9/19/2011

Well, that was a weekend. Friday evening I drove through a “Frog Strangler” down pour of rain to go to the shop for the trailer. I hooked up in a light drizzle and went back to the house. There I waited until John arrived in the morning. I had The Seven out and turned the right way round just as he showed up. We rolled it on and tied it down then headed to the shop. We stopped at Lowe’s for the fittings we’d need for this installation then went to O’Reilley’s for a wee little fuel pressure gauge. At the shop we rolled Lil' Wiggly out and The Seven in and got to work. John jacked up the ass end and we set it on stands. I removed the roll hoop and boot tray while he put together the nipples and such on the pump and pressure regulator. We scratched our heads for a bit as to where we would mount the regulator until I saw a pair of empty bolt holes on the back of the head. It looked like a good spot so we went with it. At the back of the car we unhooked the electrical hoses first and got them out of the way before pulling a fuel line to drain the tank. Yeah, I had just filled the damned thing before parking it last time so there was at least nine gallons in there. We got most of it into buckets and swapped out the pumps. We poured in one gallon and looked for leaks. We turned on the switch and looked for... “Shut it off! Shut it off! Shut it off!” No, it wasn't a leak. It was a geyser! We replaced the fuel line from the regulator to the fuel rail and tried again. Much better. Unfortunately, the pressure was over 15 psi. We turned the adjustment thingy in and it got worse. We turned it out and it got better... just not enough. We could get it down to, I think, ten psi but no lower. We shut it down and had a pow wow. It was decided that shortening the spring in the regulator SHOULD lower the pressure. We had a “spare” in the one I bought for Lil' Wiggly so we went for it. John clipped off a coil from the spring and we reinstalled it. He did a guesstimate setting of the knob and I hit the switch. Four psi! He’s good. We adjusted it for between 5 and 6 psi and looked for leaks again. T’was dry so we fired the engine up. It ran fine and the pressure held fast. We set the ass end back down and I went around the building with it. Everything seemed fine so we put the rest of the car back together. By now it is getting late so we close up to call it a day. It is decided that John would drive The Seven back to the house so I follow in Fifi. We get it in the garage and head out to look at that shop. About 1/3 of the way there, John pulls off to the side of the freeway. I hear a god-awful racket as he’s pulling to a stop. I hear him spin the starter to no avail and meet him at the front of the car as he’s raising the hood. He has me try the starter and it spins in a weird way. He comes to the door and says, “The flywheel bolts either sheared or came out.” He stayed with the car while I hauled ass get the truck and trailer. Adequate ass was hauled that it took just... was it just under or just over and hour? Anyhoo, about an hour later I had Fifi parked in front of the B-210. Now, I'm not sure how this happened, but we pushed the car up on the trailer in one stab and neither of us were breathing heavy afterward. No, it was not a downhill run onto the trailer. It was, in fact, a slight UPHILL run onto the trailer... in addition to the usual uphill of the ramps of course. Neither one of us could believe it. We tied it down and headed back to the shop. When we had dropped the trailer and car off, we headed for “lunch.” I use quotes because it is 1600 h by this time. We decide to stop in at the Ford dealer to look at Foci and Fiestae... just in case he decided to go ahead and bite the bullet instead of waiting until next spring for his new car. That “quick peek” turned into a four hour ordeal, the final results of which are still up in the air. Since it is not my place to say what went down, I'll leave it up to Spiderman to say what the final outcome is/was... if he feels like it. So, now it is 2000 h or so and John is getting the “Where are you?” phone calls from home. We blow off “lunch” and go our separate ways. And I think I'm going to save Sunday’s tale for tomorrow.