6/20/2011

Well, John and I got some more work done on Barbecue Bob Saturday. We fingered out the throttle cable situation and I zooked up a bracket to make it work. Now the gas pedal works the throttle on the carburetors from idle to WFO. So... there’s that going on. “We” also installed the fuel pump and ran the wire up to the front where I began the process of wiring up the relay for it and the electric fan. I'm not 100% sure why we quit before I finished that, but we did. We had a set of tires mounted onto the Gram Lite wheels and put them on Nadine, with the bitchin’ spacers John bought for me. They don't look bad, but I'm going to have to get used to them before I will say they look good. We'll see. I'm sure we accomplished more than that, but I don't remember. John found some leads on vans for me. I really want one of the ‘60s model E-100 Ford cab-over vans he found but I do not need another project. I followed his lead and found a few on my own on Craig’s List. There is one in Sachse that I really want. It is an E-350 short-wheel-base with the 6.8 liter V10! I was curious as to why the price was so low and hopefully it is because the gas mileage sucks ass. John pointed out that anyone wanting a V10 probably doesn't want the SWB either. I hope that’s the case because I've also read those engine were prone to spitting out spark plugs. Not just the V10s though, all the “Modular” Ford engines apparently. Ford had a TSD on it so hopefully that has been fixed. If not, there is a relatively cheap threaded insert thingy which will fix the problem. Yes, it sounds like I'm looking at a potential “project,” but I don't think I am. So, if I can get $3,500.00 to $4,000.00 for Fifi, I could do this. Oh, I stopped in at Texas Motors Ford “on the way” home from the shop and priced the new ugly-ass... well, ugly-nose actually, Econoline vans. Yeah, a new van is $29,000.00 to $37,000.00 depending on what all you get on it. I think not. I stopped in at what used to be the Saturn dealer next door because they had a cargo van on their lot and what did I discover? They are going to be a Fiat dealer! They had a dozen or so 500s there but they were “storage” cars for the dealer across town for the time being. The car is cute, a little odd, but cute. It is not as upright as a Smart Four-Two, but a little more cutoff than the Versa or other hatchbacks out there. I don't hate it. I'm not going to get excited about them though because I do not need to be thinking about a new daily driver toy car. Ms. Clio is doing fine by me right now. Anyhoo, after looking at the van on that lot, I swung by the new Nissan dealer by my house to look at their new full-sized van. It is cool, but I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet. Besides, all the ones I saw were V6s and still crowding $30K. I'm sure they have a V8 version, but what would that cost? Yikes! And another thing about them, they look like overgrown Scion xBs anyway. Don't get me wrong, I liked the original xB, but I'm not sold on it as a full-sized van yet. No, I want the V10 Ford, dag nabbit! Whoa! It is 1100 h already! I'm going to go see what Larry is doing for lunch. I'll tell y'all about my Sunday hooning tomorrow.