9/15/08

Well, I should be much happier than I am. I'm not sure why I'm still in an automotive funk because Shi-Chi lives again. I did about sixty miles in her yesterday so Juan would think I'd be shitting rainbows and puking kittens right about now. “Shitting rainbows and puking kittens?” What the hell does that even mean? I don’t know. Anyhoo, here’s how the weekend went down. John came to the house Saturday morning and we rolled to the shop together in Fifi. We stopped at McDonald’s and got a couple breakfast burritos each. I'm sure I've said this before but “McDonald’s Breakfast Burritos” are three words which have absolutely no right whatsoever to be used together yet at the same time are some of the most delicious items ever to pass down my neck-hole! I like McDonald’s. There, I said it. Have a bash at me for it, but for sheer “know what to expect when you order it no matter where in the world you are” fast food, McDonald’s is good. But I digress. We eat out breakfast burritos in the parking lot of the shop and go inside when done. Oh, hurricane Ike’s leading edge is just beginning to piddle down rain at this point. We take my new radiator inside and begin installation. It all goes well until some dumbass douche bag strips out the threads on one of the upper mounting points of the radiator. I'm not going to say who it was but it WAS NOT John. So, we decide to make a stud out of a bolt and JB Weld it in place. This we do. With all the hoses and such in place we refill the thing one… more… time. Guess what, it leaked. The unused temp sender was weeping so John grabbed another from a different head. He swapped them out and lost virtually no coolant. Yeah, he’s that good. With that fixed we had a look for more leaks. Guess what, the thermostat housing was leaking, again. John asked if I'd hunkered down on it and I said I had, twice. We decided to replace the greased gasket with one coated in silicone. Out in the rain, John removed the housing and we saw that the gasket was shredded. He siliconed another gasket and popped the thermostat in place. As he was locating the housing it looked like the thermostat slipped. I said, “I wonder if the thermostat slipped last time and that was what made it leak.” I requested that he remove the housing again and put a dab of silicone on the thermostat to hold it in place. This he did and we got the thing back together. We filled it with coolant yet again and looked for leaks. Guess what, this time we couldn’t find any. Huzzah! We had a final whip round to see if we could see anything amiss, or even a mister, and decided the time had come. I turned the key and cranked the engine. Nothing. I asked if anyone could hear the fuel pump and John said, “Isn't there a switch for that?” I flipped the fuel pump switch on and heard it go. I cranked again and it fired right up. Huzzah, again. I messed with the mixture knobs a bit but think it is still too lean. Not too lean to go for a test drive though! I took off down to the lake in the rain and couldn’t see shite! I also couldn’t test how well the new head performed because as soon as I hit the gas the tires would light up and the car wanted to spin. It was cool. I got back and parked. The temperature never got above 150° either. We cleaned up and went to lunch. John drove the Pickle and it sounds sweet! After lunch I went back to the shop, mainly to return Marty Smith home, and had a look at the car again. I think. I believe I removed the hose clamp from the zorst to allow it to spring back up where it wanted to be. See, I had to bend the muffler down and clamp it in place because I missed ever so slightly when welding up the new intermediate pipe. I didn’t really want it to crack overnight so I released it. I'm sure I did some other stuff but I don’t remember what. Ike had passed by Sunday morning so the rain was gone. I went to the shop intending to go for a hoon. I noticed a bit of coolant under the car and felt around for the source. It was my lower hose. I installed another hose clamp, in addition to the one already on there, and it seemed to do the trick. I tried to install the nose cone but guess what, it wouldn’t fit. The radiator cap sat too high. I decided to force the issue and got the nose on pressed against the cap. I knew the nose was going to crack there and yet when it did I was annoyed. I installed the bonnet and took off to the gas station. After filling the tank I had a look around for coolant leaks. I saw none. I took off towards FM5, duh. On the freeway the temperature hovered right around 150-155° so I was happy. I got a whiff of coolant and began to worry. The temperature stayed around 150° though so I kept on. Ten or fifteen miles later, I got another whiff of coolant but the temp was still fine. This went on for the next twenty miles while I drove FM5 and headed back to the shop. On 1187 the temp began to “climb.” It got to 160° then 170° then 180° then it held at around 200° until I was within sight of the shop. It got all the way up to 210° by the time I made it back and got it parked. I took the nose off again and saw the problem immediately. The nose had pushed down on the radiator cap and bent one of the locating tangs allowing the other side of the cap to come loose and sproing up. This allowed the thing to puke half of the coolant. I refilled and started the engine again. The temp dropped right back to 150° immediately. I shut it off and started looking at options. I debated moving the radiator but the location is pretty much dictated by the hoses. That was out. I considered bashing a corner of the cap so it would fit but thought better of that. I thought about cutting a hole in the nose so that the cap would stick out but decided some sort of “blister” would be in order. I began looking for something suitable to use as said “blister.” I cut the bottom off of a Sprite can and had a look at it. It might work. I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures and grabbed the hole saw. Before I could talk myself out of it, because it needed to be done, I drilled the hole. I test fit the nose and it plopped right into place. It fit better than it did with the old radiator. I guess that cap was hitting as well now that I think about it. Oops. Unfortunately, the hole I cut was too small. I grabbed a bigger hole saw and cut the nose again. The Sprite can bottom was now too small. I decided to go ahead and fabricate my own “blister.” I took a piece of Rusty’s roof and made a square which would cover the area plus some. I marked it for where the “blister” needed to be and went to the vice. I began hammering the metal over the top of an argon bottle. I wasn’t having the success I had hoped for so I had a look around. I found an exhaust donut mounting triangle hoozis with the exact size hole I needed and began using it as a die. I beat the back side of the panel into the zorst thingy until I had a nice edge and a dome started. I then went back to the argon bottle top and finished it out. I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. John might think it looks like total crap but we’ll see. I set the blistr on the radiator cap and test fit the nose again. I think it is going to work well. I scuffed up the underside of the nose and the face of the “blister” with the Scotch Brite thingy I used for cleaning up the head mating surface on the block and JB Welded it into place. I left it with an alternator sitting on it to hold it down to German specifications, Guttentite! John and I discussed the fact that the nose needs to be repainted now and I think we’re going to redo all the fiberglass bits in satin black. Looking back at old pictures, it will be like it was when I first got it running in 2005. Well, I think I've gassed on enough for one day. Who knows, I might have something to say tomorrow. Toodles.