2/8/11

Frerbrurary 8, 2011 - So, Sunday I was headed to the shop to air up Ms. Clio's tires, right? I was also planning, as I promised myself while following John home, to work on Lil' Wiggly. I fired up the compressor and pulled out the hose. I huffed up the tires to forty pounds, thinking I'd let some out but then didn’t, and then coiled the hose back up. OK, I piled it on the floor where I'd found it. I went to grab Lil' Wiggly's keys but couldn't find them. I didn't search very hard because I suspected that someone had taken them home with him. Instead of working on Lil' Wiggly, I resigned myself to piddling with Nadine some more. I had a look at the distributor and realized I could lock down the advance plate by using parts from the vacuum advance unit. The mechanical advance is built into the shaft and won't be effected by this, I reasoned. I took the vacuum unit to the vice and cut off the flange/plug thingy which inserts into the distributor housing. Then I cut off the exposed actuating rod. I found a nut which just about perfectly filled the gap between the ID of the flange/plug thingy and the OD of the actuating rod. I welded the nut to the rod then the rod/nut assembly into the flange/plug thingy. Why yes, the flange/plug thingy was anodized. Yes it did make fluffy ash and lots of stinky smoke. Yes I am probably going to die from doing dumb stuff like that. But wait, it gets worse later. After I cleaned up the newly minted part on the wire wheel I installed it in the distributor. Oh yeah, it’s nice. I set that aside and... wait a minute. I did something else before that. OK, after I aired up the tires I grabbed that lower radiator hose inlet thingy that I'm not sure I mentioned yesterday. Let me back up some more. Saturday John and I had a look at reversing the lower radiator inlet pipe flange thingy for the Chickenhawk's engine in Nadine. It needed to have the heater inlet hose pipe thingy plugged. Sunday I had a look at it again. I decided to use the clear epoxy John had bought. By the way John, I owe you another epoxy kit. I took some masking tape and made a dam inside the radiator hose pipe of the flange so as to close off the heater hose part. I mixed up the epoxy and filled the heater hose nipple. I sprinkled some metal shavings in there and mixed them in for some reason. To make it sparkly like a vampire I guess. I also dropped in a plug of aluminum to displace more epoxy and fill the thing to the top. I set that aside and then went looking for Lil' Wiggly's keys. OK, now we’re up to speed. When I was through with the distributor, I began looking at other things I could do. I removed and plugged the heater hose outlet from the block and replaced the huge-assed plug I'd made for the bottom of the intake manifold. I plugged up a vacuum port in the manifold as well. Then I decided that I'd have a look at the PCV vent tube on the zorst side of the block. The rubber reducer which sits right next to the manifold was pretty well baked. It broke off into bits. I found a section of water pipe from something and cut out a ninety degree section to weld to the pipe from the block. I cleaned them up and began welding. Here’s the worse bit I mentioned above. One or both pipes were anodized and/or galvanized. Everything smells like burnt zinc now. No, I don't mean everything in the shop, I mean my nose is so coated with the fumes from that weld that literally EVERYTHING smells like burnt zinc now. OK, it has subsided a bit by now, but still. Oh, and the ants crawling under my skin are getting to be a bit annoying. I don't know if hallucinations are part of zinc poisoning, I just thought it was amoosing. Anyhoo, once I was done with that and had everything shut down and cooled off, I went home. Mom sent me out for tacos and we ate them. I watched the “Kitty Halftime Show” Animal Planet does in the middle of their “Puppy Bowl” show. I love how they just don't even try to compete with the Special Bowel game. They just plop a bunch of puppies in a miniature football stadium and let them play for a couple hours. I wish I'd been in that pitch meeting. After wasting the rest of the evening in front of the TV I went to bed. So there. That’s all there is to the tale of Special Bowling weekend.