6/4/09

Woo hoo! We actually made it to the shop last night. On top of that, we did a little work too. We didn’t touch Shichi, but we got some stuff done on Barbara. Oh, by the way, Barbara is being renamed Bunny Wigglesworth. I'll tell the reason why in a moment. Apparently I've mentioned the name “Bunny Wigglesworth” before because “Wigglesworth” is in my custom dictionary, but I digress. So here’s what happened yesterday. First off, I knew I had to go to the airport to pick up mom at 1600 h and was afeared it might screw up shop night. We were going to burn that bridge when we came to it. When I got home from work on Tuesday and checked my e-mail, I was notified that I had a dentist appointment Wednesday morning that I'd forgotten about. I immediately called my coverage guy and asked if he could, well, cover for me. He could so we agreed to meet at my desk at 0800 h. I paid him and showed him what all was going on that day then left for the dentist. On my way there, my sister called to say that she would pick mom up at the airport and that I was off the hook for that errand. I laughed and told her I'd forgotten the dentist appointment and had gone ahead and taken the whole day off. We left it that she would pick up mom though. I went to the dentist and had my teeth cleaned and polished. After that I went to see Kevin and pick up the title to Bunny Wigglesworth, which was still being called Barbara at the time. From there I was headed to the courthouse on Granbury Road. Pat texted me to ask if we were going to the shop that evening so I called him. We hung out for a bit then went to lunch at Sticker Shock Mexican Food, AKA Caro’s on Bluebonnet Circle. [ Sonsabitches... - SM ] From SSMF we went to look for ammo at Wal-Mart, Academy, and um, I guess that was all. When we struck out at both locations I said I wanted to go to the courthouse to transfer the title. This we did. On a lark, I asked if I could use the “WIGGLY” plates I'd saved when I sold Mr. Wiggly. I was told I could. Since they were still good for another five months, it only cost me like $60.00 to transfer the stuff. With the decision to run the “WIGGLY” plates, I changed the name of the car. We dropped the paperwork off at the shop and then I took Pat home. John e-mailed me to say the afternoon was looking good on his end and that shop night was “on” as far as it concerned him. I told him that I'd taken the whole day off and that I was off the hook for picking up mom. I said I'd go home and change then meet him at the shop after he got off work. I had multiple reasons for wanting to meet him rather than pick him up. One, of course, was I wasn’t on that side of town this time. The second was I'd bought a “SSS” shift knob for his Bluebird and thought he ought to install it right away. Thirdly, I needed the other “WIGGLY” plate from under his back seat. I went home and stripped out of the hot-assed clothes I'd worn in to the office and the dentist. I plopped myself down on the bed for a quick nap. This was probably 1400 h or so. 1600 h I was awakened by a phone call on the work Dingleberry. I dressed and started to head out to the shop after dealing with that call. Just as I was about to get in the car, I was called back to fly a bombing run over the Dresden Porcelain Works. I swear, this one was such a struggle, I thought I heard a little cowboy riding it as it fell, waving his hat and yelling, “Yee haw!” But y'all probably didn’t want to know that. I stopped for gas at the Mobil station on Granbury Road and Dirks and saw John waiting at the light as I filled up. I saw Pat drive by in the Saab as I waited at the light and finally got to the shop. John was looking at some stuff in Marty Smith’s garage so I hung out with them for a bit. Eventually we went back to DLR. John and Pat installed the rear plate on Bunny Wigglesworth while I scraped and replaced the windshield sticker. Pat was working on the battery and A/C compressor on the Saab by the way. John and I had a look at front-plate placement and came up with an idea. Ok, it was all John, I just approved it. He installed the plate on the passenger side, under the headlight, filling in the gap where the bumper used to be. It left a gap on the left which looks kind of like a brake-cooling duct and covers the unsightly bumper bracket. We’re thinking of putting another plate of some ilk on the driver’s side to “match.” I decided it was time to swap out the B-210 smog carburetor for the 1200 non-smog carburetor. I got to work taking the smog carburetor off. With that off, we swapped the bigger jets from the smog carburetor to the non-smog carburetor. It was during this process we discovered that the jets were in backwards in the smog carburetor. The primary main-jet was in the secondary and vice versa. We put them in the right way round in the non-smog carburetor. We, ok John, installed the carburetor and I hooked up the throttle cable. He hooked up the fuel line and distributor vacuum line and we gave her a crank. Ok, we gave her a bunch of cranks because the float bowl was totally dry, but she did fire up pretty quickly. It sounded good too. Once warmed up it idled great and even took throttle inputs well. We decided to try the cone filter from one of those Weber ICT carburetors and found that it would clear the hood. We made a foam thingy and attached it to the hood to hold the filter on the carburetor and keep it from banging as well. I took the car down to the lake for a test run. It was easily a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.001% improvement. The car now has way more engine than brakes, which really isn't saying much since we know the brakes are totally shot. It needs a zorst though. At idle the fumes aren’t too bad, but once you get going the car fills up. I had a headache from just that little jaunt down to the lake. I parked and locked up then we went to eat at Razoo’s. From there we all went, I assume, home. I went on line to look for a “Datsun” license plate for the driver's side of Bunny Wigglesworth and found a bitchin’ “Prismatic” disco-looking thing. I bought five of them. Eventually I went to bed and now I'm back at work. I think once Bunny Wigglesworth has brakes and a zorst, not to mention is lowered and on decent wheels and tires, I'll move her to the back patio at home and have another backup car for hooning. Well, that’s about all I have for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell y'all about “carrying” for the first time. And maybe I won’t.