got home and parked I had a look towards the field in hopes of seeing my cat come straggling out of the weeds. No luck. I did notice the cover for the sprinkler system was still off though. I walked down that way and replaced the water meter cover then went to have a look at the sprinkler system again. On a lark, I turned the water back on. I had a look up the yard at the zone which stuck Friday morning. It wasn’t on. I decided to run it to see what it would do. I went to the garage and fired up the system. Zone one came on so I sat and watched it for a while. About the time I decided it was stuck I went back to the garage to find it still had three minutes to go. I waited. Zone one shut off and zone two started. Oh, zone one was not the one that stuck on Friday. Neither was zone two. I decided to go in and take a shower since I had twenty minutes before zone three kicked in. I came back out to see zone two was done and zone three had started. Zone three was not the stuck one either. I checked the time remaining and calculated at what time it would change to zone four. I was going to go in and watch TV until that time but my neighbor saw me so we stood and chatted for a while. I kept an eye on the clock and when the time came I was watching for the changeover. Sure enough, three shut off and four began. Zone four was the one which stuck on Friday. We continued to talk and twenty minutes later I watched as zone five started up. Zone four… shut down! Huzzah! We talked a bit more and I finally took my leave to go grab some food. Another neighbor had given me some Sweet and Sour Pork with rice the night before so I heated that up and ate most of it. I watched TV for a while listening for the sprinklers to shut down. I could hear zone seven out the back door and went out to check a while later. From the porch it didn’t appear as though anything was running but as I walked down to the driveway I saw that zone eight was running. I think I checked on zone nine but don’t remember. I finally went to bed eventually. Sunday morning I watched some TV and something got me hungry for Chicken Excess chicken strips. Around noon or 1300 h I headed out for lunch. I ate and went for another hoon. Fuck the environment, fuck future generations, fuck all of that, I'm going to burn up as much dinosaur juice as I can, any time I can. I finally went back home and wasted the rest of the weekend sitting on my ass. And here we are, back at work doing pretty much the same thing. I guess that’s about all I have for y'all. Yep, that's it.