10/12/2012

I'm not sure how it worked out this way, but this has simultaneously been the longest and quickest week ever.  Each individual day has felt like it took forever, yet here we are on Friday and I'm like, “What happened to the week?”  It is kooky.  Well, I'm pretty excited about the giant brakes and engine for Lil' Wiggly.  I wonder if John ever spoke to his Mustang guy about a transmission.  I want to text him and ask but I don’t want to be “that guy.”  Ok, I'm going to be “that guy.”  Now we wait for John's reply.  While we wait, I'll chat a little bit about… um… hmm….  Nope, I got nothin’.  I was going to go into the reasons behind why I want a three-speed for Lil' Wiggly, but we’ve been over that a million times: they are smaller and since no one else wants them they are cheap.  Everyone keeps saying “five-speed,” and I'm not opposed to that, but I'm not sure one will fit in the tunnel.  John's mythical “early eighties four-speed” sounds promising… if we can find one.  Oh, John just texted back that he hasn’t had to go to the Mustang dude’s shop since we decided to ask about a tranny.  Oop!  And now I just got off the phone with John.  It looks like we’re going with a T-5 five-speed after all.  Mustang dude just finished a sex change on a car so the manual transmission, flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate are all available to me.  John is checking to see if he will be available tomorrow and if so, we’re going to get it.  I'll have to get the money out of that other account at the credit onion unless Gregg calls and wants to buy the Judge and Kurt Corto tonight.  Yeah, I'm going to the credit onion on the way to Mustang dude’s shop.  Mustang dude said that 289s don’t like heavy flywheels so I'm either going to have to have this one lightened, which doesn’t scare me, or buy a light ‘wheel.  Hmm, sounds like an excuse to go shopping on them intergooglewebnets!  I'll be back.  Ok, at $300.00 for a new one, we’ll be lightening the one that comes with the tranny.  This project is coming along nicely.  I'm quite pleased about that.  I need to remind John to dig out that 510 cross member so we can bring it to the shop tomorrow as well.  I really want to plop the pan back on that block, bolt up the motor mounts again, and see what we’re going to need to do to mate the two together.  I think it would be awesome to have the engine bolted to the cross member so we can drop the body on top of it.  Yes, I'm thinking this job otter go in from the bottom.  Ooh, forgot about the steering link.  Hmm… oh!  I got it!  Since we’ll have the struts out as well, we can unbolt the idler arm from the frame and swing the passenger-side steering bits under the car and out of the way.  Yes, that otter work.  We’ll have to lift the body up pretty high to clear the ground with the parts, but I don’t think that will hinder us.  Getting the engine up high enough for them to go back under might be a bit scary though.  Hmm, gotta think on this one some more.  Yeah, a “pickle fork” to the ball joints IS the right way to go.  We’ll probably go that way.  Of course John is hoping we have to convert to a 240Z rack and pinion steering setup.  Again, I ain't against that, but I'm not going to do it just to do it.  So, what else is there to say?  Hmm, I got nothin’ yet again.  I guess I'll call it a rant for the time being.  Perhaps I'll come back later in the day and chat some more.