4/1/13

I was just about to jump right in to the tale of the new project but realized it could be taken as one of my April Fool’s Day Japes.  Although, I have mentioned this prospect before so it isn’t like the whole thing is out of the blue.  Ok, without going back to look at what I may or may not have mentioned about this new plan, I'm just going to move along and tell y'all about it.  I'm going to build, for my fiftieth birthday, as a present to myself, a superconducting supercollider!  Ok, I had to throw one misdirection in there.  Sorry.  No, what I'm going to build is a Rat Rod for myself as a fiftieth birthday present.  Remember me telling y'all about mom’s plan to gift each of us kids with a grand?  And remember how I'd said that would just about pay for the ’27 Track T body from Speedway Motors?  And remember how I'd decided that the Spit was superfluous and needed to go away?  Wait, did I make that decision in here?  No, I think I made that Friday while hooning in The Seven.  Ok, so Friday, after I went to the doctor for my physical and then went to lunch with mom, I took The Seven out for a hoon.  It was while driving The Seven that I decided that I didn’t need another LBC (Little British Car) and that time and money spent on the Spit would be… perhaps not “wasted,” but… better spent elsewhere.  So, Saturday morning I brought the title to the spit with me to the shop just in case someone wanted to take it off my hands.  Someone does.  I'm not sure if it is public knowledge so I'll call him… let’s see, what obscure name have I not used yet/in a while?  We’ll call him: B. R. Eastman!  I think he’ll get a kick out of that.  So, Mr. Eastman came by the shop to see what’s what and when I said I was going to get rid of the Spit, he had a seat in it to see if he fit.  We think he does.  So, I'm going to sell the Spit to him.  With the Spit off my plate… don’t worry, I'll give a blow-by-blow of the shop activity later, if I remember.  With the Spit off my plate, John and I got to looking at options for my Rat Rod.  We found a few bodies I liked but one was way too high, one was not quite right for some other reason, and the third just kept growing on me.  I finally decided that I was ready to pull the trigger on the ’27 Sedan body and asked John to make contact.  It had already sold.  Damn.  I began looking on Craigslist myself and found a ’31 Model A truck body in Not Texas for the asking price of…  “Make Offer!”  I asked John to do so and he came back with $250.00.  We’re going to get it Saturday.  He, John, also found me a pair of doors for it for another $250.00 so we’ll grab them as well.  So, for half of what a fiberglass T Bucket body would have cost, I'm getting a full steel body with doors!  I'm stoked.  Another $250.00 and I'll be in the Hardbody truck for the frame and title.  John and I are going back and forth on design ideas, even though we’re nowhere near that stage of the project.  What I've got to do is not allow this to cut in line ahead of finishing Lil' Wiggly.  When we get the cab and doors back to the shop, I need to store them somewhere and forget about them for a while.  I'd like to have Lil' Wiggly on the road and George built and sold by mid-November.  Then I can either start on the Rat Rod or the Chickenhawk.  Hopefully, George will go well and we’ll already be working on the Chickenhawk by mid-November.  I'm not going to hold my breath though.  I think I'd like to have the Chickenhawk on the road, or at least in a state where simultaneous builds can go on twixt it and the Rat Rod… before starting on the Rat Rod.  Now, by “simultaneous” I mean we can roll one out and work on the other if working on the one doesn’t appeal to me at the time… sort of thing.  Ok, so I guess I otter shut up about the Rat Rod and tell y'all what happened at the shop Saturday.  After B. R. Eastman had a look at the spit, John and I started thinking about what we wanted to work on.  John wanted to remove the engine from the blue 210… for the transmission I think.  I wanted to get the remote battery stuff out of George for Lil' Wiggly.  John also wanted to try and get the engine out of George but I put the kibosh on that idea.  We rolled Lil' Wiggly out and the blue 210 in then got cracking on the removal.  Well, John got cracking; I went out and stole the battery stuff from George.  While we were removing the blue car’s engine, a dude John had invited showed up for some help with some 280ZX struts.  John showed him what to clean and got him working while we finished with the engine.  With the engine out, we rolled the car back to its spot and got to work on the dude’s struts.  I used the plasma cutter to cut off one spring cup then zooked in the new cup for him.  The plasma cutter’s tip burned out so we had to resort to a cutoff wheel for the second strut.  It came out much nicer.  It also zooked in much nicer.  I was ashamed of the first strut after I finished with the second.  We sent him on his way, rolled Lil' Wiggly back inside, and then went to have sushi.  The afternoon was spent online and on the phone doing the deals on the truck cab and stuff.  So, there you have it.  I guess you’ll be hearing a lot more about this Rat Rod but just because I'm talking about it in here, doesn’t mean I'm ignoring the other projects… I hope.  Addendum: I was looking for a grill shell for the Rat Rod and found an Oliver tractor shell I really liked… mainly because it says “Oliver” down the center.  I put in a bid and have decided that the Rat Rod is going to be called Oliver Closehoff from now on.