11/7/11

Well, I have a few things to report. Nothing major, no earth-shattering news, but… well, ok so it is really trivial stuff actually. First off, I was a good boy and didn’t buy a Draco over the weekend. Oh, I wanted to, but I didn’t… mainly because Bloodbath & Beyond didn’t have the one I wanted and the one they did have was about a hundred bucks more than I'm willing to spend. They had a Mini Draco which is an even SHORTER version of an AK pistol, believe it or not. I don’t like them, not to mention the ridiculous price they were asking. So, there’s that going on. I'll probably get one at the next gun show if my resolve doesn’t hold out. On another front, I spent a few minutes the other day browsing e-Bay for Datsun 1200 parts. That got me somewhat excited about finishing Lil' Wiggly. Not excited enough to actually DO anything, but at least it dulled the funk a little. Well, I say I didn’t do anything; I went to the shop yesterday and made a preliminary list of stuff the car needs in order to be finished. Of course all I could think of was a positive battery cable and new electric fan. I'm sure there are plenty of other things it needs. I also had an epiphany of sorts. One of the projects which have been slowing us down on that car is the installation of the fuel pump. Neither one of us is too excited about crawling under the ass-end of the car to install, plumb, and wire the damned thing. I realized yesterday that the pump I have should work just as well as a “sucker” as it would a “pusher.” I posed the question to John last night that since I have a similar pump on George, mounted under the hood as a “sucker,” we could probably get away with it on Lil' Wiggly as well. I asked if he thought the existing feed line would suffice and was assured that it will feed a dual Weber L-20b, it should feed a hot-rod A-14. So, I think we’ll be installing that pump under the hood now. Huzzah! Kevin has already replaced the rubber line between the tank and hard line at the rear of the car so with fresh stuff up front I otter be good to go as far as fuel lines are concerned. I think that is the last of the major hurdles (Salutes and says, “Major Hurdles!”) to making the car run. I still have to install, wire and plumb the gauges, but hopefully hearing the thing bark will inspire me to get off my lazy ass in the cockpit. Wow, I don’t believe it. I really AM getting excited about working on this car again! If I can keep this attitude up until next Saturday we’ll be golden. Now, here’s where I might be dooming the process. I think after we get Lil' Wiggly back on the road, we otter concentrate on finishing George. I mean, come on! It is so damned close to being done I really should finish the motherfucker. Oops, sorry. Pardon my language there. I think if I finished that one “right quick” I could feel better about getting back on the Nadine project. At least that is what I'm telling myself right now. Of course, the dude in the CRX at the Japanese Classic Car thing last night really has me hot and heavy to do something with the N600. No, no, no, no, no! I must NOT start another project until Nadine is done or totally abandoned. No, I do not consider “Finishing George” as starting another project. In fact, it makes even more sense once Juan considers that Nadine cut in line ahead of finishing George in the first place. So there. Oh man, I am laughing at myself right now. I just looked at my desk clock and saw that it was a quarter to twelve. “Holy fucking hell!” I yelled, thinking I was about to be late getting to the shuttle to go to lunch with Larry. Then I remembered that I hadn’t reset that clock for Dumbass Stupid Time. I have now reset said clock. I know I ask this every time DST comes around but, seriously, does ANYONE like the stupid time change bullshit? Or clowns, does ANYONE like clowns? I know of NO ONE who admits to liking either one. Why do we put up with them? I’m stumped. But back to shop stuff. I think that if I had George going I could very easily sell Lil' Wiggly. Since I will probably take a few weeks after putting Lil' Wiggly back on the road before George is ready to take its place, I'll have time to enjoy the super hot-rod engine for a while. Especially if after Lil' Wiggly we move on to making John's B-210 road worthy again before we get back on George. Then again, it is entirely possible that Lil' Wiggly will get rolled out for a few weeks while we tackle John's car “right quick.” He asked me if I thought he should put the A-series five-speed in behind the existing engine or go ahead and plop the L-series in his car. I said something to the effect of, “Expedience says leave the A-series in there since it could put the car back on the road sooner.” I don’t want to tell him NOT to put the L-series in there but it just puts his car in “my” bay that much longer. Now, having said that, I am not going to be a dick about it and try to talk him out of an L-series in his B-210, because I think it would be a really cool engine swap. In fact, I WANT him to put an L-series in his B-210 because it WOULD be such a cool swap. I'm just afeared it will become another long term project that could stagnate in the main bay of the shop… yes, just like Lil' Wiggly. Shut up. Also, there’s his 1200 sitting in the corner that we really otter be working on. Ok, here’s my “problem” with that project. I'm scared to weld in his rear suspension stuff. I can weld… most of the time. I can even weld really thin metal like the stuff a 1200 is made of… some of the time. But it scares the bejeebers out of me thinking about zooking that stuff, upside down, under his car. First off, there’s the whole safety issue. If I weld something on MY car and it fails, I kill me. If I weld something on someone else’s car and it fails… gulp, I don’t even like to think about it. Then there’s the whole alignment issue. If I don’t zook those pickup points in right, the car could crab sideways and I'd never hear the end of it. I would SO rather he came up with a way to make it all bolt-in. I'm just not sure if that can be done. I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. Well, I think I may have gassed on long enough for today. Perhaps I'll have more of this free-form, stream of consciousness falderal tomorrow.