8/16/10

OK, so I'm sitting here waiting for the Lanier Copier guys to call about going to lunch. I decided that I was bored with solitaire, and I'm getting a “nap headache” so I came in to talk to y'all. Here’s what I did over the weekend. Saturday morning I over slept and wound up getting to the shop at about 1000 h. John was under his car fiddling with the rear suspension so I sat down and “helped” with that for a bit. I intended to get cracking on grinding off those last few bolts holding the transmission tunnel in Nadine, but he had the electrical hose. Yeah, that’s the story. So “we” get his suspension mocked up and step back to have a look. Looks good. I ask if I can have the power cord while he takes some pictures. As I'm dragging the cord I think about using the drill instead of the grinder. I attempt this. It fails. I drag out the grinder anyway. The driver’s side bolt was in the worst possible place, in the apex of an inside bend. Oh, I suppose there could have been worse locations, but it was the worst of the three I had to grind. I ground it. When it was gone, I popped the tunnel loose from the floor and moved to the passenger side. Those two ground off easily enough and I popped that side of the tunnel loose. I finagled it out and we had a look at the transmission. It is so tiny. We measured the length of the space and a 240SX KA-24 transmission and it looks like it will fit nicely. The shifter will fall to hand quite well also. John pulled the driveshaft bolts while I removed the transmission mount bolts. We chopped the zorst off through the hole in the floor, in the process cutting the speedometer cable as well, oops. With the transmission free at the rear and the final accessory “disconnected,” the only thing left to do before removing the engine was to remove that cross brace and unbolt the motor mounts. Those two things we did next. Now the only things holding that engine and transmission in are gravity and pig-ignorance. So, the next thing to do is hook up the hoist and yank the some-bitch out, right? Sort of. Since it was hot and noon, we called it a day. We'll try to make it down some evening to make the final yank since the sun will be behind the building and not beating down on us. We cleaned up and went to Granny’s Tacos for lunch. Granny’s Tacos is a scary little auto shop cum “restaurant” on Long Avenue in Diamond Hill. We pulled up just as two other white boys were and followed them in. I said to John, “At least we won't be the only ‘Gaijin’ in the place.” And what a place! Wow! We walked in the door and were met with a counter behind which there was a stove, a refrigerator, a couple prep tables, and two ladies. One was making tortillas as fast as she could roll them out and plop them on the stove while the other took the orders and made tacos. Our choices were meat (shredded pork), papas (potatoes), cheese, and hot sauce, as in, “Do you want to leave any of those items off?” The guys in front of us got theirs and left and we ordered. I was hesitant about the papas, not being a potato sort of guy, but went ahead and got mine all the way. Also, ordering two is a rookie mistake. They were huge! We took them outside to the picnic tables around back and ate. They were quite tasty. I was right about the papas too, they made them too soupy and messy. Next time I'll order mine without. After that we went our separate ways and... holy crap! It is almost 1245 h! I gotta go get some lunch before the cafeteria closes! Later dudes and dudettes.