12/3/12

Well, just three more work weeks until the end of the world.  Use them wisely.  But enough of that, here’s what happened over the weekend.  First of all, the SNAFU in the War Room here at work only got worse when I came in Saturday.  First, a little history.  Earlier in the week, the dude in charge of the 0800 h call in the War Room asked me for a new mouse for the computer.  I don’t do computer stuff so I passed the information on to a guy who does… then forgot about it.  Friday afternoon I get a call that the phone in the War Room didn’t work.  I checked it out and id DID do something weird, but it also worked when I tried a second time.  I told the powers what be that I'd come in on Saturday to make sure the 0800 h call went off as usual.  Saturday morning I come in and try to set everything up.  My equipment worked fine, but the computer they use to monitor the call was turned off.  Being the good “Company Man” that I am, I started the thing and went to log in.  The piece of paper with the login information was gone!  After a few, “Oh crap!”s, I finally had one of the dudes log in as himself then I got the monitoring software up and running.  There is a cheat sheet for that, by the way.  I went to desktop support and asked if there was a way to retrieve the username and password they normally use.  The long and the sort of it… there was not.  Eventually I was able to leave to go to the shop.  Oh, John had called to ask if I'd stop by the Boys of Pep for some lug nuts so we could install the wheels on the rear axle once we swapped them.  I said I would.  So I finally leave the railroad and head for the BoP on Jacksboro Highway.  EVERYONE on the road was in my way… and pissing me off.  By the time I got to the BoP I was fit to be tied.  I managed to remain calm when asking the little lady for the lug nuts.  We had a look in their computer and were offered two different size options for the nuts.  I called John to confirm that we did indeed need ½” nuts.  I grabbed a pack and bought them.  About halfway to the shop I realized we needed TWO packs.  Whoever is monitoring my conversations through the factory radio in Fiona that morning was treated to a burst of profanities the likes of which would probably have gotten me thrown off a ship for offending the sensibilities of the sailors.  I eventually made it to the shop to find that John already had the B-210 axle out and was comparing it to the Falcon unit.  Yeah, the Fjord axle is WAY longer than the Datsun.  We’re going to need flares.  We discussed how we were going to make the spring pads, and came up with a plan.  I drilled with the hole saw into the side of the 3” box steel we had.  This we then cut in half and those we cut into “L” shaped pieces with a semi-circle cut in one leg.  Of course the semi-circles didn’t fit the axle.  I took them to the grinder and opened them up a bit.  NOW they fit.  The other leg of the part sat on top of the Falcon spring pad.  We knew we were going to have to drill into the old pads for the “U” bolts anyway so we fingered, “what the hell?”  I then tried too zook the new pads in place.  I couldn’t get a good angle with the welder the way we had the axle chucked up in the vice.  We wound up moving to the welding table where I was able to melt metal sufficiently to attach our new pads.  Now we needed to drill six holes slightly larger than ½”.  I have one drill bit slightly larger than ½” and it was so dull that it would barely drill a hole in the air.  By this time, it was approaching 1230 h so we cleaned up and called it a day.  We decided on Italian for lunch and met at that little place on Hulen at Old Granbury Road.  The calamari and Stromboli were excellent.  From there we went to Pearl Harbor on the off chance they might have a 9/16” drill bit.  I was sure they wouldn’t.  I would have bet lunch on it had we not already eaten.  I would have bet “wear the ‘John was right, I was wrong’ T-shirt for a day” that they wouldn’t.  They had one.  Well, it was in a set of bits ranging from 9/16” to a full inch.  I bought them.  John asked if I'd be bringing them next week or if I was taking them to the shop now.  “I’m going back to the shop!” I said.  Back at the shop, I got to work finishing out the holes.  Yeah, drilling 9/16” holes on an axle on a table at nipple height… scary as hell!  I whanged my knuckles a couple times and finally said, “Enough!”  I moved on to the radiator.  I played with some lower mounts, after cutting out the bumper support boxes on the chassis, but don’t really like what I came up with.  Eventually I cleaned up and went home.  My sister was to spend the night so she, mom, and I went to dinner at the little Mexican Food place down the road from Hedari’s and Italian Inn… I can't remember the name, Playa Maya or something.  It was good but I was stuffed as we left.  At home, after a few farts, I felt a lot better.  I'll save Sunday’s tale for tomorrow… as usual.