6/8/09

Well, it is my brother’s birthday. Notice I didn’t call him my sibling this time. I'm still annoyed by what he said all those years ago, and I do lean more towards my sister's opinion of his attitude towards the family, but… well, now I don’t know where I was going with that. Anyhoo, so Saturday morning I took off to the Boys of Pep to pick up brake pads. Wait, I think I need to go back a bit. Friday afternoon I called the BoP on McCart to see if they had any brake pads for a 1977 Datsun B-210. They did not. They did show them in the warehouse store in Irving though. I had him put in a transfer order with the assurance they would be there by morning. I got a call Friday evening around 1830 h saying they were in the McCart store. Ok, so now it is Saturday morning and I'm headed to the BoP. Just as I'm taking the McCart exit, I decide to feel for my wallet to make sure I'm going to be able to pay for these. It is not there. I turn around and head back home. Now, this wouldn’t have worried me so much if I hadn’t been carrying at the time. Fortunately the Texas Castle Law allows anyone, CHL holder or not, to have a handgun in their car as an extension of their home or “castle.” I did take it easy on the run home though, just in case. I got my wallet and headed back out. At the BoP I picked up the pads, some spark plugs, a breather filter, and… um, probably something else. I don’t remember. I was a bit self conscious about the hog-leg in my waistband but knew I'd be ready if the fit hit the shan. Fortunately, there was no shan fitting. I got to the shop and was messing with something in Ms. Clio when John pulled up. He asked something I didn’t quite catch but assumed was along the lines of, “How long have you been just sitting there?” I don’t think I answered. Dewey pulled in behind John and got to work cannibalizing something from the 510 wagon, a window regulator I think. He left when he’d rounded up the parts he needed and we got to work on Bunny Wigglesworth. Ok, I know I just renamed that car, but I'm thinking of re-renaming it, again. That was redundant over and over again, wasn’t it? Anyhoo, I'm thinking that Bunny Wigglesworth is a bit of a mouthful so I'm thinking of shortening the name to “Lil’ Wiggly.” It ties in the plates better than Bunny Wigglesworth, don’t you think? Well, fine! Be that way! I'm still going to do it. Ok, so the first thing we did was take a look at what it was going to take to put Shichi back on the road. Yeah, installing the scuttle, shift-lever boot, and pedal cover looked like just too much of a hassle. We blew that car off and decided to do Lil' Wiggly’s brakes in the driveway. John grabbed the jack and stands while I pulled the car up. He put the nose in the air and got the wheels off. While he was replacing the pads, I installed the breather filter. We then had a look at the zorst. It was decided that we’d use some 2” pipe to make a 120°bend, come forward, and go out the side with another 30° bend and a chrome tip. We aligned everything, pshyeah right, and took off the zorst. I tacked it up and we test fit it. It looked good, again, pshyeah right. I zooked it all together and we installed it. As the front bolts were tightened on the manifold, the tip got lower and lower. It wound up hanging about four inches below the body. I knew it was temporary and didn’t worry about it. How temporary, I had no idea. As I was taking a test hoon, John called our muffler guy to see if he could fit us in to have a hanger installed. He wasn’t busy and said he could. We cleaned up and headed out. We stopped at John’s house to drop off his car and then rolled on to the muffler shop. The noise was bearable, and had the system fit up the way it originally was planned I might have lived with it for a while, but the biggest improvement was the lack of headache I had when I drove the car. No more fumes! We got to the place and he was overrun with customers. He ‘splained that when John called they were just sitting around doing nothing. When it was our turn on the lift, John said we wanted a hanger installed. I stopped him and said, “No, we want all that cut off and this Supertrapp installed.” John said that all the work at DLR was a waste of time but I pointed out that it kept me from dying while driving the car over to the muffler shop. I also pointed out that it was a temporary fix from the beginning. We stood under the car and decided on the route we’d like the pipe to take and how far out the muffler should stick. I guessed a little wrong and it pokes out just a tad too far. It isn't so bad that it bothers me so I'm going to live with it. With the zorst done and paid for, I take John home via Logan’s Roadhouse where we each have a ribeye. Oh now Tiny and Flaccid has just gone too far. Those dumb fuck shit for brains vagitarian douche bag idiot programmers didn’t put “ribeye” in the dictionary of Vista’s word processor. Of all the fucking stupid assed things… I'm speechless. Ok, so I drop John off and head home. I do not take Lil' Wiggly back to the shop because I know I'm doing the Old School Japanese Car thing Sunday evening. Ms. Clio will just have to sit at the shop and wait for Sunday night. I go home and waste the evening. I'll tell y'all about Sunday’s events tomorrow. Have a day.