9/4/12

Well, things have changed at Dimlight Racing.  George may not have a turbo A-13 after all.  We met at the shop around 0800 h Saturday morning and had a look at the power switch on the air compressor.  It appeared to be stuck or something.  We fiddled with it for a bit and got it working.  John ran a hose out to George and huffed up the tires then we rolled Lil' Wiggly outside and George in.  THAT was no small feat, I might add.  See, George has a welded differential since I hated the way Gil always did a “Peg Leg Burnout” every time Juan tried to leave a stop with any alacrity.  If it is going to “boil the hides” I want BOTH rears smoking.  But I digress.  As soon as we had George's hood off, my “Whelm” level began to grow.  We swapped Lil' Wiggly's battery into George for a test and tried the key.  All seemed in order but it wouldn’t fire.  I'm thinking there is just no more gas in the tank.  Hell, there probably wasn’t all that much in it when parked.  We did a little cipherin’ and figgerin’ and decided to roll it back out to hose off the dirt and dust under the hood.  It was during this process that I noticed the crack.  The flange where the aluminum DCOE manifold bolts to the SU carburetor flange on my turbo inlet adapter has bent and cracked one of the mounting ears.  This, added to the general “Whelm” level of the project, sounded the death knell for the turbo project… for the time being.  “Yank that carburetor and put it on Lil' Wiggly,” I said.  “That will get one car up and running.”  We discussed it some and when John finally realized that was Gil’s carburetor, which had run so damned well on the very motor in Lil' Wiggly now, we went for it.  As soon as the carburetor was off of George, and a rag was stuffed in the intake tract to keep out people and motors and shit, we re-parked George and shoved Lil' Wiggly back inside.  We had to change up the linkage and add a return spring, but the car fired right up and settled into a nice idle.  John asked who was going for the first test drive.  I said he was since I didn’t want to be pissed off if it didn’t work.  He came back and downplayed the performance some.  I took it out and was ready to declare the thing perfect.  I pulled in and stopped just short of that declaration.  The car is actually drivable and has plenty of power.  I am just about totally satisfied with it.  It is NOT going to be sold any time soon, even if another “Tin Top” is up and running.  Well, if someone offers stupid money for it, we’ll talk.  We decided that a turbo muffler is in order to make it just a bit more civil.  Of course thinking back on it, I'm not 100% convinced now that it NEEDS one.  We’ll probably still have one installed next Saturday though.  I just hope it doesn’t quiet it down too much and disappoint me.  Well, we’ll see.  We didn’t reinstall the hood/bonnet for some reason and cleaned up to go have lunch.  There we discussed what the plans were for the cars in my stable.  I think it was decided that the Spit’ would get an A-15, the Chickenhawk will get a KA-24, and George will get something to be determined at a later date.  After taking a nap I texted John to ask what he thought about a 302 V8 in George.  We began making plans.  I shopped on Craigslist and found the perfect donor: a $1,000.00 1982 four-speed 5.0 Mustang project car in Azle.  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we don’t need the car just yet and I don’t have the money.  Mom and I went shopping for a stand upon which to put my “new” TV.  We found one I liked at Best Buy but it was too open and modern for mom.  We went to Wal-Mart and found one she liked but I was hesitant about.  Of course we bought it and it sat in the back of Fifi overnight.  I stewed on the V8 idea all day Sunday and Monday, doing damned little else.  Sunday evening I did shuffle my cars in the driveway and took The Seven across town to the monthly Japanese car show thingy.  That car is really running well.  I'm quite pleased with it right now.  Monday I trimmed the bushes so a plumber can get to the sewer clean-out and scope our drains to find the leak under the house.  I then got cracking on that TV stand.  I wasn’t sure of the size or the weight bearing capacity.  When I finally looked up the weight of the TV and it was 40 pounds more than the rated capacity of the stand, mom relented on it.  We took it back to Wal-Mart and began anew the quest for a stand.  We finally found one we both liked and bought it.  It is now in the back of Fifi, on the back patio, under the awning, awaiting Saturday morning when John is to come pick me up to go to the shop.  I've got another few lines about Monday’s activities, but I'll save them for tomorrow.