10/27/10

OK, so I'm taking some vacation time November fifth through the fifteenth. Sounds like a lot but it is only seven work days. Anyhoo, my brother-in-law has invited me to to go his deer lease on the eighth to try and shoost a Bambi. He wanted to leave Sunday the seventh but I asked to postpone it so I could go to the Purple Cow car thing. Now that I have Lil' Wiggly back I want to show it again. John has already volunteered to drive it to the show for me. I may let him, and I may just make him drive The Seven instead. We'll see. So, in order for Lil' Wiggly to be ready to show on the seventh, we need to get those brakes working this weekend. I think the plan, as it sits right at this moment, is for John to meet me at my house Saturday morning and follow me to the shop. We may dump some brake fluid in the front reservoir and we may just limp the thing, I haven’t decided. I guess since I need to buy some starting fluid to fire the thing up, I ort to go ahead and buy some brake fluid as well. OK, I guess we will be dumping brake fluid in after all. I wonder if I can convince John that we “need” to install that electric fuel pump while we’re messing with the car. Of course a choke cable wouldn’t hurt either. It really needs a new battery and battery cables, but I just can't afford that right now. I already have the fuel pump so installing that is just labor at this point. I'd be willing to bet that we can find and adapt a choke cable somewhere at that shop. So all I really need to come up with is the money for brake and starting fluid. I'll finger something out. Maybe a “luke warm” check to the Boys of Pep? It will be good on Monday! Hell, if I'm passing checks “of a questionable reputation” (they aren’t quite “bad” you see...) I could go ahead and get the battery and cables. Of course I won't do that. Not now that I've put it in writing. I wonder where John and I are on the purchase of those wheels for Nadine. I mean, have I “paid” for them yet and can I start collecting rent again or do we still have another pay period to go? Why am I asking y'all? You don't know. Anyhoo, once Lil' Wiggly is road worthy again I'll need to license and inspect it. Insurance is covered, no worries there. Oh, I guess we need to finger out what Gregg did to the horn before I try to get it inspected. I guess if we can get the brakes and clutch bled and working properly then fix the horn, we’ll see how we’re doing for time and contemplate the fuel pump. If I were planning to stick with the A-series in there, I'd want to yank that A/C compressor and look at installing an electric fan. Someone once got all up in my grille about electric fans and fuel pumps saying they don't make that much difference. He’d read an article in Hot Rod magazine where they tested the horsepower gains and found them to be worth only one or two ponies. “OK,” I tells this person who shall remain George, “on a 500 horsepower big block one or two horses are a small percentage. On an 80 horsepower Datsun it is a lot more.” I just did the math. Two horsepower is a 0.4% gain on the big block whereas it is a 2.5% gain on the A-series. That’s six and a quarter times as effective! OK yeah, it is still fiddling small change, but I stand by it. Well, we’re approaching 1700 h so I guess I'll call it a rant at this point.