4/16/10

John reminded me the other day that he will not be joining me at the shop this Saturday. That’s cool. I was going to feel a little guilty working on yet another one of my cars when his has languished in the corner for so long. Perhaps, once “we” have inspected Nadine, “we” will decide that my 45^th birthday is not an attainable goal for that car and will get cracking on his. I'll still work on Nadine on my time, but I'd try to steer mutual time towards his project. Yeah, I can be awfully magnanimous thirty miles away from the shop typing on my laptop. We'll just see what happens when we’re actually down there. Oh, I think I might be developing a case of the “Been there, done that”s with Lil' Wiggly. With The Seven back on the road, I don't have the need to go hooning in Lil' Wiggly as much. Granted, I've only had The Seven back one weekend, I can't condemn Lil' Wiggly just yet. Of course, if someone were to make me an offer... Perhaps an L-series in Lil' Wiggly ought to be a “priority” soon. I wonder just how quickly we could bang out that project. John, when is the family going camping again? Think we could knock it out in a couple days of solid work? OK, follow me here. If we had the L-series ready to go, bolted up to the transmission with as much of the sun-dried other bits attached, sitting on the floor, could we on a Saturday: yank the A-series, clean up and eat lunch, clean and reconfigure the engine bay, drop the L-series in, clean up and go home, then come back Sunday to hook up all the bits, sort, fire, and drive the thing? The answer is, “Of course not.” We never get things done that quickly and efficiently. Besides, something would come along and surprise us. “Oh, right. That doesn't fit like that,” that sort of thing. Oh yeah, I forgot about the zorst. Chances are very slim that would line back up. Not to mention the down pipe would be way too small. “The down pipe would be way too small?” I told you not to mention... Oh never mind. Speaking of John's car and L-series engines, he sent me a picture of a left-hand drive 1200 with an L-series in it. It looks like there would be miles of room for the dual side draft carburetors and those really long trumpets! I vote for an L-series in Timmy now. But I digress. Probably what I ought to do, with regards to Lil' Wiggly, is yank all the air conditioning equipment, to “Add Lightness” of course, and maybe see about a Weber DGV carburetor. The A-series is almost just adequate. I mean the car IS fun, even though it is woefully underpowered. It will get up to and maintain freeway speed, eventually. I don't know, we’ll see. So, I’m not sure what I'm going to do this weekend, car wise. My brother’s wife’s aunt and cousin both died earlier this week so I might have to take mom over to Not-Texas for those “festivities” tomorrow. I haven’t been asked to do that, but I'll volunteer tonight. Oh, in case you’re wondering, “Yes, I have met the deceased folks,” so it won't be like I'm crashing the funeral, or whatever. Like that matters. I don't know. If I don't have to do that, I may look at the wind deflector thing as well as doing the valves and head bolts on The Seven tomorrow. Of course if it is raining, all bets are off. I probably won't drive The Seven to the shop in the rain. I won't say, “I won't drive The Seven to the shop in the rain,” because... well, who knows. Maybe someday I will need to drive The Seven to the shop in the rain. For that matter, some day I might WANT to drive The Seven to the shop in the rain. Stranger things have happened. I can't think of one right now, but I'm sure there is an example out there. Well, I'm suddenly through with the Blackened Tilapia I had for lunch. I think I'll call it a rant and go for a poo. Y'all have a swell weekend. I'll talk to you again Monday. Probably.