2/24/09

Ok, yesterday I mentioned doing something while John and Aaron did their wheel deal, right? Well, I remembered what it was now. While they were doing that, I crawled under Mr. Wiggly and pulled the broken nut off of the shift lever on the transmission. I'm still not sure what was holding it on. I took the half-a-nut inside and began the Quixotic search for a fine-thread standard nut in that size in and amongst our collection of mostly metric hardware. I found a bolt in the right thread pitch, which always helps, and then started trying nuts. Lo and behold, there it was, and a Nylock nut at that! I took it back out to the van and installed it. Ok, so then all of the rest of the stuff happened Saturday. Sunday my brother was coming over with his granddaughter so mom, Bruce (my brother), and I could discuss the kitchen tile project coming up for mom’s eightieth birthday. Don’t ask. I get ready to hang out with them and finish watching “The Invaders,” a sixties sci-fi show that I just barely remember but bought the DVDs anyway. He called around 1100 h to say that he’d be picking up Peggy (my great-niece Margaret) at 1300 h and should be at the house around 1400 h. He said to not wait lunch on them. When mom got home from church we went to the Black Eyed Pea for chicken fried steak. Bruce and Peggy showed up and I watched as she tormented my cat. Eventually, we discussed the floor tiles and called our other brother Ted. Now, it was Ted’s idea for us to do the floor tiles in the first place so we really wanted his input. It looks like we might be doing this on Friday and Saturday, March 20^th and 21^st. Eventually, Peggy got tired and wanted to go home, she's like three or something by the way, so they left. I don’t think I did anything worth reporting after that. Ok, I know most of that wasn’t worth reporting, I realize it now. I honestly thought there would be more to that story. Sue me. Ok, here’s something, at some point I got a call from Kevin asking about the Mr. Wiggly-for-GMC-for-cash deal. I told him that the dude was still thinking about it. John texted me later that said dude was ready to deal. I called dude and asked when he wanted to do it. He wanted to watch the Oscars so Sunday evening was out. I suggested Wednesday evening since John and I would be doing something anyway. He agreed. Kevin called back a little later to suggest a partial trade for the GMC truck. You may remember a while back that his daughter’s boyfriend bought “Barbara,” a 1978 Datsun B-210, from me. Well, said boyfriend is one of the folks interested in this GMC truck. Kevin suggested trading Barbara in to me on the deal. He and I had settled on a price for the truck earlier so I asked how much they had paid me for Barbara. I counter suggested Barbara plus a sum for the GMC. It made, on paper, them paying about $100.00 more for the GMC than we’d originally agreed but he said he’d go for that. So, with any luck I'll have Barbara back in my stable at the expense of Mr. Wiggly. Of course I'll have a pile of money to soothe the loss of the van. I can live with that. I asked John, in a text message after making that deal with Kevin, “What are we going to put in George if we swap all that turbo stuff to Barbara?” I don’t think he's totally on board with that plan. Oops, I gotta go! I may be back later. I'm back. Ok, so when I said John wasn’t on board with the plan, there was more to that. See, he thought I meant pull Barbara’s engine and put all of George’s stuff in there. As we discussed it some more, he suggested the exact plan I had in mind. I was thinking we’d take the carburetor and zorst off of Barbara and replace them with the intake and exhaust from George. I don’t think my turbo bits were the problem in George. I do think that over boring the cylinders was the problem. I think my setup on a decent A-14 would be a good power plant. Of course if Barbara has a four speed then all bets are off. We’d want a fiver in there. I don’t know, we’ll see. Actually, what we’ll probably wind up with, assuming we get Barbara back, is a single DCOE and that NISMO header on the engine in Barbara and we’ll build another A-14 for George. Then again, the DCOE and header on an A-12 in George with the turbo bits in Barbara could be a lot of fun as well. Know what, I think I'm going to push for that after all. Ok, I have to go again but I think I may have ranted enough for the day. I might talk to y'all tomorrow, it just depends on the funeral and stuff. Toodles.