Frerbruraryr 27, 2012

Ow, I am so sore. Saturday morning I met John at the Fjord dealer and we headed to the shop… wait, no we didn’t. Mom made me a doctor’s appointment for later this week so I can get my blood pressure and cholesterol prescriptions renewed. Said doctor wants blood work done before seeing me. We went from the Fjord dealer to the Vampire Office. Mom assured me they opened at 0800 h. They open at 0830 h. There was a line already when we pulled up at 0800 h. We go in line and waited. Inside, I signed in and waited for them to find my paperwork. When she found me, she had me pee in a cup then drew the blood. From there we went to McDonald’s for breakfast burritos. Finally at the shop, after eating the breakfast burritos, we rolled Lil' Wiggly out and backed Fiona in onto the ramps. The ramps were nowhere near high enough. We jacked the nose into the air as well. I tried to crawl under but had to jack the car even higher. Once I was able to get under the car, I got to work on the shifter. I unbolted the heat shield and tried to get it out of the way. Not happening. I removed the cats and finally was able to slide the shield out of the way. I couldn’t get it all the way out of the car, fortunately, because it probably wouldn’t have gone back in if I had. I got the boot off of the bottom and removed the plate securing the shifter. There was no way I could work the thing out past the driveshaft. John crawled under for a look and with him under and me inside the car we managed to get it out. I swapped the bushing thingy to the new shifter and John snaked it up into place and secured it with the retaining plate. He crawled out and I got back under to put in the shift lever pin. It didn’t fit. After several tries, it was determined that I would narrow the pin a bit to make it fit the bushing. I took it to the grinder and gently knocked off a few thousandths of an inch all around… more or less. I could now get it to start in the bushings. I managed to hammer it in and get the securing clip on. The under-car shift boot however… not so much. I fought it for a while then John gave it a bash. He got it on but it popped off again when I rowed through the gears. I decided to cut it off and we determined that the raised pivot point moved the bottom of the shifter to a place where the boot wanted to be. It would go on but then shifting worked it loose again. John cut it off and got out from under the car. I reinstalled the heat shield then got to work putting the cats back in. I needed John's help. He crawled under with me and eventually we got the cats in and bolted up. Now, while all of this was going on, John was trying out the fender flares on his 1200, Timmy! They look really good. Also, he got a call from the Fjord dealer saying they stripped one of his lug nuts and would have to replace one of his uprights. They didn’t have one in stock so he would be getting a rent car. Unfortunately, that meant we had to get back by noon. We got this news just after Fiona's shifter came out and were at a point of no return. When Fiona was done, we jacked her back on her wheels and pulled her out front. We rolled Lil' Wiggly back in and cleaned up to leave. We made it to the rental place just in time. I followed him in “his” bitchin’ Hyundai Accent to the Fjord dealer so he could retrieve some stuff from his car then we went to Razoo’s for lunch. When I got home, mom called the “Obama Supporter” family who had borrowed Fifi again to see it they were done with it. They were so we went to get it. We may have had dinner out while we were… um, out, but I don’t remember. I wasted the rest of Saturday evening, as usual. I'll tell y'all about Sunday tomorrow… also, as usual.