11/26/12

And we’re back at work.  Since there isn’t anything special to report about that, I guess I'll jump right in to the tale of Friday at the shop.  I went down there thinking I'd take a look at the wiring harness but without any plan to actually do anything.  Turns out… I did something.  I started with the way I had the park lights wired to the headlight relay.  I removed that connection and moved it from the light side to the car side of the connector in the harness.  This freed up the light to be reinstalled in the grille.  This I did next.  With the wiring harness partially removed from the car, I began un-taping it.  I removed the superfluous headlight wires and the old alternator and carburetor wiring freeing up just the park/turn signal and horn wires.  These I set aside and continued stripping the harness.  I separated out all the superfluous under hood wiring and excised it.  Eventually I had to go under the dash and disconnect the under hood harnesses from the dash harnesses so I could finish.  With just five or six wires left in the under hood harnesses, I moved on to looking at the dash.  “Fuck it!” I said, and removed the dash from the car.  I set it aside and pulled the dash harness out to strip.  I got it stripped down to just the turn signal/hazard and ignition/starter wiring, as well as what I called the “Super Hot” and “Super Ground” circuits.  All other wires were removed.  By this time it was 1600 h so I cleaned up and went home.  I sent John a text saying, “If you get to the shop before me in the morning, don’t panic.  I'm pretty sure I know what wires need to be hooked to what.”  He replied back, “Uh oh.”  I said it wasn’t as bad as that and that I'd ‘splain in the morning.  Saturday morning I actually beat him to the shop by about fifteen minutes.  I was in the process of… something, when he arrived with another dude.  I dropped whatever it was I was doing and hung out with them for a bit until it became obvious that the dude was here for the duration.  I bowed out of “helping” them do whatever it was they were doing and went back to… whatever I had been doing.  Eventually John came in and saw the mess of wiring sticking out the doors and across the fenders of Lil' Wiggly.  “Yeah,” he said, “that might have made me panic.”  I assured him one more time that I was pretty sure I thought I might probably know where all the wires needed to go.  We discussed whether or not we were going to relocate the battery.  We decided that we would so even more under hood wiring became superfluous.  We discussed whether or not we were going to keep the turn signals and ignition switch.  We decided we would so the under dash wiring was good to go.  I removed the rest of the superfluous under hood wiring and began thinking about how I wanted to re-wire the fuse box.  It was about this time that John and the dude finished outside and came to “help” me.  I put down my project and we had a look at the radiator support.  John marked where we needed to cut it and I got cracking with the cutoff wheel.  We excised the top of the core support, as well as the extension bit that the stock radiator bolted to and had a look at the various and sundry radiators we had lying about.  When it was decided that none of them would fit, we took some measurements of our opening and decided we’d buy a custom 25” by 17” radiator.  Oh, at some point I had to move the stock 289 two barrel manifold… yeah, there ain’t no way in hell I'm putting THAT 150 pound motherfucker on an engine!  I told John, “I’m buying an aluminum intake and four barrel carburetor when I get home.”  Of course at that point the “adding lightness” bug was in full infestation in my brain.  I HAD to have aluminum heads as well.  I didn’t say anything to John at that point though, I just let it fester.  Eventually we cleaned up and went to lunch.  The dude said he didn’t like sushi so he went his own way.  When I got home, I took a quick nap and dreamed of aluminum cylinder heads.  Ok, I actually think I dreamed about being on that “Duck Dynasty” show and winding up skinny dipping with the hot wives of those hillbillies.  At least I know I dreamt that at some point during my break.  Anyhoo, when I awoke, I went to the Summit website and priced cylinder heads.  If I remember correctly, the cheapest pair of heads plus the intake/carburetor combo was going to be around $1,500.00 whereas for about the same money I could get the “Top End Power Package” consisting of heads, cam, and intake but no carburetor.  The TEPP with a carburetor was going to be in the $1750.00 neighborhood.  I sent John a text.  We discussed it until it was obvious a phone call was needed.  He called me and we discussed it some more.  Our thought process went something like this, I think, the 289 would need at least a $400.00 rebuild for the bottom end.  It would also need heads.  It would also need various and sundried other bits.  “Why don’t we,” John asked, “see what a complete Explorer 302 would cost?”  He looked in his company’s inventory on line and found a few locally.  The one which piqued my interest was a 92,000 mile unit in Grand Prairie for… well, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say.  Suffices to say it was cheaper than rebuilding and buying heads for the 289.  We decided that he’d get it for me in exchange for that Super Hot-Rod A-series head and dual side draft setup… or something.  We further justified my stupidity by saying that whatever way we went, I'd “need” that intake and carburetor setup, an HEI distributor, an annular hydraulic throw out bearing kit, and a radiator.  Oh yeah!  I also looked for a radiator while on the Summit website.  After seeing many which were just almost not quite right, I finally stumbled upon one 24” wide by 16” tall with outlets in the right spot… for $189.00!  So, with the previously mentioned justification for the other hot rod bits, I went ahead and placed a $1,000.48 order with Summit.  On the plus side, since the radiator is an oversize item, I got all the shipping and handling for free.  I'm still not sure how that worked out… but it did.  They should arrive Thursday or Friday of this week.  Now I need to go to the machine shop and pick up the 289 short block and flywheel before they dig into it.  And by “now” I mean literally “NOW!”  I'm going to call it an early quit and go do that.  Toodles!