3/12/13

Yeah, I’m not going to tell y'all about the movie “Paul” after all.  The link Spiderman put in yesterday’s rant otter give you enough information about it.  I will say that I'm sure I missed a dozen Sci-Fi jokes judging by the number I did catch.  The thing is full of references to “old” Sci-Fi stuff.  Lots of “Star” stuff, both “Trek” and “Wars,” along with many others.  I might just have to go buy this one on DVD.  Anyhoo, another thing I forgot to mention about Saturday was that I filled Fifi's tank on the way home from the shop then took Fiona to the gas station before going inside.  Filling those two vehicles puts a $150.00 dent in my finances… but I'm not complaining.  Hell, I like being a conspicuous consumer of liquid dinosaurs.  Fuck the environment!  Ha ha!  There otter be plenty of air and water for the next forty years or so and after that, I'll probably be dead and won't give a shit.  So there.  I'm trying to remember if I took Fiona for a hoon after filling her up but I don’t think I did.  So, Sunday morning I meet John at the shop.  We tuck into Lil' Wiggly's brakes.  He runs the floor jack while I set the stands then I crawl under to remove the rear brake line, parking brake cable, and superfluous fuel lines.  We decide that one of the old hard lines I'd removed from the engine bay would probably be a good length to get from the rear axle to the parking brake master cylinder so John feeds it through the old parking brake cable hole.  I hook it up to the rubber line at the axle, which is showing signs of wanting replacement by the way, and we declare the underside of the car done… for the time being.  We decide on a location for the parking brake master cylinder and drill four holes to mount it.  I crawl back under the car again to tighten the bolts.  NOW we declare the underside of the car to be complete once again.  John installs the rubber line between the master and the hard line going to the axle and I take a look.  It is not the most attractive thing I've ever seen… in fact, it is downright ugly.  But since it was my design, I decide to ignore it and move on.  We have a look at the hard line I'd just removed from under the car and decide it is just about right to go from the main master cylinder to the proportioning valve.  I get it bent up, with the proper flare and flare nut installed, and we put it in the car.  That line turned out pretty well.  John put a neat little angle bend in it while I wasn’t looking which turned the line from horizontal going into the proportioning valve to diagonally down towards the floor along the tunnel.  It looks factory… well, except that it is inside the cockpit.  With the brake lines done, we discuss bleeding them.  It was decided that we really otter wait until we had the pads installed so we got to work on that.  John yanked the wheels and I got cracking with replacing the front pads.  They went in nicely, as Juan would expect.  When I went to replace the wheel, John pointed out we’d just have to remove it again when we went to bleed them so I left it off.  Oh, at some point during the parking brake and hard line installation a couple other things happened.  First off, the dude came to take the steering gearbox out of the brown 210 he’s buying.  Secondly, we decided to take a look at the leaky fuel cell.  John suggested we try the bungs without the “O” rings and see if it would leak.  To make a short story long… no, it didn’t.  We left the fuel cell sitting outside for several hours with a gallon or so of water in it and it didn’t leak a single drop.  Go figure.  So after doing the front brakes, rather than remove the rear wheels and replace those pads, we brought the fuel cell inside and had a look at its placement in the car.  We made a plate to cover the gaping hole left by the old filler hose and routed the vent line to it with a little filter outside.  Now all I need is a 3/8” hose nipple “T” fitting to hook it up.  We’re still debating how we’re going to run the fuel line, inside or under the car, and where to mount the pump, but the fuel system is coming along.  At some point we realized the 210 dude had “Georged” us.  We piddled with a few more things then called it a day.  I followed John downtown to Piranha Sushi, that being the only sushi place we’ve found open on a Sunday, where we had lunch.  I debated going to a hardware store to buy the “T” for the vent line but decided to go home and nap instead.  And that, I believe, gets y'all caught up with Dimlight Racing.  We won't be going to the shop this Saturday since I plan to “kidnap” John and take him to the import car show thingy in Southlake on Sunday evening.  I might go to the shop solo and I might go to the gun show with Larry.  I don’t know, we’ll see.