10/18/10

Well, Saturday didn't go exactly as I said it would, but all was accomplished. First off, I went to the credit onion out of the way home from work instead of waiting for the morning. That shaved half an hour from the day. Second, I picked up the trailer and took it to the house Friday evening saving at least two hours on Saturday. So, Saturday morning I picked John up and we headed to Gregg's. We wasted little time loading up Lil' Wiggly, three sets of wheels, and the five-speed for Super Karate-Monkey Death Car. John kept us on track, for the most part, and we got out of there in record time. We stopped and aired up the trailer’s tires and headed to my house. We discussed whether or not we were going to try and get the Spitfire and decided it was a “GO.” I called Kevin to invite him to meet us but he declined. At my house, a neighbor came to see what we were doing. I apologized for lowering property values with the car as we rolled it off the trailer. I hopped in and rode it down the street and into the driveway. Oh, it looked like all I needed to do was bolt the master cylinder to the adapter plate, bolt the adapter plate to the fire wall, hook up the pedal, fill the front reservoir (for the rear brakes), and go. Alas, twas not the case, but I'll get to that. From my house we headed back to downtown Fort Worth to get the Spitfire. It rolled but we didn't have the oomph to get it all the way onto the trailer without the come along. We tied it down and headed to the shop. We ate lunch at Hoffbrau on the way. At the shop, Marty Smith rolled up as we were dropping the trailer. “What’s this?” he asked. “What do you mean?” I said. “This is that Triumph I picked up a year ago.” He looked a bit confused, but stuck to his guns. “No,” he said, “that’s a different type of car.” I admitted what we’d done and we looked it over some. By the way, I checked the commission number and it is a 1964 Mark 1. After we dropped the trailer and unloaded the stuff from the back of the truck, we headed out. I left John at his house and went home. After dinner I piddled with Lil' Wiggly for a bit. I discovered that the adapter plate we were going to use to delete the brake booster has a different bolt spacing. I decided to just put the booster back in place. I rounded up all the bits I could find and did that. There was one nut I couldn't tighten without a wobbly socket. I decided that I'd go to the shop on Sunday and get one. I wasted the rest of Saturday. Sunday I waited for mom to get home from church since we had discussed it Saturday. She eventually got home around 1330 h and apologized that she had eaten at the birthday party. Actually, at around 1100 h I drove to the shop and dropped off the last set of wheels we’d left in the back of Fifi and picked up the wobbly socket and the screw/nut driver thingy to install the new mailbox. While waiting for mom I tightened the last nut on Lil' Wiggly's master cylinder, removed the A/C condenser, and reinstalled the front plates. When I went to install the new mail box however, I couldn't. Some dumb ass designed the thing so that the back didn't sit flat. There was a 1/2” gap behind it. My screws were too short. I tried to modify the box and destroyed it in the process. I decided to go to Sutherland’s and buy a new one. As I was getting ready to go, mom got home. I said I'd eat while I was out running an errand. I decided to risk the ticket and fired up Lil' Wiggly. Oh, I added Lil' Wiggly back to my insurance that morning as well and the license doesn't expire until Halloween. The inspection, that is expired. Once I got the car running I tried the brakes. Hmm, not so good. The dry front reservoir meant there was a ton of travel before any braking occurred. They “worked” so I took it around the block anyway. I REALLY dig that car. I decided against going to the hardware store in it since I wasn't sure it would restart once I got there. I parked and took Ms. Clio. After choosing, and buying, a mailbox, I went to a little taqueria there in the parking lot and had some barbacoa tacos and a Mexican Fanta. They were quite tasty. I went home and installed the mailbox. I then decided I'd take the .308 Saiga to the range and sight in the scope. The guy didn't like my Wolf ammo since it might be steel-cored. That left me with just 12 Federal bullets. I loaded six in each magazine and we went in to shoot. The first three were high and to the right. He adjusted the scope and I fired a couple more. Low but closer to center. He adjusted again and I was high and on center, more or less. He took out half of the height adjustment and I was right around the proper spot. He had me burn the rest of my ammo and all of them were right around where they were supposed to be. Is it a “tack driver?” No. Did I expect it to be a “tack driver?” No. Is it accurate enough for a clean kill? If I do my job, yes. And that is all I expected of it. Now, having said that, I'm not above admitting that I probably flinched a little. Rifles are really loud in that range. Also, as much as I hate to admit it about my beloved Saiga, the trigger is a bit... odd. I will accept responsibility for some of the inaccuracy. On the other hand, it could have been those unknown-quantity bullets I was shooting. All in all though, I'm quite happy with the .308 Saiga. And on that note, I think I'm done for the day.