8/31/09

Well, more progress was made on Lil' Wiggly. Saturday morning I met John at the shop armed with a new brake master cylinder and... no, wait. Saturday morning I met John at Mimi’s for breakfast then we went to Lowe’s for fiberglass cloth and resin. I did have the master cylinder with me however. We went to the shop and got to work. John began cleaning up the hatch floor area, that act alone improved my opinion of the area 100%, while I got started on the brakes. He had the area scrubbed, scraped, and painted with rust converter stuff while I fought the mounting studs and brake lines. While I was inside looking for a 12mm socket, wobble extension, and ratchet (we really need to clean that place by the way), he removed the old part. I made some crack about taking the tools away from me but didn't fight it too much. We tried to install the 240/260/280Z master cylinder but it wouldn't quite fit. Turns out there is a lip inside the aluminum adapter hoozis blocking the bigger master from pulling up. We looked at it and I made the executone decision to remove said lip. Fortunately we had the exact size hole saw and I made quick work of it. With the new master going in I suddenly realized, “Crap, we’re going to have to jack this thing up and bleed the brakes.” I said, “I suddenly realized, ‘Crap, we’re going to have to jack this thing up and bleed the brakes.’” John asked if I really just now thought of that and I had to honestly say that I did. I don't know why it came as a surprise, it just did. For some reason I had blocked the pain in the ass part of the job from myself before going in. We jacked the ass end up and I tried to get in with a 10mm wrench. No good. We needed to support the car and let the axle hang. We did this and I could get my arm up in there. It was a bit too scary being all twisted up into there while John rocked the whole car on the jack stands pumping the brakes, not to mention it wasn't doing anything, so I suggested we try the power bleeder I'd bought at the Bobby Archer Fire Sale. We didn't have enough fresh fluid so I took Fifi to the store while John hung out at the shop. I expected him to be elbows deep in fiberglass when I got back but he was working on fitting the adapter to the master cylinder. He told me it needed some modification but he wasn't going to be the one to do it. The adapter was just a hair too big to seal the reservoir so I trimmed off a “corner” of the circle. Now it fit. John tested the seal and proclaimed it good. We filled the reservoir with fluid and reattached the adapter. With the system pumped up to 10psi, I crawled under the rear and opened the bleeder. Nasty gray milky schmutz came out for a bit and then it turned nice and clear. I closed that bleeder and moved to the other side. I'm getting too old for this crap. It took longer to get up and back down on the other side than it took to bleed the rear brakes. The driver’s side did like the passenger side with slightly less nasty gray milky schmutz coming out before it turned clear. I closed that bleeder and we lowered the car. John moved the adapter thingy to the front reservoir of the master cylinder, which is to say the rear reservoir feeding the front brakes, and we jacked up the nose. We turned the wheel and found the caliper could be reached with the tire on from the top. Huzzah! I bled the passenger side and moved on to the driver’s. With nice clear fluid flowing out of all the bleeders, we declared the brakes done. Well, I still had reservations since I hadn’t driven it yet, but it was all we were going to accomplish that day, brake wise. We moved on to the fiberglass. John cut some strips and laid them on the floor then mixed up some resin and catalyst. He dabbed it on with the paint brush and we watched it soak into the cloth. Yeah, it was just almost as exciting as it sounds. He did a second layer on some ares which looked like they could use it and we watched that for a bit. When we were mostly satisfied that it was good, we had a look at the parts I wanted to take to Automotive Machine. We rounded up the two side draft manifolds, the hunk of aluminum, and one A-series manifold stub to use as a template, and loaded them into the front seat of Lil' Wiggly. We cleaned up and locked up then headed to AM. We ‘splained what we wanted to Steve, and told him that I'd already spoken to the machinist once about it, and left all the bits there. He was supposed to call me today with some idea as to what it is going to cost. I haven’t heard from him yet. We stood in the parking lot for a bit and talked about other stuff then went our separate ways. That evening I went to the Bass Hall for a Beethoven thing with mom. I'd gotten tickets from work and... well, it doesn't matter. She and I ate at Applebee’s and headed downtown. Yeah, we were an hour early. We hung out in the lobby and finally got to our seats. Supposedly, there was a big block of tickets for BNSF people but I only recognized four faces, and didn't know any of them well enough to talk to. The show was good, I love the Pastoral movement from his Sixth Symphony which they played right after intermission. You know it, the Pastoral Suite is the music Edward G. Robinson requests when he goes in for euthanasia in the film “Soylent Green.” I thought that would help. Anyhoo, back to the symphony. I have to ask, who the hell brings a baby to a symphony, and then sits in the front row? Right in the middle of a nice slow quiet bit, this thing starts yelling, “Ah! Ah! Ah!” in a high pitched annoying baby noise kind of way. Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the friggin’ symphony conductor, gave them a dirty look! I almost laughed when he did too. The father finally took the rug rat out of the theater. Had the violin soloist not had an “I smell something unpleasant” look on his face before, I would have blamed it on that kid. Anyhoo, the rest of the show went well and as soon as the last movement was over, mom bolted for the door. OK, maybe what an 80 year old diabetic grandmother does can't truly be called “bolting,” but she did make for the exit while the applause was in effect. I'm kind of glad she did too because we missed the whole crowd filing out. It was even better than sitting it out, as I'm usually wont to do, I must admit. A bit rude, but better for missing the crowd. We got home and called it a night. I'll tell y'all about Sunday tomorrow.