3/9/09

Well, I just heard back from the guy with the Dessert Eagle. He’s set on $1,200.00, which I could do, but I'm beginning to have second thoughts. I know I don’t need a Dessert Eagle. I really want a Dessert Eagle though. I should use the money… oh by the way, Kevin did cut me a cheque Friday and picked up the truck Saturday. Good riddance. Anyhoo, I should use that money to pay down my credit card again. I also need to poop or get out of the Ganges about Roku-Hyaku’s engine. I looked up a bunch of bikes and bike motors on Craig’s List and sent some to John for his perusal. If I'm going to “fritter away” that money, that is where it ought to go. Let’s see what John thinks of and/or finds for me on the Craig’s List bikes. Ok, speaking of Roku-Hyaku, here’s what we accomplished Saturday. First off, I picked Kevin up and brought him to the shop. John was just ahead of us at the Dam Road light on Old Granbury. After we stood around talking way too long, John and I went to Lowe’s for a cut off wheel thingy, a ½” drill bit, and some stainless steel hardware. The first two were for Roku-Hyaku and the last was for John’s spoiler. Back at the shop, John got to cutting on the stuck lug nut while I began to take off the driver’s side rear brake drum. After much head scratching, where I apparently got testy with John about stuff, we got the drums off. We moved on to the fronts and I took off the passenger side brake caliper and the big nut on the spindle. John did the other side. His hub and rotor came right off but mine was well and truly stuck. We hosed it down with WD-40 and left the puller on it under tension. Oh, Roger had called earlier to see if I wanted to go to lunch later. I mentioned it to John and he thought I'd made plans. He subsequently made plans of his own so when I asked the usual, “So, what’s for lunch?” he was put on the receiving end of a guilt trip. Tee hee. I really didn’t mind and was not upset, but it sure is fun giving him grief. I tried to call Roger back but got voice mail. We’d sort of set aside Sunday lunch anyway so I was at a loose end. For some reason I didn’t eat but went Wal-Mart and bought 200 rounds of 9mm and 100 rounds of .45 ACP ammo. Then I went to the gun range formerly known as Cutie Patootie’s. I say “formerly known as” because she doesn’t work there anymore. I'd brought all but the Space Gun with me and had a good shoost. From there I went back to the shop to clean the guns. Once I was done with that, I had another look at the passenger side hub on Roku-Hyaku. I finally got it off of the car and headed to the drill press. I drilled out the stud holes in the drums and test fit a Nissan stud. I'm a little concerned that while the studs will go in the right way and stop at the splines, when installed backwards they don’t engage. It is like the holes are somehow tapered. I think we’re going to have to tack weld them to prevent spinning. We’ll see. I drilled one front hub but discovered that when someone had replaced the studs in the other, they had already drilled out the holes. Unfortunately, they’d drilled them bigger than ½”. The Nissan studs fell right into the holes. I told John about it and we decided that a “new” hub would be our wisest course of action. I didn’t tell him about the tapered holes, or whatever is going on, until just now. We’ll have a look at them on Wednesday I'm sure. I finally went home and wasted the evening. Sunday I had “eat all you can” barbecue with Roger then went to the gun show. I didn’t see anything that really caught my eye so I didn’t buy anything. I went home and wasted the evening. John wants to borrow Fifi so I drove it to work today. The plan is for me to swing by after work and he’ll take me home. I think I'm supposed to give him a cheque for the “new” hub as well. And on that note, I think I'll call it a rant. I'll let y'all know what I decided about the Dessert Eagle tomorrow. I really shouldn’t buy it, but I sure do want it. We’ll see.