8/20/08

As promised yesterday, I've been rethinking the dash in George. Yes I know I just installed it, but I'm having doubts. First off, that alternator I installed has a really big pulley on it. I'm concerned that it might not spin fast enough to charge the battery at low engine speeds. Sure, on the highway it ought to be fine, but how about around town? I just don’t know. What I need is either a volt meter or ammeter. Also, the gas tank in that car has been patched at least once and may be sitting lower than the fuel pump. I'm thinking of installing that plastic fuel cell from the Chickenhawk in the trunk to get a bit of a gravity feed for said pump. What do those two things have to do with each other? Well, I'll tell you. I'm going to give the aftermarket fuel level gauge one chance to work. If it doesn’t, I'm going to rip the tank out, install the fuel cell, take out the fuel level gauge, and replace it with a volt meter. Oh, I happen to have three 2 1/16” volt meters on hand already. Remember, I bought three oil pressure, water temperature, and volt meters for the three Versæ a few months back? We never installed any of them so they are still sitting there. If I do make that change, I'll probably also rewire the gauge illumination to a rheostat in the empty hole where the choke handle would be, run the ignition hot leads for the gauges to a good hot source, and probably ditch the turn signal and high beam indicators. Then again, I might leave the indicators alone and if they work, they work, if they don’t, they don’t. Of course, if the fuel gauge works I probably won’t do any of that. I don’t know, we’ll see. Moving on, John has the new tires for Darth Versa in his garage. We were going to install them on Monday after work but then I remembered I was scheduled to babysit a group from TCU who were coming to see our CIO that evening. Yeah, I was stuck here until 2030 h Monday night. I did make it home in plenty of time to watch “The Middleman” though so it wasn’t a total loss. Dub-dub and Lacey are so smokin’ hot on that show! Anyhoo, we rescheduled the tire swap for Tuesday. Oh, remember how I once said, ok I always say, “It never rains in Texas in August”? Well, it has been raining all week. The tires on Darth Versa are wicked scary in the rain. I've been driving Fifi instead. So, I texted John to make the arrangements for the Tuesday tire swap. My thinking was I'd swing by and pick him, and the tires, up in Fifi. We’d roll to my house where I'd change clothes and we’d then take Fifi and Darth Versa to the shop where we’d swap tires, then I'd take him and the old tires back to his house later. Yes, it involved a few superfluous trips with two vehicles but I'm not putting tires inside Darth Versa. Well, it was a moo point anyway. (Yes Tiny and Flaccid, I know the word is “moot.” Sorry, grammar checker issues.) Anyhoo, the point was moo because a) John doesn’t have the tires mounted yet and 2) wasn’t sure when he would be getting off work. I told him that as long as I have Fifi to drive, I can wait for the weekend to install tires on Darth Versa. So, to make a short story long, we’re waiting until Saturday to install the tires on Darth Versa. Oh, speaking of Versæ, there is a lawyer here who looks like a cross between the “Six Flags Old Dancing Dude” and Orville Redenbacher. “Do what? How does that relate to Versæ?” I hear you asking. Well, if you’d let me finish, he drives a black Versa. Yesterday, John saw a black Versa with a smashed left front fender and sent me a picture of it. Did he link to it or put it at the beginning of the rant? If it is at the beginning of the rant, relax. That wasn’t my car. Well anyhoo, Orville was in line for lunch with me yesterday so I showed him the picture and asked if he had smashed his car. It wasn’t his but we got to talking Versæ. Now, being as he’s like a billion and probably knew Moses in high school, I had him pegged for an auto-tragic or CVT gearbox. Nope, he’s a six-speed man! We talked for a bit and then our food came and we went our separate ways. Wow, that story bored me when I reread it just now. I can only imagine what y'all go through reading this schlock. Well, I think I'm going to call it a rant. “See you next Wednesday.” (Think they’ll get that? No, I doubt it very much. You’ll have to ‘splain it tomorrow. Ok, I will.)