4/15/13

Well, the shop won.  We did not go to the car show and got some work done on both of our cars.  I managed to show up late due to (tee hee, I said "doo doo!") the fact that I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in the past few weeks… and Friday night was no exception.  I've been blaming my mattress for being saggy and killing my back, but I'm not so sure now.  I wound up sleeping on the day-bed in the guest room Saturday night, and tried again Sunday night, but it appears that no matter what mattress I'm on, it is the act of attempting to sleep that is killing my back.  So, Friday morning around 0430 h I finally found a comfortable position and slept pretty well… right up to 0745 h.  When I realized how late I was going to be to the shop, I “jumped” out of bed and got ready.  I sent John a text ‘splainin’ the situation and headed out.  I arrived at the shop to find it deserted.  I shrugged it off and got to work on Lil' Wiggly's wiring.  John arrived and got to work on his car’s steering.  He had decided to run an errand when he got my text, you see.  Anyhoo, I finished out the headlight and front park/turn situation and got it all routed the way I wanted it.  I built from scratch the headlight plugs but decided to recycle the pigtail connecting all of the park/turn lights.  I actually soldered all the connections and taped them up nicely.  When I was done, I realized I'd forgotten the wire for the electric fan… and the tach, but that won't come up until Sunday’s story.  John dragged me away for a bit to help with his project and we rebuilt his steering box.  That was a pain in the ass.  Eventually we felt we’d both accomplished enough and went for sushi.  I did not go back to the shop after lunch this time.  Later that day, I got a call from the dude in Florida who just bought Super Karate-Monkey Death-Car asking if I had any other 1200s for sale.  I told him about George being available.  I asked for a couple hours to think about a price and said I'd get back with him.  He asked about the Chickenhawk but I said something to the effect of, “Sure, I'll sell that one… for $10,000.00!”  Needles to say, he didn’t think his buyer would gopher that.  I asked for an e-mail address so I could send some pictures of George but he’s an even bigger Luddite than I am!  He said he’d have his son e-mail me and I could send him the pictures.  I texted John and asked his opinion on price.  We agreed that $750.00 for the car with the Autometer gauges and 4.11 axle wouldn’t be outrageous.  I passed that number along and said I'd be willing to keep the gauges and axle in order to knock some money off.  Florida dude said he’d pass that along to his buddy and let me know.  Sunday I headed to the shop to do some more wiring on Lil' Wiggly.  I removed the snake-skin I'd put on the engine harness last week and routed a wire for the fan.  Then I taped up the harness for the final time… I hope.  Oh, I'd stopped at Vato Zone for more electrical tape on the way to the shop as well.  So, with the front of the car, except for the engine harness, done and taped up, I had a look at what else I could wire.  Now, this harness is different from the one in The Seven.  That one had separate wires for the turn signals and stop lights.  I remember that because I had to wire in a trailer interface to join them to the taillights I'd bought which combined brake and turn functionality.  The harness I'm putting in Lil' Wiggly has three wires going to the rear of the car: one for park lights, one for left turn and brake, and one for right turn and brake.  That is the way The Seven’s harness should have been!  B-210s have an amber turn separate from the red brake lights.  I finally decided to ditch the ambers and make the reds do double duty (tee hee, I said "doody!").  I took the rear light harness out of the car and removed the superfluous wiring then connected the three Hot Rod Wires wires to the new streamlined harness.  I sure hope the good folks at HRW know what they were doing when they built this thing!  I also chose the wire which HRW said was for the HVAC and ran it to the fuel pump.  I taped up that harness real nice and moved on.  I fingered out what HRW had in mind for the brake light switch and soldered in two female bullet connectors on those wires then slung them across the steering column.  I took the connectors for the gauges and turn signal indicators I'd made for the dash and fingered out what HRW wires went where for them then soldered them into the harness.  I reused the tach wire from the harness I'd made and routed it through the firewall to the engine bay… I think.  I may not have run it through the firewall, now that I think about it.  Anyhoo, I then doubled up and taped off a couple extra wires from the HRW harness and declared the day a success.  I still have to finger out what I want to do about a headlight switch and wire up the ignition switch, but I'm coming along nicely with the wiring.  Oh yeah, John's car is officially right-hand drive now… more or less.